Reflections on "Woman's World" by Cher: Critiquing the Narrative of Normative Diva Empowerment in Popular Culture

Woman's World by Cher

Unsurprisingly, this is my prewriting warm-up song! :-) I find this video particularly fascinating, and Cher's career fascinating and general, for the ways in which they express some of the contradictions in modern gender politics in popular culture.. I do not question her authenticity, strength of character, struggles in the entertainment industry, and/or talent; but the contradictions in the video give us cause for reflection about the confused contemporary ideology of gender.

While the video takes special care to "represent" cis women of all ages, colors, body sizes, and abilities, it is Cher, a white (" and part Cherokee") cis woman, who is the focus. , She has maintained iconic status into her elder years. Nevertheless, she has only accomplished this by virtue of considerable plastic surgery that maintains an impossible body image, notwithstanding the positive effects of her status on public perception of the elderly. She proclaims emancipation for cis women in a manner that contradicts reality, yet it is reiterated everywhere you turn, from cosmetic commercials to government policy documents.

And she does so in a masculinist discourse, which will primarily appeal to gay men, who are now her principal and loyal audience. These men, including myself, keep her and Madonna alive by means of a crypto-misogynist pastiche to the Virgin Mary; for pop culture — and gay culture in particular — loves the Diva as an enduring form of feminine idealization and subordination. We keep these women alive through repetitious drag queen performances, and there is no consensus as to whether such performances help or hinder the cause of transgendered persons and, if so, to what degree. One's allegiance seems to be defined by whether one takes "bell hooks' approach to Cher" "or Judith Butler's". And what a drag they both seem to be, in very distinct ways.

And this, like all other issues of genuine intellectual interest in the study of culture and politics, seems at once incredibly trivial and vital to and emancipatory politics. In addition, such musingsare likely to "trigger" someone's insatiable urge, even if this desire is eventually suppressed,  to shame me, as a natural, yet disproportionate, response to a world that is, alas, quite unresponsive to those who are in pain and need assistance.

So who's world is it really? It's the same world we've always had but with more confusing contradictions. I pity the putatively "general public". I'm fairly educated in this stuff, reasonably intelligent, and queerness as part of my daily experience. I can't make sense of what's going on and what the future will hold. Maybe, since rigid categories have been used to subjugate persons, that will prove to be a good thing in retrospect.

But it is these very contradictions that make contemporary forms of heterosexist, colonial, ablest, cissexist, and patriarchal oppression more insidious and enduring, and, unfortunately, increasingly difficult to challenge. I see no utopia in anyone's future, either coming from the left or the right. Queer theories, religions, feminisms, deconstructions, Indigenous critiques, Marxisms, and liberal democratic theories cannot in and of themselves make society great again. What we need is constant vigilance, struggle, dialogical engagement, and the fearless pursuit of free critical Inquiry. In a time of near global disaster, it may seem self-indulgent to analyze pedestrian cultural products. Nonetheless, in such products, we see ourselves more clearly than in our grandest aspirations and the contradictions arising therefrom. Consequently, the line between political and cultural critique is as false as the vision that Cher offers, yet it is perhaps equally compelling to our enjoyment as the catchy pop song she and her characteristically outlandish hairstyles