#also it felt weirdly personal because Gwen has become personal to me

[manifestoe-blog]

A couple of months ago I interviewed my one of my closest friends, the lovely Nina White, about an album of her choice in pursuit of getting to know her better through her relationship with music in her life. We discuss No Doubt’s ‘Tragic Kingdom’ in relation to female anthems, ska revival, being a little bit punk, the frightening prospect of having to sing on stage with your ex about your relationship, and the impact of the album in her life thus far.

So Nina, tell me about the album that you’ve chosen.

I’ve chosen Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt, which was released in 1995. I was only 3 when it was released; however they slowly released singles from the record until 1998 so I am guessing I was pretty late to join the party. My mum bought the cd for me, and it’s fair to say that I thrashed the absolute shit out of it until I was about 16. I honestly listened to it all the time; it was always on some kind of rotation, whether it was in the car, or in the six stack, whatever.

So you were listening to it pretty consistently for that solid 8 year period?

Yep, pretty much - it was one of those albums that I have never gotten sick of. Actually, a few days after you asked me to do this, I pulled it down from the shelf and played it in the car, and like four tracks in it started skipping. That poor CD – it looks as if it was strapped to a tire and driven on tarmac. I think it actually did really well to get through four tracks! It has survived a lot of years… coming on twenty.

This was their first really popular album. They spend 2 and half years recording this album in 11 different studios and by all accounts it was utter chaos. The name Tragic Kingdom is a nod to Disney Land which they grew up almost literally I the shadow of in Anaheim – always too poor to go, but able to hear what was happening there from their houses down the street.  

No Doubt were just so different to everything else I was listening to at the time because this was music that was written and lead by a woman, and while there was other female driven music rocking around at the time like say, Courtney Love or Garbage (who I was peripherally aware of, but not into then) Gwen wrote songs that were more relatable to me at that age. . She also managed to do that in a really fun and interesting way - and their visual language always really stuck with me as well. They were playful and chaotic and experimental and seemed to enjoy fucking with people’s expectations of what they were supposed to look like, and what they were supposed to sound like. I think the thing that draws me back into it every time is their exuberance, they’re wild.

Pre “Gwen Stefani, The Brand”, baby baby Gwen, is everything that I wanted to be in life. She's powerful, she doesn’t give a shit. She is just up there having a good time, stomping around in those bloody big boots with such contagious energy. I don’t think that their music is particularly punk, but their attitude definitely was. And the best thing about this album in my opinion, was that it was her first time writing (before that her brother was their songwriter), so everything is genuine and authentic because it was her first time. It was before she could even have the chance to construct something marketable. It was about her life, the shit that was going on, it was just her first coming out as who she was. The way she was performing is just so incredible; it was more masculine than anything else that I had seen at the time, yet she was able to do so without denying her femininity in any way. She was merely presenting herself the way that she is, and having fun doing it.

What are some of your highlights of the album?

Well, my highlights are different now to the highlights I had as a kid. In saying that, the first track Spiderwebs has always been one of my favourite songs off the record. It just sounds really fun and funky, but it’s actually pretty subversive. The track is basically about being pursued and harassed by a guy that you have no interest in. I really liked it as a kid because of how much of a banger it is, but now as an adult I like it because I can really relate to being dogged by someone and told you should take it as a compliment, when you really just want to tell them to fuck off.

Just a Girl is another obvious one because it has become a bit of an anthem. Just a Girl, Sunday Morning, and Don’t speak were the most recognizable songs from the album, and Just a Girl is the more punk track, when I was growing up everybody knew that song, and everybody knew Don’t Speak. To be honest, I didn’t really like “Just a Girl” as an adult until I saw a video of them performing it live, and it was like “FUCK YES. LOOK AT WHAT YOU USED TO BE! Dammit, Gwen.” It made the whole thing come alive again as something more than just a well thrashed track on a ‘90’s greatest hits’ playlist.

Anyway, I guess the whole album is centered around two main themes: coming of age, and the transition of an intimate relationship. I think these themes are the reason why it has continued to be relevant through different eras of my life. Don’t Speak is always going to have some kind of universal relevance; if you have an argument with a loved one or you break up with someone, any kind of emotional friction.

Or like in Sunday Morning, you’ve got themes of coming to terms with who somebody is and how they treat you. And how, I suppose, you may have been in a love bubble where you are allowing somebody to treat you a certain way, and as things progress you start to notice the power balance in the relationship. The whole thing is just so damn relatable, and almost dystopian. “I thought I knew you, I got a new view, I thought I knew you well, oh well.” It really captures that moment where the fog clears and you see someone as a person, not an ideal.

All these experiences that are shared in the album related directly to relationships within the band, especially the relationship between Gwen and Tony (the bass player) who had been dating for 7 years and broke up when they were writing the record. They then toured for something ridiculous like three years and had to play ‘Don’t Speak’ a totally autobiographical song about their personal heartbreak in front of thousands on stage every night.

I can’t help but just think about this in relation to all of the talk surrounding Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. They were writing, recording and then performing these intense songs about one another, and it weirdly creates this form of mythic speech around it all, which completely adds a whole new level of intrigue. I think it’s this whole appeal of an ‘artist coping mechanism’, which is ultimately often idealised, but is just so different to what we can get away with in day-to-day life.

Yeah! And I guess it is weirdly insular as well. The community for them is so incestuous, for want of a better word – they live in each other’s pockets constantly with little escape from each other’s bullshit. It’s a far removed experience from most people’s romantic complexities.

All of these themes are symptoms of situations that are often massive grey areas, but ones that we all go through at some stage and to some degree. And to be able to see people dealing with themes in a public and performative manner is just so intriguing.

You were saying before, about the simple fact that she was a woman writing and performing these songs, she was becoming this absolute icon, and it was super important to you hearing this female perspective. Is there a particular song or lyric that comes to mind in relation to how hearing her female perspective has influenced yours?

Yeah definitely, there are two that come to mind. First one being “Just a Girl”, because when I was little, that song was what sparked the realisation in me that being female meant that there were certain expectations you were supposed to conform to.  That song kind of slapped me out of the pretty much genderless, tomboy period of my childhood where I could get away with dressing like a boy, playing with the boys and there was no sexuality implied in that.  It was kind of like a trigger for me, to be more aware of what was expected of me within my gender, and I just hadn’t had to grapple with those expectations yet. There is a lyric in that song, “take this pink ribbon off my eyes” which directly refers to that feeling for me.

She wrote this song when she was 24, after she had to drive home after rehearsal at a late hour. Her bandmates, all being male, could just drive home and go to bed, but because she was a girl she would have to knock on her parent’s door to let them know that she was safe. The song is really about her coming to the realisation, through all of these subtle everyday experiences, that she was being treated differently. It documented a moment of clarity for her where she realised how much she was coddled and overlooked as a woman and how fed up she was with all the gendered bullshit. I guess as an adult it’s always a nice reminder not to take that kind of shit complacently in your daily life.

The other one that comes to mind was important to me a little bit later in my life, was “Excuse Me Mr.” Its the second track on the album, and it explored the feeling of waiting having to wait around for validation from people more powerful or important than you. Especially as an adult, female, creative trying to make a living doing what I’m passionate about, this song is just such a good reminder not to wait around for opportunities or support to fall into your lap and just get on with doing it yourself.

My sweet sweet Nina, thank you so much for telling me about Tragic Kingdom, this conversation felt like a trip to the Magic Kingdom itself. Would you mind summarising why you love this album in a few sentences for me?

Thank you so much for having me! I love this record because it was the first album that I l truly loved and it has aged with me like a good whiskey. Tragic Kingdom sort of ended up being the unlikely soundtrack to my life. It didn’t necessarily guide me, but it definitely made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my experiences. Especially as I’ve always been a bit of an awkward human, and it was good to know that there were some other awkward shitheads out there with me, doing their own thing and totally killing it. It’ll always serve as a reminder that it was okay to wear big boots, and be goofy, and that the people that matter in my life will still love me and stick around anyway. Yeah, that was pretty nice.

[kuckie]

(Long post)

I’ve watched a lot of series through my life... 

...like, seriously, a ton of series, from beginning to end, some of them. I think the first series I followed, like, actually waiting for the next episode, were anime series.

Then, I watched House MD  and at the same time, Torchwood. The time between a season and the next one, were 6 months approx. for both of them. So I watched series like Law and Order,  CSI (all of them) which you can watch and stop watching because most of the time the episodes’ stories start and end within the episode. The background story is only interesting for some, but it is not the centre of the series (at least, first seasons)

House was like this and at the same time I couldn’t just focus on the case on the episode, I loved the background story. The same with Torchwood (although the effects turn me off sometimes). I watch other series in between seasons, I read fanfiction, I wrote some, and changed ships in House when the character development and chemistry between characters changed. First seasons I was a Houseron/Hameron shipper because the vibes where suggested by characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters. Then, I started shipping Huddy, because the  characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters guided me to think in that direction. Finally, I was a Huddy/Wilse shipper because even though one of the characters have left the series (Cuddy), I felt in House interactions with other characters that he was suppose to keep feeling attached to her. And Wilse, because  the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters subtext and text implied the possibility. Even though through the whole series they were mostly shown as heterosexual men, behaviour and evolution of their relationship, together with dependency in a very "special” and toxic friendship (but that’s topic for another post) allowed the ambiguity. AND THEN THAT FINAL EPISODE. Maybe it was friendship, maybe it was more of a romantic/sexual relationship, maybe it was not. But the series allowed the ambiguity with the plot.

Torchwood has a very special place in my heart. There was this gay actor (John Barrowman), playing an omnisexual character (as a pansexual who only recently-ish discovered the term, he was  the first character that show me it was not bad to love everybody/every body). There were aliens, kick ass women who had personalities, that loved and were loved back, that show me unrequited love was not that bad (Toshiko loving Owen was not the centre of Toshiko’s character also) and you could live with it. A woman being the one that cheated on her boyfriend with co-workers (not that is good, but it is normalized for guys), a male receptionist/coffee boy (Ianto was so much more, just, normally, there are women on those jobs)... I shipped every ship on these series, because the  characters’ interactions, characters’ personalities, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters showed that everybody could end having a relationship with anybody. My favorite ship, and the one I read and wrote/write about is Janto, because it was sexy (which was/is not common for gay couples in no gay centred series (Queer as Folk was gay centred and sexy at the time, for example)), it change the interactions between characters accordingly, but not all the show. A character who had a gf then had a male lover/partner (they weren’t boyfriends, they said they were together very weirdly) explained that HIS FEELINGS (not just physical attraction or sex) were confusing but that he knew he felt something for this man. HE SPOKE OPENLY about it. Shy-like, but openly. Then when (SPOILER ALERT) Ianto was killed (among other characters) and everything changed I couldn’t keep watching the series much longer because it hurt too much. Because they were going somewhere with it before. But I was not angry against the writers, because it was foreseen, it was not just a killing for the drama, it was what happen to characters on the series (because at the end of the day, they had a dangerous job).

Why, you may think, am I writing about this.

I write about this, because I want to explain something about Sherlock. I ship pairings on those series because I thought canonically on the series they would make sense. I wanted them to become canon because the chemistry between them was suggested by the writers/actors actions. I had ships like Foreman/Chase on my writings because they help me get other ships on my stories, but I never thought they would become canon, because in the show THEY ALMOST HATED EACH OTHER. I shipped Jack and Ianto before they were a thing because they spend a lot of time together and had conversations other characters on Torchwood didn’t have (also, we didn’t know about the gf for a while). I thought they might end together, but if they didn’t (before they started developing their feelings) I understood it was because there was also chemistry between Jack and Gwen, for example. 

Now, Sherlock. I watched the first season in 2011, so I had a year or so to get into the fandom, analyse the series, propose ideas as to how they escaped from the swimming pool before we got series 2. At the very beginning, I got into more than just the cases. I very much liked/like the background story. It was never about the cases really. 

I didn’t ship Johnlock immediately thinking about it becoming canon. I shipped it because I thought it was nice that Sherlock/Ben C face glowed when instead of being called a freak for his deductions, he was “amazing, brilliant”. Because they went to live together and they were asked if they will need two bedrooms as something casual, not a decisive point of them renting the place. Because the brother of the main character suggested it (at the moment I thought that confirmed Sherlock liked men). Because there is a scene where both the main characters said that loving people of the same gender is fine, one saying GFs are not his area (which made me think it was implicitly acknowledging he did not liked women).

But I didn’t thought at that point it will be Canon. I thought, they are playing with the gay innuendos. I thought, John Watson is straight as fuck, look, he has date after date. He want to date every frigging women on the show but Molly.

I liked Molly a lot too, so I thought maybe they will pair her with Sherlock because she is obviously interested. Maybe they will pair them with John, as a Mary Morstan adaptation. I thought Molly and John could work when she said “Sorry, I don’t know your name”, because I thought “yeah, they may start seeing each other more now and it will be a good meeting by chance, through a friend”.  

However, season 2 happened and season 3... Irene Adler, John GFs and Sherlock death happened and ...  the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters made me BELIEVE it was definitely going to be canon Johnlock. The writers cannot lead in any other direction, I mean, you mourn over a friend, but you keep going. You don’t ask a friend for a miracle of them not being dead, you are not angry with a friend because they weren’t dead and didn’t tell you, you are relieved. You on the other hand, can be angry with someone that is more than a friend, because they owed you more. They should have trusted you. 

I stop shipping Molly with John when she was obviously still thinking about Sherlock (Christmas party) and began shipping her with Greg, although because of some fanfiction, I was very much into Mystrade. I never thought Mystrade would be Canon (which kinda subtlety happened-ish, but then in season 4 Lady Smallwood and WTF Mycroft) but I thought maybe Lestrolly/Molstrade (because, again  the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters suggested it)

Then, Season 4 happened and for 2 episodes I thought it was definitely no queerbaiting when they married John, they will make history.They will make him openly bisexual. There’s no other reason to kill Mary. Without the heartbroken-pushed-to-limits-former-soldier John, he would never open his heart. Nor would Sherlock. 

Then episode 3 happened and 1st, I thought it was a tribute to The Ring (Ringu). I watched it and regretted watching the episode. I thought about Molly being so sad answering the phone, not eager to answer, when in the previous episode she was there because Sherlock asked her to 3 weeks earlier. No suggested communication in between. Maybe  the checking up on the ambulance would made her angry. WHo knows, plotholes, whatever. 

My point  is... Johnlockers don’t ship Johnlock because we are gay fetishists, because we hate Molly (we like Molly as a character for seasons, we hate what they did to her (plot device, cough cough), I’m personally sad that Lou feel attacked because we think the I love you part was awful for the character and misleading as a VERY IMPORTANT part of the series). Johnlockers had explain quite extensively why Johnlock was the only shipping possibility. And the ambiguity of everything is just awful. 

On House MD you could accept the House/Wilson ship not being canon, because it was sensible as a friendship due to very well developed relationships through all the series with other characters.

On Torchwood you could understand the death of a main character because most of the characters died in related-to-job activities, not because killing the gay character was groundbreaking (which is not now, neither was nor will be ever) or a plot twist or the character was used as a plot device. Also, the actors and writers were very sympathetic to the fans who felt this as a devastating moment for the fandom.

On Sherlock you cannot accept the writers’ queerbaiting. There’s this amazing chemistry going, character developing, kick ass women... and you ignore all and make the plot developed in 4 seasons shatter on the floor killing one of the kick ass women for no reason but to strained/get back together other characters as friends, going back to your characters’ personalities from season 1 and addressing some LGBT+ issues within your own series jokingly knowing the fandom is very serious about it.

That’s why I hope there are more episodes to come on Sherlock. More series. Anything. No because I want two men kissing or fucking on my screen, but because I think the characters deserved it. Molly deserves it, because she could have been more than sad Molly. Mycroft deserves a deeper explanation of his character after what we discovered. Sherlock deserves to show how human he can be, that he deserves love, being loved, being in love. That we discover the not-so-perfect John loving, being loved back without lies and actually raising Rosie up.

#Long post #rants after being on twitter 2 minutes #Sherlock #sherlock bbc #queerbaiting #HOUSE MD #torchwood #Johnlock #Janto #Wilse