‘Hipster’ is not a socioeconomic term

A rather embarrassing inward gaze, followed by a memo to the Washington Post.

This summer I worked at a camp for high school students — a job with many perks and, thankfully, without a dress code. The first day I showed up in sneakers, shorts, a v-neck t-shirt and busily-printed grand-marmish Value Village scarf which I had tied around my neck like a bandana. Only a few minutes in, one of the real precocious types pointed an accusatory finger at me and asked “Are you a hipster?,” inflecting the word with the same blunt, youthful matter-of-factness with which my seven-year-old cousin had asked, “What are those?” at the Thanksgiving dinner table the first year I felt a need to wear a training bra.

“No,” I told her, quickly and without thinking. (The girl at my camp, that is. In response to my cousin, I only turned an opaque shade of purple, though over the years I have thought of many possible verbal replies to this question.)

Later that evening, as I undid my scarf in front of my desk mirror, I gazed deep into my own eyes, sighed and silently pondered that age-old epistemological question, “Well, am I a hipster?” Given the trite, reductive definition of hipster in mainstream press — a sort of vapid, materialistic, pseudo-intellectual person who listens to Grizzly Bear and posts a lot of bulletins to their Myspace — I would have liked to have very quickly said, “No,” as I’d done earlier that day. I really don’t think I am materialistic, I thought. And I’ve always been quite proud of being a Myspace celibate; I was once — not too long ago, in fact — a teenager in New Jersey, so an unusually large quantity of restraint was required in holding this distinction. But then I felt the gauzy scarf between my fingers, the tiny faces on its kitschy print suddenly seeming to laugh scornfully at me. I looked away, to the left of my desk, where there sat an envelope containing tickets to a Grizzly Bear concert that I was planning to take a bus from DC to Philly and perhaps a day off work in order to attend. It was then that I plunged into a abyss of confusion and despair.

***

For many months now, the New York Times has made a sport of hipster-bashing. Some of their attacks are nuanced, well-researched and thought-provoking — like this article about trust funds and the recession. And then some of their attacks are downright petty though, admittedly, hilarious; the only time this year I’ve laughed harder at a piece of journalism than I did while reading the New York Times article about how a lot of male hipsters are fatter than they used to be was while I was reading the New York Times article about how a lot of male movie stars are fatter than they used to be. Regardless of the degree of their burns, though, these articles about hipsters are almost all infused with a subtle tone of detached sarcasm or — dare I say — irony.

Never to be outdone,the Washington Post published a similarly toned article a few weeks ago, entitled “The Target of their Ambivalence.” The Columbia Heights Target has been a lightning rod in the complex and stormy debate sparked by the gentrification of the neighborhood that surrounds it. But Monica Hess’s article has none of the nuance or thoughtfulness that an issue this complex demands. It is instead a catalogue of generalizations about why “hipsters, post-hipsters and quasi-hipsters” love to shop at Target.

Following the footwork of the Times, Hess’s interviews subjects are clearly supposed to set off our hipster radar — those sporting “shaggy black haircut” and “vintage-y dress[es].” It all amounts to a kind of tired, but ultimately universally recognizable trope that is supposed to signify “hipster” in the mainstream media. I’m sure that a lot of the people these articles group under the hipster umbrella are people that I would have called by a lot of other names when I was in high school: punk, hardcore guy, emo kid, etc. These labels are all reductive, but the main difference is that none of them imply anything about economics which, I fear the word hipster — thanks to snarkily myopic articles of this kind — is beginning to connote.

Hess’s article assumes that all of the “Columbia Heights hipsters” who shop at the Target do so solely because they see some sort of kitschy, ironic novelty in it. At one point, she interviews a girl who confesses to buying her deoderant at Target instead of the CVS across the street. Hess interprets this choice thus: “In the Target, the deodorant is in a blindingly white, neatly stocked aisle. It comes in scents like ‘Lotus Glow’ and ‘Valencia Mist’ that you never see at CVS.” Nowhere in the article does it mention the decidedly non-aesthetic reason that most people shop at Target: it’s cheap. Cheaper than CVS. Cheaper than most other places you would by groceries or clothing. For a lot of people — young and old, black and white, “hipster” and whatever the media sees as its alternative — shopping at Target has nothing to do with irony but with saving a little bit of money.

Hess makes the narrow-minded and insensitive assumption that every “hipster” who moved to Columbia Heights recently did so simply because they were “seeking bragging rights…They were seeking urban.” Throughout the entire article the people Hess defines as hipsters seem to exhibit a superpower that makes them blithely exempt from any sort of economic woe. Early on, she proposes that people moved to Columbia Heights a few years ago because of “cheap rent,” but that point is tossed off in favor of profiling a pair of girls who bought a cat jungle gym at Target. Hess should have dug a little deeper into the whole “cheap rent” comment. Because the most significant point that she daintily, snarkily tip-toes around is the fact that it is no longer cheap to live in Columbia Heights.

When I read this article a few weeks ago, I was — still am, actually — looking for a place to live in DC, and I had almost crossed Columbia Heights off the list because I was finding it near impossible to find a room in the neighborhood under $1000. The effects that the gentrification of Columbia Heights have had on rent there is outrageous; to me, that’s a more interesting issue than deodorant. Maybe if these writers stopped fighting snark with snark — hipster irony with journalistic irony — they’d get to the heart of some pretty significant issues and paint a rounder, more nuanced portrait not only of gentrification, but of young people struggling to make sense of the rapid changes in DC’s economic landscape.

I’d like to see these types of stories treat their subjects with a little more depth and respect. When journalists like Hess put faith in cliches, generalizations and stereotypes, they aren’t behaving much differently than my precocious summer-camper, or even my pre-pubescent cousin. Even worse, they’re giving these generalizations a kind of authority. Maybe, I realized on the evening of Scarfgate, I do exhibit some of the external qualities of a hipster, especially to people who don’t yet know me. But regardless of how I dress or where I hang out, I’d like to be viewed in a way akin to how I see so many of my young friends in DC: people who are not exempt from any sort of financial burden, people who are struggling to make rent, and in some cases (such as my own) people who are struggling just to find a place in this city that they can even afford to rent. I don’t exactly see the irony in that.

The Ugly Truth, or, How I Learned to Stop Fronting and Love Nora Ephron

2009 is shaping up to be an interesting year for female filmmakers. From Kathryn Bigelow’s critically acclaimed Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker to Lynne Shelton’s Humpday — a hilarious and unflinching examination of the stuff cinematic bromance is made of — films directed by women are receiving lots of press (and relatively decent ticket sales) this summer. Plus, two big attractions — Jane Campion’s Bright Star and Mira Nair’s Amelia — are slated for early fall releases. What does the reception of these films say about women directors in Hollywood right now? Will the prominence of these films enact any sort of change? I’d like to explore these questions a bit more in what I hope to be a recurring feature about women in film. But first, we must ask ourselves an important question: what do we do about Nora Ephron?

I did an independent research project last semester on the current state of female filmmakers. Friends will certainly recognize this topic, since I became an ever-dribbling fountain of information on it. As a film student interested in directing, I felt a personal connection to the issue, and thinking about it got me quite impassioned. A few short weeks into my research, it became the kind of thing about which I would spew statistics to uninterested strangers two drinks into a party. “Did you know,” I would interrogate them, “that in 2006, women directed only 7% of the 250 highest grossing films in America?”

But seriously. Think about that for a minute.

No, really.

SEVEN.

PER

CENT.

Okay.

I became more fervid with every distressing piece of information I read. But this was nothing new. Throughout my four years in film school, I channeled my frustration at a perceived lack of female community into anger, separatism, italics. My heroines were the revolutionaries — Chantal Akerman, Maya Deren, Agnes Varda — women who were not afraid to challenge conventions, even if that meant running the risk of being perceived as agitators or, heaven forbid, feminists. They spoke to the part of me wears (and probably always will wear) the familiar pout of the rebellious teen. Loving things that are loud! Subversive! Unafraid!

So I never really knew what to think of the quieter ones — the Nora Eprhons of the world. The ones whose mere presence was something of an inspiration in a profession that is still overwhelmingly dominated by men, but whose films did not exactly scream “subversive” or “empowering” — or at least not in ways that a still-sort-of-antagonistic and thus pretty wet-behind-the-ears teenage feminist could hear.

Look, to be quite honest, I’ve always loved Nora Ephron. Not only am I a sucker for Sleepless in Seattle, but I watch You’ve Got Mail at least two or three times a year and often challenge my mom to see which of us can quote more lines from the movie as we’re watching it. Friends know that I will unblinkingly cite You’ve Got Mail as my favorite rom-com of all time, but they also know that I talk about it as if it’s completely hokey and my love for it totally PBR/purposely-ugly-mustache-style ironic. But isn’t irony often just a band-aid for the realization of a self-truth that makes you sort of squeamish? Because, as I found out one night last week, You’ve Got Mail actually hits me on a more meaningful gut level than most of the louder and more subversive films that captivated me in college.

On the night in question, while lounging in my pajamas and nursing an outbreak of PCM, I flipped on TBS just as You’ve Got Mail was starting. (A fortuitous — if not exceptionally rare — scenario; even casual TBS viewers will know this much is true.) I heaved a sad sigh of resignation. My fate was sealed: I would absolutely be wasting yet another night of my life watching this stupid, stupid movie that I happened to love so much.

But something was different this time around. Lines that I’d memorized since my early adolescence now spoke to me with such relevance that they were almost alarming. There is this part in the movie when Meg Ryan’s character is sad — not in a conventional rom-com stuff-your-face-with-chocolates sort of way — but quietly, defenselessly sad. In a voiceover, she says, “I live a small life. Well, small, but valuable. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave?” Yikes. Maybe it’s just the Post-Collegiate Malaise talking, but that line hit me hard.

I’d never before thought too deeply about Kathleen Kelly (Ryan’s character), but I suddenly realized how well-written she is — how intricate Ephron allows her sadness to be. She is a modern, independent woman living in a city, and she experiences all of the complex but unspoken frustrations that go along with such a lifestyle. As a woman getting ready to start some version of an adult life in the city, I’m finally able to see the importance of representations that present these emotions in honest, relatable terms. For all its ostensible conventionalities, I think there’s more Ugly Truth in the writing of You’ve Got Mail than anything you’re going to hear coming out of Gerard Butler’s mouth (or Katherine Heigl’s, for that matter.)

The professor who supervised my Women in Film project said she defined feminist films as ones that “presented us with issues that are relevant to women’s lives.” It seemed such a tranquil definition, different from the fiery connotations I’d come to associate with feminism. And, as the term “feminisms” so often reminds us, the concept its self is inherently multivalent and prone to a wide variety of different definitions. But this particular definition has come back to me whenever I think of my identity as a woman and an aspiring filmmaker. By the end of the project, I realized how truly rare are the films that tackle relevant issues in contemporary women’s lives with any semblance of honesty.

All of these conversations with my professor came rushing back to me last week when I saw Ephron’s latest film, Julia & Julia. It’s fantastic. Beautifully shot, marvelously acted, and of course, well written. But what really struck me was how surprisngly relevant and true it felt, when I’ve almost come to expect a kitschy sort of irrelevance and well-manicured half-truths from anything marketed as a “romantic comedy.” Don’t let its inoffensive ad campaign fool you; Julie & Julia is brimming with subtle and complex unconventionalities. The film’s female lead is a gawky old bird who publicly claimed to be a virgin until she was 40. As far as contemporary American cinema is concerned, you’d be hard pressed to find a less conventional representation (and ultimately, celebration) of female sexuality.

But I was even more struck by the sensitivity and complexity with which Eprhon treats Amy Adams’ character, Julie Powell. There is something very real — and thus kind of horrifying — about her emotions. When she is sad, hers is not a typical cinematic feminine sadness, trivialized as something that can be cured with an expensive latte and a shopping montage soundtracked by a Madonna song. It’s treated as something frighteningly complex, real, and all-consuming. And how refreshing! I mean, a young, down-on-her luck professional who searches for meaning through the completion of her blog posts? Clearly this is a kind of horror to which I can relate.

So here is a movie that presents me with issues that, as a modern woman, I can intimately identify with, I thought. Does that mean it’s a feminist film? Who cares. Maybe by some people’s definitions it is; by most’s it is probably not. And that doesn’t matter. I think a huge part of my own growth as a feminist has been the realization that feminism isn’t all militarism and brimstone. It has been the acceptance of loving things that are quietly empowering. In a time when articulate female voices are virtually silent on the big screen, the portrayal of unwaveringly honest representations in film has never been more important.

So bravo, Nora, for doing your thing intelligently, subtly and uncompromisingly all these years. I’m proud to call myself a fan.

Weekend Wisdom, volume 1

I’m not going to write anything here on weekends. I’m going to let other people do the talking. Sometimes these quotes will hint at posts I’m working on for next week, as this one does. Until then, check back for a new post on Monday.

Werner Herzog: There should be more shoe-eating in this country! Do you remember that man who ate his bicycle? I think the last I heard he was attempting to eat an airplane. I love that man!

Interviewer: That man is dead.

Werner Herzog: Ah, well. Another like him will come along.

(from Herzog on Herzog)

What does it take to be #1?

As Nelly once said in his song “#1,” “Two is not a winner and three no one remembers.”

But I think in this case, Nelly was probably talking about sports and not Best Song of the Decade Lists. For one thing, I don’t think that song would end up on anybody’s List. Even Nelly himself, with all the bombast and self-respect that that promotional photo implies, probably considers it a minor single at best.

Today Pitchfork revealed #1-20 of their own Best Songs of the Decade List. They named Outkast’s 2000 single “Bombs Over Baghdad” the best song of the decade. I would certainly agree that this song has what it takes to be #1. No major single of the past 9 years has come close to the electricity of its hyperkinetic beat. The sheer climactic power of its gospel choir bridge is probably a more reliable source of renewable energy than even those really huge windmills you see by the freeway. And what about its ability to be (even titularly) political without sacrificing its identity as a unanimous crowd-pleasing dance floor jam? It’s untouchable. Show me a party guest who seizes the host’s iPod to change the track when somebody puts on “BOB,” and I’ll show you an asshole. However, I would argue that the #2 choice, LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends,” is also something of a winner, and I would definitely say that 3, M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” a lot of people remember. (Maybe not as many remember the Diplo remix of “Paper Planes,” but you knew P4K was frothing at the mouth to include something faintly oblique and underground in the top 3.)

As Nelly obviously knew, being #1 requires a kind of brute strength. You need to be ironclad. Burly enough to bear the burden of a lot of very hefty and oft-discussed concepts. “Cultural importance.” “Universality.” “Staying power.” And I have total confidence that “Bombs Over Baghdad” can withstand collisions with all of these concepts, with or without a helmet. It’s that good. It’s formidable.

But if that’s what it takes to be #1, I’m glad “All My Friends” missed the honor by a hair. There’s something kind of private (and thus vulnerable) about my love for that song; it’s something I reach for in moments of insecurity. When I need affirmation that it is still possible to be cool in your 30s. When I need affirmation that it is totally normal and not that shallow to worry about still being cool in your 30s. When I am missing people I love but don’t live near anymore and I need to hear James Murphy implore in a sing-speak voice that is less than virtuosic but all the more affecting because of its imperfections, “Where are your friends tonight?” The way it slowly crescendoes to this gut-wrenching but never overwrought emotional climax, its precision in capturing this feeling of being self-aware and aging and understanding the importance of your relationships with other people amidst a sometimes maddeningly hyperactive sense of self — these are really vulnerable human emotions that I don’t think any other song of this decade, or perhaps any other decade, captures with such subtle accuracy. But I wouldn’t trust it to carry the burden of being the Best Song of the Decade. I would hate to hold something I love so sloppily, so sentimentally, so inarticulately under that sort of scrutiny.

That is why I was sort of relieved to see a lot of my favorite songs of the decade tucked away somewhere acknowledged but relatively inconspicuous on the list. I am sick of arguing with people about the emotional wallop packed in the opening chords of Grizzly Bear’s “While You Wait for the Others,” so I was happy to see it back in the #330s. I didn’t see the Mountain Goats’ “This Year” on the list at all, which seems something of a travesty until I realize that its break-glass-in-case-of-emergency cathartic powers would somehow be blunted for me if somebody were to boldly declare it the Best Song of the Decade, or even One of the Best. It would make public something that I treasure because it feels very private; it would force me to try to put into ceremonious and culturally definitive words something I’ve always valued just because it’s so unpolished and vague.

Trivial as they might seem, I love these Best Of lists because they lay the foundation for a conversation about why we love the things we love, even if they are not necessarily the Best things. And hopefully, somewhere down the line, they invite attempts at the impossible task of sharing with other people the really personal and vain corners of your mind where this sort of love resides. I’m glad then that Pitchfork went ahead and published their big, looming Best list so early. It gives me a lot of time to think about my own personal list, which is an exercise in narcissism that I’ve only just begun.

A few other personal quibbles about the Pitchfork list:
*”Bros” at #48? I know the major Panda Bear gushing is going to happen on the Albums list, because I know that it’s not a profoundly song-oriented album, but come on. I would have a hard time thinking of 47 songs better than “Bros” in any decade
*A lot of the pop songs shown obligatory pop-musically-informed-indie-rock-people-love in the top 100 cannot hold a candle in the general vicinity of Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater.”
*Which goes to show what sort of amazing contributions Timbaland has made to pop music in this decade. You never would have thought that in 1999 anybody would be saying that in any sort of decade-retrospective context, but really. The other day when discussing the decade in music, a friend of mine suggested we all just divide the decade into “Pre-Sexy Back” and “Post-Sexy Back,” and I think he’s got a point. The acronyms might get a little confusing, but I think it could catch on. As my friend concluded, “Look, if I had to hear that song every day for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be upset.” I think this is a nationally-held opinion; somebody go print that on a dollar bill or something.

A day in the life of a Post-Grad

If you’ve had your face within rather unhealthy proximity to your computer screen lately, perhaps you have found yourself confronted by Alexis Bledel’s bewitching stare in one of the pop-up advertisements for her new film Post Grad:

The horrific confusion in the depths of her Photoshop-blue eyes, the disillusioned-but-still-pretty expression, the reckless abandon with which she tugs at her neon pink graduation tassel — this poster is screaming Post-Collegiate Malaise, loud and clear. As a recent and “temporarily” unemployed college graduate, and as someone who is always careful to choose a hue of lipgloss that matches her graduation tassel, I know a thing or two about Post-Collegiate Malaise. Which is why, to my expert eye, something seems a little off about this poster. And look at this one:

Again, maybe it’s just because I’m an expert on the topic, but anyone else feel like these posters are just a teensey bit too…manicured? Commodified, even? Cloying but so relevant that they make you want to claw your own eyes out? Well, to the minds behind Post Grad: fear not. I’m here to help.

In a gracious last minute attempt to give the film that extra umph of documentarian grit, and perhaps even to push it into Best Picture territory (remember: ten nominees this year; anything’s possible!), I figured I’d write up a little summary of my day, to show the producers of the film how someone afflicted with P-CM actually behaves. Bledel, you are free to use this in your portrayal as long as you remember to acknowledge me in your Oscar speech.

August 20, 2009.

10:43 am: Wake up marginally hung over. More pleased than annoyed with said hangover, because it stands as immediate and unflappable proof that you probably did not hang out with your parents last night.

12:03 pm: Check email. Read a quoted passage from The Bell Jar on a blog; nearly moved to tears because Sylvia Plath just gets it, okay? Resolve to re-read The Bell Jar.

12:04 pm: Realize that your copy of The Bell Jar is in storage, along with ALL OF YOUR OTHER EARTHLY POSSESSIONS BECAUSE YOU ARE LIVING OUT OF A SUITCASE AT YOUR PARENTS’ HOUSE IN SUBURBAN NEW JERSEY.

12:05 pm: Punch something fluffy.

2:00 – 3:30 pm: Spend an hour and a half of your day actively thinking about how good Animal Collective is; mentally frame said activity as some sort of personal, introspective “research project” so it feels scholarly and meaningful.

4:00 pm: Tea time! Remember, you find incredible meaning in ritual and ceremony these days. Also, you’ve taken up antiquing.

7:10 pm: Go to Barnes & Noble to browse for a new book. Post up in the P section. A girl who cannot be older than 8 is on her hands and knees below you, inspecting books on a low shelf, scuttling around your feet like an nimble little crab while you read the horrible neon dust jacket of the new Pynchon novel. Something about her makes you terribly self-conscious; you’re certain she knows your casual inspection of Gravity’s Rainbow was all for show. She knows you are reading Inherent Vice because you heard it was diet Pynchon. She knows you’re a literary featherweight. A sham. She knows you just want a beach read. Your skin prickles. A Grizzly Bear song that you once described to someone as “transcendent” plays over the loudspeaker, interrupted occasionally by tinny dispatches from the management. Something about the whole situation fills you with so much embarrassment and self-loathing that you leave the store before the song is over.

7:12 pm: But not before spending 23 fucking dollars on the new Pynchon book, muttering something unintelligible about suburbia and chain stores and expired memberships to college libraries.

8:21pm: Get out your ice cream maker. Scour the pantry to see what you have that will add intrigue to resulting ice cream.

10:00 pm: Watch Project Runway while eating homemade Pepperidge Farm Chessmen ice cream directly out of the machine. Have a conversation in your head with people you know who love snacks, highly recommending that they try this flavor combination sometime.

11:49 pm: Create a blog.