SGD: In what ways do you think the song "sk8er boi" is a critical commentary on modern society?
EVE: At its very core, "Sk8r Boi" is truly a criticism of the way people use labels and try to fit everyone into little boxes. It's a function of our being cognitive misers. It's readily apparent that the song is about a "preppy" girl who likes a dangerous "sk8r boi" - but Ms. Lavigne does not stop there. She even plays to our sensibilities of labels, beginning her song with
He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?
Here, Lavigne draws our attention to how society views sexuality as a rigid black and white construct, a dual partisanship that allows no room for movement. For this song to be about anything other than a boy and a girl would be unacceptable in "society's" views.
In the end, the characters in the song who remain open to other's differences are the ones who are rewarded and end up happy. (Indeed, they "rock each other's worlds.") Lavigne intends this song to teach us all about openness, acceptance, and tolerance.
...
in other news, my time reading online journals will now be greatly cut down. with all the extra time i shall move out of sawtell and find an actual place to live because vapa at 2 am sucks.
i think i may be in the throes of some sort of emotional breakdown (how glamorous!) but i wouldn't want some real crazy person to think i was like a crazy poser, so i won't go around bragging or anything.
it's really important that i not go crazy, or start being really mean and awful.
tristram is quoting woody allen at me but on him it's charming.
since i love quilty an inordinate amount (like a parasite loves its host body, etc-- what unfavorable metaphors, but this is often how i view myself.) here is one of my favorite stories (the one hanging loose didn't accept). it is about leaving her to come to college, which was hard to do.
...
Time Up
Another morning after, were angled surfaces of my bedroom, stair down window slats sunlight where dust particles float. Another house were trapped palming the walls. The car pulls up outside and there is so much I dont know how to say, not enough time to reach inside your skin and pull your heart to the surface of ribcage tear, Im child clutching your skirts. Where did I live before the house of your body, its bones cradling walls, its fires? Lay me out on the days chopping block, cut this tangle of ropes that take root in flesh.
Ten minutes ago were facing off upstairs carpet, pistols drawn in the skylight. We know the places on each other where blood crosses, rows of little black Xs flowing, marked for the instant kill. We've been here before, you say, then we pull twin plastic trigger click, sit and look at each other, still blinking.
The night before Im blurred mattress and your arms, spilled bedspread reeking Jack Daniels. TV glowing blue in this ship rocked by your breath, ocean swell beneath surface where I press my ear to your breastbone, before I climb back up the hole in the ceiling to sleep alone.
A month back Im stretching a tight smile as you river past me in the hallway, opening night Im avoiding your eyes as flashbulbs sizzle and pop. I wander these woods circling skyward, birds beating out of dark trees, my palm itching for yours. We meet in barbed wire empty classrooms, our fortress low, sunk solid into ground, yellow roses climbing the stone walls.
Tell me when we slipped through this hourglass, white sand spilling over my head, sitting on a pile of calendar leaves. Let me float back through those darkened rooms, pale faces hovering in the church dance floor, yellow-lit porch bass thump through the wall, facing you down over an asphalt ocean. Back through thick kitchens baking gingerbread, taking the blankets down from the top shelf, back through breathing underwater clutching phones, that promise freeze-framed and circled in red like a football play, the moment of collision where our blood snaked and double-knotted, the instant it got too late to back out.
Dip these splintered oars through the waters of my swimming pool, girls slipping their skins into the still silent dark, beating back through gray morning light, bare feet in my driveway, the two of us finally crawling into bed, back to the day I first flick my eyes over your small skeleton, shake your hand and wipe it on my jeans. I am quick to forget your name, not knowing it will be important later. Im all mouth, stomping boots on your fingertips. You are blooming quietly like cheatgrass ivy, spreading swift and silent over the world.
EVE: At its very core, "Sk8r Boi" is truly a criticism of the way people use labels and try to fit everyone into little boxes. It's a function of our being cognitive misers. It's readily apparent that the song is about a "preppy" girl who likes a dangerous "sk8r boi" - but Ms. Lavigne does not stop there. She even plays to our sensibilities of labels, beginning her song with
He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?
Here, Lavigne draws our attention to how society views sexuality as a rigid black and white construct, a dual partisanship that allows no room for movement. For this song to be about anything other than a boy and a girl would be unacceptable in "society's" views.
In the end, the characters in the song who remain open to other's differences are the ones who are rewarded and end up happy. (Indeed, they "rock each other's worlds.") Lavigne intends this song to teach us all about openness, acceptance, and tolerance.
...
in other news, my time reading online journals will now be greatly cut down. with all the extra time i shall move out of sawtell and find an actual place to live because vapa at 2 am sucks.
i think i may be in the throes of some sort of emotional breakdown (how glamorous!) but i wouldn't want some real crazy person to think i was like a crazy poser, so i won't go around bragging or anything.
it's really important that i not go crazy, or start being really mean and awful.
tristram is quoting woody allen at me but on him it's charming.
since i love quilty an inordinate amount (like a parasite loves its host body, etc-- what unfavorable metaphors, but this is often how i view myself.) here is one of my favorite stories (the one hanging loose didn't accept). it is about leaving her to come to college, which was hard to do.
...
Time Up
Another morning after, were angled surfaces of my bedroom, stair down window slats sunlight where dust particles float. Another house were trapped palming the walls. The car pulls up outside and there is so much I dont know how to say, not enough time to reach inside your skin and pull your heart to the surface of ribcage tear, Im child clutching your skirts. Where did I live before the house of your body, its bones cradling walls, its fires? Lay me out on the days chopping block, cut this tangle of ropes that take root in flesh.
Ten minutes ago were facing off upstairs carpet, pistols drawn in the skylight. We know the places on each other where blood crosses, rows of little black Xs flowing, marked for the instant kill. We've been here before, you say, then we pull twin plastic trigger click, sit and look at each other, still blinking.
The night before Im blurred mattress and your arms, spilled bedspread reeking Jack Daniels. TV glowing blue in this ship rocked by your breath, ocean swell beneath surface where I press my ear to your breastbone, before I climb back up the hole in the ceiling to sleep alone.
A month back Im stretching a tight smile as you river past me in the hallway, opening night Im avoiding your eyes as flashbulbs sizzle and pop. I wander these woods circling skyward, birds beating out of dark trees, my palm itching for yours. We meet in barbed wire empty classrooms, our fortress low, sunk solid into ground, yellow roses climbing the stone walls.
Tell me when we slipped through this hourglass, white sand spilling over my head, sitting on a pile of calendar leaves. Let me float back through those darkened rooms, pale faces hovering in the church dance floor, yellow-lit porch bass thump through the wall, facing you down over an asphalt ocean. Back through thick kitchens baking gingerbread, taking the blankets down from the top shelf, back through breathing underwater clutching phones, that promise freeze-framed and circled in red like a football play, the moment of collision where our blood snaked and double-knotted, the instant it got too late to back out.
Dip these splintered oars through the waters of my swimming pool, girls slipping their skins into the still silent dark, beating back through gray morning light, bare feet in my driveway, the two of us finally crawling into bed, back to the day I first flick my eyes over your small skeleton, shake your hand and wipe it on my jeans. I am quick to forget your name, not knowing it will be important later. Im all mouth, stomping boots on your fingertips. You are blooming quietly like cheatgrass ivy, spreading swift and silent over the world.
jjay:
yes yes yall