Music Monday #31: 200 km/h In The Wrong Lane by t.A.T.u

Growing up attending all-male schools for the first 12 years of my education had a strange effect on my perception of the world, not just because it was biased towards male oriented thought patterns but also because it made me acutely aware of the divergence that existed between the way straight men think and gay men think - at least this is how I rationalised the disparity and disconnection I felt growing up.  In time I would come to realise how right I was and how wrong I was about each assumption I made about the way straight men think versus the way I assumed other gay men would think given my limited exposure to the latter.

One thing however that confused me particularly in my teenage years was the idea that homosexuality specifically, defined by two people of the same gender being attracted and engaged in sexual acts wasn't a concept that was treated as a whole, instead I became aware quite quickly that a gender bias existed.  In 2002 a Russian pop duo called t.A.T.u. came onto the music scene in the UK and at the age of 14 I got the first explicit experience of the disparity that exists in the treatment of gay men and gay women particularly by straight men.  The former was something that was definitely wrong by their definition, could not be tolerated, and the latter they were completely fine with as long as they got to watch - that in itself was something that made me cringe.  This fetishisation of lesbians however is something in time I would learn was far more prevalent than I thought. 

The contradiction that existed led me as a young gay man to think for the longest time that gay women were more widely accepted than gay men - it wouldn't be until University when I actually met lesbians through the LGBT society and heard their life stories and their experiences that I realised that really wasn't the case, that cringeworthy feeling I had was justified because this fetishisation in reality is much more invasive and pervasive.  The rate of sexual assault that lesbians experience I could immediately see was rooted in the toxicity that existed in that all-male environment, ultimately I concluded that the cause was the fact that no authority existed to place a check and balance on the beliefs that were forming at the most influential period of our lives.  I can see the evolution (that word is a misnomer here because this isn't evolution it's the opposite, but it's the only word that fits) of the belief system that was developed in the minds of certain men.  It was the same imbalance that existed with the development of homophobic beliefs, and sexist beliefs they grew because there was no challenge, and that challenge to those beliefs had to come from an authority figure but on these subjects they were absent.  Part of that can be attributed to Section 28 paralysing schools from actually confronting these issues and even though it was later repealed it came too late for my generation who had already left that environment by the time changes were brought in.

Even now I don't know how much has really changed.  People often criticise social justice warriors but their activity garners attention and whether you agree with them or not their voice acts as a counter balance, an opposition to established thinking.  The prominence of social justice warriors would not be such if social justice actually existed. 

In many ways the progress of LGBT rights through legislation and societal shifts has weakened LGBT activism.  There are those in the L, G, and B, who feeling they have achieved enough to be comfortable have bowed out of the fight, leaving the T to fend for themselves backed up by the few who still value the community that once existed but now seems decimated.  The decline of gay venues, bars and clubs in particular is a reflection of the belief that spaces devoted to these communities aren't needed but in reality all this achieves is to disconnect the community and essentially dismantle it.  This is in effect the gentrification of gender, the redevelopment of the social landscape by redrawing boundaries and this is something within politics that can be seen by certain political organisations embracing the LGBT community who were opposed to it in its nascence, recognising that if they incorporate part of it and tolerate then the whole becomes weaker, giving way to rollbacks as seen in the USA and opposition is tested because those that have never had to organise before suddenly have to defend themselves and connecting with the community that will defend them they realise in that moment has been made significantly harder.

I realise this post has been dominated by politics with very little mention of music but the point remains, t.A.T.u. perfectly demonstrate this process, not just because they exploited the LGBT community to gain fame, but also because they later went on to express homophobic comments with Julia Volkova saying she would condemn her son if she found out he was gay and said it "wasn't natural" which spits in the face of the LGBT community. 

I've said before that I feel the need to separate art from the artists, and this is a prime example.  I liked their music, 200 k/m was an album that I played to death, 'Not Gonna Get Us', and 'All The Things She Said' were particular favourites, both of which have Russian versions featured on the same album, 'Nas Ne Dagoniat', and 'Ya Shosla S Uma' respectively.  More than this, there is a track called 'How Soon Is Now' a cover of the song originally recorded by The Smiths, a song that I love, which has also been covered by Love Spit Love whose version was used in the soundtrack to the 1998 movie 'The Craft' one of my favourite movies.

There's a lot of emotion attached to this album for the fact that I loved it, and still do love the music, but have come to hate the artists that recorded it.  I've already bought the album though many years ago before I heard about the comments they made, they gain nothing now from me listening to it which makes me feel less guilty about the fact I still listen to it.  I said I wouldn't include music on this list that I hate and I stand by that because I love this album, I love the music, the lyrics, and the meaning behind them, but I fucking hate the artists and I do not endorse them at all.

There's a lot more I want to say about this but I will bite my tongue because it will quickly descend into vitriol.