Saturday 15 September 2007

debbie, my heart is yours

my boy and i were talking about debbie harry last night.
ok, so it is a bit of a cliche to love her right now i guess, with her being lauded by all the magazines that i hate as a style icon, a photo of her and her luscious lips below those shocking cheekbones plastered next to a photo of mischa barton wearing aviators, "because blondie wears them". but i don't care, i've loved her for a while and i keep loving her now.
maybe it is because i grew up loving madonna. so yeah, she was a solo artist, but like debbie they were both women with brash confident sexualites that pandered to no kind of shit and was just them, being women, being sexy, doing what they did best. ive had this madonna argument a lot, with people telling me that madonna and her sexuality wasn't empowering, it was pandering to men's fantasies and i shouldn't get wound up by the pussycat dolls and girls aloud, and then say madonna is empowering.
which is a load of bullshit. i just flat out don't believe that madonna or debbie harry were pandering to male fantasies. because their whole sexuality seems to me to be based on themselves as women, celebrating their sexiness, celebrating the fact that they are comfortable in their bodies and not trying to impress anyone. debbie was hot in a baggy black t shirt, no make up and a relaxed attitude. pussycat dolls are desperate in an attempt to live out a fantasy that completely ignores being natural. debbie was a natural.
she doesn't have a strong voice (altho, stronger now than before) but she belts out a song like she fucking means it. and we forget how revolutionnary it was to have a GIRL singing in a male rock band. there still aren't that many out there. she brought a luscious femininity to rock music, she made it playful, and poignant, and fun. but without compromising on quality.
and she was so stylish.
you read interviews now and you realise what a strong woman debbie is. she forged a place for herself in a man's world and she worked her arse off to get to the position she's in, and you get the feeling that this is a lady who has had shit thrown at her, and never took it. take when she came back with blondie and "maria" and was criticised for putting on some weight. who gives a fuck, she looked great and she could sing good tunes, i didn't hear anyone saying the band were looking quite grizzly. did she care? no, she just made the album a success. or the crit she got for having been a bunny; when we don't criticse men for the fact that they still buy playboy and still fetishize bunnies (what IS that? rabbits? it isn't like men use the rampant one...), instead of yelling at a successful woman for being a bunny, why don't we yell at the society that commodifies women's sexuality into big eared format!
well, anyway, whatever, i love debbie harry. i think she's hot.

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