SALON

Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007 11:11 PM UTC

David Brooks takes on pop music

And its "emotionally self-sufficient and unforgiving" heroines.

By

Topics: Broadsheet, Music, Gender, David Brooks, Love and Sex,

I can’t believe I’m about to write this: I almost agree with David Brooks’ latest column. I’m typically less than charmed by the one-note conservative curmudgeon (though, that pink tie!) and, it’s safe to say, that won’t change anytime soon. But, his column yesterday makes a point about “angry young women” that resonates with me, an (only occasionally angry) young woman.

The basic gist of his argument — taking a page directly from Laura Sessions Stepp — is that young people today are confronted with a post-apocalyptic dating landscape where the traditional rules for courtship no longer apply. The “rules” have “been replaced by ambiguity and uncertainty.” Cellphones! Facebook! And text-messaging! It’s all so socially confusing to young women and leads to a sort of emotional trauma, Brooks argues. And, in traumatic times, Americans turn to an “autonomous Lone Ranger fantasy hero,” he says.

Young women — who, nowadays, face “two decades of coupling, uncoupling, hooking up, relationships and shopping around” — have found their fantasy heroine. She’s the “hard-boiled, foul-mouthed, fedup, emotionally self-sufficient and unforgiving” character found in this summer’s hottest pop songs, says Brooks. He continues: “She’s like one of those battle-hardened combat vets, who’s had the sentimentality beaten out of her and who no longer has time for romance or etiquette. She’s disgusted by male idiots and contemptuous of the feminine flirts who cater to them.”

Let’s take a look at his evidence. Exhibit A: Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” a song about a woman who catches her boyfriend chatting up a “bleached-blond tramp” in a bar. The song’s heroine tells of trashing his car with the hope that “maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.” Exhibit B: Pink’s “U + UR Hand,” which Brooks describes as a song in which a woman out on the town with her girlfriends “snarls” at men who try to buy her a drink. (Of course, Brooks ignores the fact that this comes only after a jerk gropes her at the bar.) And finally, Exhibit C: Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend,” a song about a girl who likes a guy and hates his girlfriend … hardly an original premise for a pop song.

I agree with Brooks that these pop heroines exaggerate their emotional independence. But, it’s no surprise that there’s posturing in courtship (or pop music about courtship). Most basically, he fails to make a crucial cultural connection: These “hard-boiled” heroines are in contrast (or response) to pop’s puffed-up male heroes. After all, on the charts, Pink’s I-don’t-need-you-to-buy-me-a-drink anthem neighbors T-Pain’s, ehem, “Buy You a Drank.” (“Imma Buy You a Drank /Then Imma Take You Home With Me … We in the Bed Like /Ooh Ooh Ohh, Ooh Ooh.” You get the idea.)

Brooks narrowly sees this as a response by young women to this “new stage of formless premarital life and the anxieties it produces,” rather than an expression of anxiety over a cultural cognitive dissonance; gender roles are fast changing while society’s still catching up. Ultimately, even if a stage of “formless premarital life” produces a more obvious outward struggle than old-fashioned courtship, it doesn’t mean it isn’t actually preferable. Brooks’ argument here seems an iteration of his argument during last year’s stay-at-home kerfuffle that women are just so much happier in the domestic sphere. He seems to think that young women would be so much happier if they gave up the silly independence act and just settled for domestic bliss.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 23 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
214 points215 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
155 points156 points | comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
80 points81 points | 26 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
46 points47 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
24 points25 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations