Leslie Gore

I Twittered about this the other day, but it's worth saying a few things about:

I love everything about this video. Gore, looking very staid and pre-sexual revolution, steps up unusually close to the camera, which looks like it has Vasoline smothered all over it (maybe an inept attempt to create a soft focus effect). Usually with these old videos of a live musical performance on TV, the camera shoots things pretty wide and the singer stands there awkwardly in the middle of the stage (probably under strict instructions not to stray from his or her mark) splitting time between singing to the audience and singing to the camera. But this footage comes off as strangely low-fi, amaturish, and so therefore realistic. Gore basically ignores the camera and sings to the audience, even craning her neck way up to connect with the screaming girls in the nosebleed seats--breaking even more with the TV performance conventions and lending to the gritty feel of the footage (and also allowing us some wicked angles of her expressive face--lots of eyebrow action, lots of lopsided smiles...her facial expressions are doing a lot of work in this performance).

The song itself is great, too, sounding like something Nancy Sinatra would sing in a Tarantino movie--I like that the same person who is known for the inanity of "sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows" also belted out "don't tell me what to do / and don't tell me what to say / and please when i go out with you / don't put me on display". The contrast is awesome.

Also, performance-wise, she kills this thing. I like the way she builds in intensity all the way through, and the way she alternates between moody/sultry and I'm-not-taking-this-to-seriously playfulness. I even approve of the minor-y refrain that the song ends on.

Well, anyway. I guess one more thing I will add is that, of all social movements, feminism has to have one of the worst image problems--I mean, when someone mentions "badass feminist" or "cool feminist", it's difficult to say if an iconic image comes to mind besides maybe Rosie the Riveter. But I think feminism really does have a cool aesthetic when it's taking place just before all the actual progress got made in the 60s, when it was 50s housewives in perfect hairdos chain smoking and calling bullshit on society, or, as in this case, some teeny-bopper coming out of left field with a rage-filled anthem for freedom and equality, thinly disguised as a diatribe against an overbearing steady.