Toward a More Radical Selfie | Hacker News Reader

Toward a More Radical Selfie

theparisreview.org

18 pointsprismatic9 comments

"Yet this era was heralded years earlier, in 2007, when Britney Spears shaved her head and the onlooking public could only digest it as hysterical—the most misogynistic of characterizations. It now feels avant-garde: she assassinated her own character. Indeed, she reclaimed her self as something more than just a brand or commodity. By attacking her appearance (her hair, the root of so much aesthetic femininity) she drew attention to the ways in which our society attaches identity to women."

I never knew Britney Spears was so profound.

Yes, it's a reflection of the critical myopia of the late 90s/early aughts that Spears's performance and artistry weren't considered more thoughtfully. Thankfully that's changing.

lest I forget: http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0006/britney/

This article was so bad that a morbid fascination took over and I read the whole thing. I was gearing up to rip into this until I googled the author and saw they're only 24. I fell into cliche thought bubbles believing they were insight when I was 24 too.

Edit: Wait a sec, The Paris Review? Is this some clever Parisian social satire of the anglosphere? If so, those scamps got me.

Actually, it was founded by George Plimpton and Peter Matthiessen among others, and initially got some funding from the CIA. I had a book of interviews that the magazine ran, which were quite interesting: Wodehouse definitely and Nabokov possibly among them.

It's a real publication that does tend to hire a lot of early-twenties writers who I have to assume aren't getting paid much.

The article does read like a BS essay I would have written in college. But what’s with the age discrimination in your post?

The article doesn’t magically get any better if the author were 40 years old.

>The article doesn’t magically get any better if the author were 40 years old.

It wouldn't, but I'm more forgiving of someone closer to the college where they were taught to write the essay the teacher wants but told it's insight. I'm also more forgiving of someone with less experience seeing the popular narratives and interpretations of social structures change and learn to distrust the implied "OK, this time, we've got it figured out."

mary knowles, the artist the author talks about, sounds wildly fascinating!

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