VIBE is empowering, not degrading
Considering the comics...
Review revels in its lack of standards
Beethoven and Mozart shouldn't be lost to political correctness
To the Editors:
So VIBE's performance was a bit too much/a bit not enough for the writers of last week's "VIBE -shaking things up in Wilder Main." I would like to offer an alternate perspective on the performance and correct an inaccuracy or two. Let's take this a step at a time.
Firstly, the piece performed by 24 tap dancers was titled "23 Girls and a Guy," not "Twenty Three Guys and a Girl." Maybe instead of thinking of that guy as a "special attraction" or a "token male," his performance in itself should be acknowledged as demonstrative of his talent, so as not to devalue his experience.
Instead of comparing the "Insomnia" piece to a Victoria Secret commercial, it should be recognized that the women were dancing, not selling a product. Dancing is key here. It's an action word, not a stand-mute-and-sell-bras word. Instead of criticizing their "family type" relationship as some kind of unsuccessful performing device, we as the audience can either understand their exchange as genuine, or we can grab a couple of friends and go dancing so that we can then know what their experience is like. Instead of concluding that the performance seemed to "highlight the female body as an objectification of sexual desire rather than focusing on the body as a medium for communication and expression," a few alternate conclusions should be considered. Hmmm. ...
When women are whistled at while walking down the street/ when a woman's character is underdeveloped on a television show and all she is to the audience is a body to star in someone else's sexual fantasy/ then you have the female body as an objectification of sexual desire/ highlighted/ in full force. That's a bad thing (obviously). However, it doesn't apply to VIBE. I've been under the impression that "VIBE-girls" (Women) are the creators and stars of their own performances. It is perfectly acceptable for sexuality to be a medium for communication and expression in dance. Women have bodies and can move them (provocatively/ sensually/ sexually/ gasp!) and should be able to do so however they like. I like to move my hips and I like to wear tight clothes when I dance because my body has shape like any body does and I like to watch my body's shape change as I lift my muscled arms and turn 'round and 'round on the dance floor.
Dancing is liberating and empowering. That's the point. If you can be free when you dance, you own your body, you own your world, you are surely no "sorority girl" or representative of a "Victoria Secret commercial." These comparisons aren't fair or accurate because the former we assume has no substance (which may not be true), and the latter really does not have substance. Dance has substance, and it's extremely important to be careful in placing judgment or limitation on that form of expression.
More importantly, rather than thinking of the VIBE performance as an exercise in self-depreciation, we should acknowledge it as an exercise in self-empowerment through personal and unified expression in movement. The performers' intention was to create an open exchange between the dancers and the audience, and they were successful in doing so. Judging from audience response, all participants had fun (fun being key here). I would like to thank Vibe for the rain, lightening and thunder. To all: Have a nice day.
To the Editors:
It was a Monday morning, and I was getting back from a trip out of town, and I picked up a copy of the Review. I'm leafing through it and there's a "Bad Faith" comic that has a guy with black hair and glasses, wearing an AAA t-shirt (and I have black hair, glasses, and I'm an officer of AAA). So I think to myself, 'Maybe it's just a coincidence.' And then last week's Review confirmed the fact that a Mr. Christian Baillet was drawing me.
So I've been thinking about what's going on, all these people writing in the Review back and forth-like.
And, Christian Baillet...
And please don't draw me anymore.
To The Editors:
As a recent graduate who returned to work at Oberlin this year, I could write in direct response to the Letter to the Editor of Dec. 4, "OSMP, KILLWHITEY: kill all white males." But it would be too easy to point out that if that letter were about women or people of color, it would never have seen the printed page; I'm sure someone else is writing that letter right now.
Instead, as someone with a little perspective, I'd like to point out how full of random attacks and vitriol the Review has become since I was a student just a few short years ago. I am willing to forgive the typos and the silly headlines, even the uneven writing. But the Review now seems to revel in its ability to publish anything, without stopping to think about whether the writer has anything worth saying. What do the Commentary editors edit, exactly?
Don't misunderstand me - I am the first one in line to support freedom of expression, and I know the value of satire. When I was a senior, then-Assistant Professor of Philosophy George Rainbolt (also an alum) wrote a letter to the Review in favor of pot smoking, saying, "Those who drink tend to beat their spouses; those who smoke pot tend to make love to them." Later that year, when students sought to nominate Madonna for an honorary degree, I myself achieved 15 minutes of fame by writing to the Review that I was willing to "show my bellybutton and grab my crotch if it would guarantee me a degree from this august institution." That one appeared in the Commencement issue; my parents were so proud. Publishing letters like the one mentioned above cheapens the hard work you put into the paper and gives the Review a reputation as a publication with no standards but the desire to fill space -is that really the way you want the paper to be seen? Have the guts to say no to those with nothing to say.
Editors' note: The Review's Commentary policy is to publish all the letters we receive.
To the Editors:
I wish for Emily Manzo and all of the readers of this newspaper to know that I firmly believe that Ludwig van Beethoven is alive and among us.
I don't mean that Beethoven is living in any physical or even spiritual sense, but that he lives through his music: in the ears, minds and hands of every performer of Western art music. Every piece of music written by any composer even vaguely aware of the artistic nature of his work owes at least something to Beethoven: his music led Europe into the 19th century and could arguably have pointed the way towards the fall of tonality in the 20th, to say nothing of his contributions to programmatic music.
Ms. Manzo would have it that Beethoven is merely a "Dead White Guy" whose music isn't worth our study or any piece of our $120,000, since it was, in fact, written before 1920. While Ms. Manzo does not explicitly state that we should not play or study this music, her contempt for it is evident in her tone and choice of words in her "Artitudes" column of Dec. 4. I agree with her that students should learn more about the nature of contemporary music (which, contrary to popular belief, does not include Webern or Bartok), which would indeed help to prepare students for careers in the 21st century. I do not think, however, that contemporary music should take precedence over older art music.
How do I support this point of view? I point out the simple fact that we still know Beethoven's music, 171 years after his death. We also study and perform the music of Bach, Chopin, Palestrina, Mozart, and Stravinsky, all of whom died before any of us were born. Why do we continue to play their music? Simple: it is great music. Were it not, then it would have been forgotten long ago. It has stood the test of time.
Contemporary music, by contrast, has not yet withstood this test. I don't mean to say that there is no great contemporary music: I think that the music of John Adams, George Crumb, Gyorgy Ligeti and Witold Lutoslawski will be known for generations to come. These men are true masters of their field. But I think that 95 percent of the composers active today will be forgotten upon death, simply because the same thing happened in previous time periods. We remember Mendelssohn and Haydn, but who remembers Schobert (not Schubert), or Leopold Mozart (not Wolfgang Amadeus)?
My point is that the study of great music written in the past should not be shoved aside in the name of political correctness or avant-gardism. Without the heritage of the great artists of the past, the music of today would have no foundation, and musicians would not know where their music comes from. I once remarked to my father, a pianist like myself, that a piece by a composer friend of his evoked Beethoven. I was told that this man had read through all of Beethoven's piano sonatas by the time he was my age. Therefore, that man has been influenced by Beethoven in his compositions of the last 35 years, and Beethoven's music lives on in its influence on composers of today.
I think it is of paramount importance, therefore, that Ms. Manzo and the rest of us respect and study the music of our forebears. Though these composers may be dead in body, their music is certainly as alive as we are. It would truly be the death of art music if we allowed these masterpieces to pass away.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 12, December 11, 1998
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