Pop Persona vs Feminine Facade

Recently, my art professor brought to my attention a music artist/internet figure That Poppy. While he is unsure if she is an independent artist, a character part of an overall subversive art project, or a plant of some large corporation or record label that has successfully cracked the code, viral internet phenomena, That Poppy is definitely an interesting figure. Her character (which I will discuss below), got me thinking about the way in which she, and other musicians have created personas that play with ideas of femininity and stereotype in order to critique or subvert them. The two I have in mind for this blog's discussion are That Poppy and Marina Diamandis, of Marina and the Diamonds.

I'll start with Poppy, since she requires a fair bit of background.

That Poppy
 (http://celebmix.com/discover-that-poppy/)

Personally, I am most interested in examining That Poppy, because she is an interesting person – or rather figure? ….or maybe character? Or art project? See – the thing with Poppy is that its very difficult to determine exactly what's going on without doing some pretty involved digging (it does come to light that Poppy is indeed a persona created by artist Moirah Pereira). She emerged around 2014, primarily through her presence on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and has since gathered a bit of a cult following. The reason why is probably pretty obvious if you watch some of her YouTube videos, which handily flirt with the uncanny valley, and her symbol laden, critical music video Lowlife. Her whole aesthetic, with its Lolita/doll-like outfits that mix lace and frills with eyeballs and fur, her pastel color pallet, lisping childish voice, and big doe eyes is deliberately, overtly feminine. And yet there is something definitively unsettling about her. She almost is a little too much towards “android” and not enough towards “actual human being”. Of course, this vagueness isn't helped by Poppy herself, as she refuses to identify with an age (her own words), says the bear minimum about her past, and refers to herself in the third person.

What I'm most interested, in all of her sugar-pastel-barbie-surrealism, is the way in which she is using this specific brand of femininity, and the way she is treated because of it. If you look into her videos and music close enough, its obvious that her content isn't simply silly or odd for the sake of being odd—there's thought and critique behind it (for instance her cleverly satirical song/music video Money). But it seems to me, especially after watching the interaction between Poppy and the interviewer DJ Niko, she's not always taken seriously.

An interview of Poppy by DJ Niko

I assert here that Poppy's specific performance of femininity can be related in part back to Serano's discussion in her chapter “Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism” of her book Whipping Girl. Serano discusses the stereotype of femininity in the “damsel in distress” – a helpless, fragile, frivolous, irrational femininity that needs a masculine rescuer – and says that this description of femininity (because these traits certainly aren't only assigned to the stereotype of the damsel in distress) results in “assumption that those who express femininity are not to be taken seriously and cannot be seen as legitimate authority figures”. I think that this is exactly what happens with Poppy: through her self-portrayal in very specific feminine aesthetic and behavior, she lends herself to this stereotype. However she does so deliberately, mixing in uncanny and disturbing (both overt and subtle) elements to her act. This combination allows her to both play into, and subvert and critique expectations of femininity in pop and music.

The second musician I'm looking at also uses her feminine persona for a similar use.

The 'Electra Heart' album cover
(source)

Marina Diamandis, known as Marina and the Diamonds released her first album in 2010. In her second album, 'Electra Heart', she wrote and performed through the character of Electra Heart, a 50's housewife styled embodiment of the more vacuous elements of pop stars and the American Dream.

Marina as Electra Heart in a staged photoshoot
(source)

A good example of this character would be in the video for her song Primadona, in which she plays the part of a Madonna-type, wealth obsessed character. However, within Marina's performance of Electra, there is an awareness that she is acting out tropes and stereotypes assigned to female pop stars, and is deliberately assuming them through her dress, performance, and lyrics.

Both of these artists, I think, may exist somewhere in between Serano's idea of femininity being something empowering, natural, and Foucault's artificial, patriarchally created and upheld definition of femininity. They take their own identity as women artists and enhance them – they create something more. They both simultaneously embrace and violate the expectations and stereotypes of femininity. In this way, I argue that their performance is subversive.