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Avril Lavigne reviewed by mim3@mim.org July 18, 2004 These are simple pop songs with a little more energy than most, but these days it's almost an accomplishment for a female vocalist that the album is not directly pornographic. Avril Lavigne is absolutely correct for slamming Britney Spears as a "sex object."(1) The mega-corporations of the recording industry have handed us formula after formula and those formulas are the most tightly binding for wimmin. 19-year-olds like Lavigne and those younger are allowed out of being porno stars, but they still face a pretty tight formula. In contrast, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, we will also ban some music, but we will allow a much wider range of expression by wimmin than the mega-corporations allow today. What Avril Lavigne is singing about is trite stuff--disappointments in boyfriends. However, compared with the trite squared formula for wimmin in their twenties set by mega-corporations Avril Lavigne is no doubt pushing the "bitchy" envelope, and for what. Nothing. That's how restrictive the industry is. We'd like to see her songs rejecting men "When I'm alone/I feel so much better" ("Together") and for example telling them "no" to sex ("Don't Tell Me") to get even punchier. Then we'd like to see the industry let her sing about something other than romance culture. As it stands now, Lavigne is assertive in romance culture. Assertive on behalf of what is another question. "Forgotten" belts out "Have you forgotten/Everything that I wanted" and justifies a break-up. Reviewer David Brinn at the Jerusalem Post has knocked Lavigne as "mall punk,"(2) and there's nothing on this album to make us think otherwise. We are left picturing "Everything that I wanted" as some clothes and jewelry at the mall, because this album lacks ideological edge other than slight female assertiveness. One thing we do know is that Avril Lavigne signed on to the "Stop Harper" campaign, which seeks to keep Kanada Kanadian and distinct from George W. Bush's politics.(3) The statement she signs pits more moderate reactionaries against more extreme ones and in so doing she opposes Kanadian involvement in the Iraq war, building the military, taking away abortion rights and reinitiating the death penalty. For now we better give this album the thumbs up for youth and hope to see better work from Avril Lavigne in the future.
Notes: MIM has explained that one might even "like" this music while knowing rationally that there is something wrong with it, maybe even profoundly wrong and evil. Being a Maoist means being a revolutionary scientist and that means having the ability to question everything that we like.
See MIM Theory on feminism and gender issues. Read Mao on politics in all literature and art
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