Brechtian Punk Cabaret of the Indie Goth Persuasion: The 'Oasis' Controversy

I first became acquainted with Amanda Palmer when I was leisurely perusing a rack of albums at an Amoeba in Austin, Texas. When I saw this cover:



It was the cover for the 2003 self titled album of The Dresden Dolls. Needless to say, I had to buy it. It just jumped out at me from the sea of boring covers. The Dresden Dolls hail from Boston and their music is anything but mainstream with topics that range from abortion (pro-choice) suicide, transgendered issues, gay and lesbian topics to just plain old love. The duo consists of Amanda Palmer (Piano,vocals, assorted) and Brian Viglione (Drums, percussion, vocals). I was immediately drawn to their dark theatrical style that permeated from the music. Palmer has an extensive background in theatre including a BA from Wesleyan and has been quoted as saying that she thinks first as a performer. My interest in the duo was further intensified when the Dolls opened for my favorite band Nine Inch Nails. They were hand picked by Trent Reznor himself after he heard only one of their songs.


They developed a large cult following most likely because of their encouragement of a fan based performance art. The two dressed in fancy elaborate costumes and makeup that helped further push the cabaret/theatre aesthetic. The band’s genre is referred to as ‘punk Brechtian cabaret’. A term created by Palmer because she was terrified of being placed in a ‘pop Goth’ genre with Marilyn Manson and the like.

The Dresden Dolls are currently on hiatus leaving Palmer and Viglione up to their own solo projects. ‘Who Killed Amanda Palmer?’ is Amanda Palmer’s first solo foray and is produced by Indie darling Ben Folds. Palmer doesn't stray far from her root. In fact, she goes even farther.



My interest in Palmer as an artist is that she refuses to white wash anything and she wears her causes proudly on her sleeve. She is an active participant and performer for gay rights and pro choice fund raisers and remains herself, an open book. Palmer obviously understands the history of cabaret and firmly associates herself with the flamboyant underdog protest nature of the aesthetic. In one of her new songs ‘Oasis’, Palmer sings about a young girl who is raped and who goes with her best friend to get an abortion, who gets through the traumatic experience all thanks to her preoccupation with the British pop band Oasis. Interestingly, the tune of the song is incredibly light hearted and happy and reminiscent of a Beach Boy’s song. The subject matter of the song, and the upbeat way it was portrayed in the video, proved to be too much for broadcasters in the United Kingdom. Palmer received an e-mail while she was in the U.K. from her label there explaining that "all" of the TV outlets in the U.K. had refused to play the video due to its "making light of rape, religion, and abortion." Palmer, in response, reached out to her fans via a lengthy message on her blog which was posted by the Huffington Post:

“I sat down one day in or around 2002 and wrote a tongue-in-cheek, ironic, up-tempo pop song about a girl who got drunk, date raped, and had an abortion. She sings about these things lightly and happily and says that she doesn't care that these things have happened to her because Oasis, her favorite band, have just sent her an autographed photo in the mail. If you cannot sense the irony in this song, you're about two intelligence points above a kumquat. I recorded this song with Ben Folds (who is way more intelligent than a kumquat) for my record. He produced the song to sound fantastically happy -- a beach-boys style number complete with ba ba ba back-up vocals. Then I made a video with Michael Pope that portrayed a very literal play-by-play of what was being related in the song. This all made perfect sense to me and wasn't in any way calculated to offend. It was created to be funny and dark.”


Palmer goes on to argue that if she were to slow the song down and perform it in a minor key then perhaps the UK radio would be happy. That it is the conflict of interest within the song, how we wish to categorize things we deem as 'dark' differently than with things we deem as human.

"In the US in 1996, about 1.3 million women had an abortion, half of them under the age of 25. And I can assure you, there were approximately 1.3 million different reactions, experiences and stories behind those abortions. Countless girls have been raped or date-raped. Are we allowed to talk about it, joke about it, turn it over from every side and try to figure out our own confused reaction to it? Or is that just too icky, uncomfortable... and shameful?
Or should we just cry about it demurely and hope that the proper reaction, the one that society deems appropriate, will make things go away? Come on."




Whatever you think about the video it can certainly be argued that it says alot about who a person is in how they respond. Are we going to ignore the darkness of life? Drown in out in a minor key? Or are we willing to deal with it, in whatever way seems fit for us personally? I'd rather confront it.

Honey Flavored Feminism: The Genius of Karen Finley

"Her furious cry from the heart was so intense that it reduced the audience to a stunned silence." -- Praise for Karen Finley's The American Chestnut, a performance piece that debuted in Los Angeles

I will never forget the first time I saw Karen Finley. She was running around the stage naked, covered in honey, screaming expletives, and dancing strangely. I was definitely not in Texas anymore. Better yet, were the shocked expressions of my male counterparts who had been so thrilled at the prospect of seeing an attractive naked woman rolling around in honey as a theatre assignment. Now these college boys looked anything but titillated, they looked disturbed on some deep physiological level. Of course, their horror couldn’t be a higher compliment to the controversial Karen Finley.



Born and raised in Chicago, Finley is the daughter of a late jazz musician who when she misbehaved would lock in her a refrigerator and eventually ended up killing himself. She made her way into performance art after receiving her MFA from the San Francisco Art institute. Interestingly, Finley chooses to rarely go into her personal life for material, which I have found to be relatively unique, at least in the world of solo performance. Her art is nearly always a greater statement on the state of the world or a specific issue. She gained major infamy as one of the NEA four. She was given a grant for the National Endowment of the Arts for her show We keep Our Victims Ready which was promptly protested by the conservative right. Jesse Helms even went so far as to use Finley as the focal point for his cause to abolish the NEA and referred to her as the ‘chocolate smeared woman’ which was a jab at her earlier work. Finley and fellow artists Tim Miller (another I highly recommend), Holly Hughes, and John Fleck all took their cases to the Supreme Court in order to keep their grants on the grounds of freedom of expression. Incredibly to me, they all lost on the basis on indecency.

This to me is when our Government gets frightening.

Karen Finley was the first artist to ever make me question anything. I remember sitting in that theatre, my mind totally blown, as I watched her flail around in Shut up and Love Me .In her own words, the show is a “post feminist illustrative performance of a woman’s journey, of dysfunctional companionship, and psycho social lust without apology.” The show features a series of gritty, sardonic dialogues about people trying to find sex. There is crazed disco dancing, cut up scenes from Winnie the Pooh, a deconstructed lap dance and of course, the nude frolic in honey.

Above from Karen Finley's
"Weekly Meditations For Living Dysfunctionally"

I have always identified with fearless women like this. I am so inspired by artists that can just say ‘fuck it’ and do what needs to be done without letting anything get in the way.
As an actor I am jealous of Finley’s complete freedom. Her words are so much her own, in a way that I will never be able to posses or even emulate. This kind of art is so incredibly necessary to our society. We have to have voices like this that question, in a blunt fashion, what the state of our affairs. Finley has the power, as I witnessed, to completely deconstruct the idea of the male eye owning the nude female body. Yes, she was a naked woman rolling around in honey, and yet there was absolutely nothing eroticized or vulnerable about her. The majority of the women in the crowd, I noticed, could not help but laugh at the confusion of the men. You could truly see it in their eyes. This was a beautiful naked woman in honey. How had she managed to make this entirely unattractive? Finley had completely control over it. Her naked body was pressing upon every eye in the theatre, not the usual powerless naked woman. In a word it was remarkable.

Finley attacks her audience on every level to wake them up to the realties of violence against women, emotional despair, loss, and abuse in a way that thoroughly challenges everything we understand to be ‘decent’ and ‘good’. I truly believe the best art is the kind that gets to you somewhere deep inside, that can upset you---and you may not always know why. I can only hope to someday be as fearless and as dedicated as Karen Finley.

I want to be an actor completely separate of my own fears and insecurities and be able to throw all caution to the wind and tell the stories of the unglamorous, bleak, and painfully silenced women of our time.










Although, I have yet to eat honey again.