(no subject)

[bossymarmalade]

Dear Yoko Ono:

You shouldn't even be here.

But since you are, and at the time when the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with would have turned seventy years old --

I guess they thought you couldn't carry your own story, the one that began with you surviving the bombing of Tokyo and continued with you becoming the first woman accepted into the philosophy department of Gakushuin University. Maybe it didn't make you three-dimensional enough that you studied music and art at Sarah Lawrence with a special interest in the avant-garde and audience participation, that you had sex with who you wanted when you wanted and had abortions and miscarriages. Maybe to them you represent an idea of a weird dragon lady with careful accented English and inscrutable slanted eyes and wild harionago hair.

I know you didn't make it onto the chart because they think you don't have any flaws.

So you're not a villain, but you, an artist and a woman long long before Johnny and Paulie went on a magical mystery tour, you are mainly a love interest. They at least know you're not only interested in your man and only disapprove of his actions from time to time, but it's easy to assume that May Pang (another unimportant possibly fictional Asian woman) never existed, that you never sent John off to have his lost weekend and recover from all the alcohol and heroin before you let him come back to you.

You're not an action heroine. Hunting down the daughter who was stolen away by your ex-husband, facing down headlines like "John Rennon's Excrusive Gloupie" and the constant death-threats and racialized insults, enduring the deep freeze from the rest of the Beatles during those tense White Album sessions because John would only go if you promised to go with him, those don't qualify you.

Do others like her?

Oh, Yoko, surely that's the damning stroke, because who could like you? A nation full of white people enraged that you stole away their Liverpudlian poet son, a world full of people enraged that you, single-handedly, YOU caused the end of the fabbest four, an unending stream of people who still call you ugly and shrill and a bitch, who say that those bullets should have found their way into your body that night and not that man who you loved and who you watched be gunned down and lost. How dare you think that you and your son have any right to decide how to remember John? Don't you know he belongs to the world, and not you who taught him to love and respect women, not you who took care of the business so he could stay home to feed the cats and rock the baby and bake the bread when he wanted to do that most of all? Do others like you?

No, the chart says, and so you're Yoko Ono.

Dear Yoko: I'd say fuck them, but you were in a bag in a hotel room decidedly *not* losing your shit at assholes attacking you for being a strong Asian woman since before I was born, so instead I'll say: It's bullshit that you're on this godawful chart at all, but I'd still be happy to find myself landing on your name at the end of it.


http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/bbs/jl_yo.playboy/interview.html
http://thecurvature.com/2008/12/15/yoko-ono-a-feminist-analysis-introduction-oh-yoko/
http://imaginepeace.com/archives/5576
http://www.lorainesammy.com/v2/2010/10/may-pang-and-yoko-ono/

Comments

[glass_icarus]

I LOVE THIS POST, AND YOU, SO FUCKING MUCH. YES.

[bossymarmalade]

GOD RIGHT BACK ATCHA BB THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT RRRAARRGH

[crossedwires]

♥

(That chart makes me so cranky.)

[bossymarmalade]

♥!!

That chart is so colossally wrong in so many ways, I CAN'T EVEN.

[jackandahat]

This is an excellent post. (And the chart is so much bullshit.)

[gloss]

Thank you.

[skywaterblue]

FUCKING PREACH.

[impertinence]

Fuck that chart generally, but fuck it specifically for including Yoko, who aside from being a REAL GODDAMN PERSON is someone who consistently fights not to be defined as a stereotype, and whose work is forgotten more often than it's commended. FUCK. THAT.

[raanve]

Yes, this. Thank you for this post.

(And that chart says Uhura is useless??? WTF.)

[fightingarrival]

Yes.

*looks at chart* Did they seriously use the term "noble" fucking "SQUAW"?!

*in, out*

But, hmm, yes.

[beachlass]

Hells, yes.

[monanotlisa]

This is so fucking wonderful. ♥

[prettybird]

I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono - Dar Williams

[prettybird]

That was the first thing to pop into my head, sorry, after my initial "WTF" reaction to that chart.

[katarin]

Fucking SERIOUSLY! I'm generally offended by the idea that women all fall into stereotypes and only an infinitesimal percentage qualify as a "strong female character" but the idea that a real woman who is a fucking feminist ICON falls on that chart is BULLSHIT.

[such_heights]

This is a FABULOUS post.

[lanning]

This is a fucking awesome post and you should feel fucking awesome. You rock! :D

[violetisblue]

Thank you. Do you mind if I link to this on Twitter?

[bossymarmalade]

Not at all!!

[sidewinder]

*mad applause*

Thank you.

[dine]

you (and this post) = awesome

Jezebel (and that flowchart) - not so much

I am flat-out disgusted by their attitudes

[minoanmiss]

Oh, wow. Thank you for writing this. *applauds*

[devilc]

Oh, Yoko, surely that's the damning stroke, because who could like you? A nation full of white people enraged that you stole away their Liverpudlian poet son, a world full of people enraged that you, singled-handedly, YOU caused the end of the fabbest four, an unending stream of people who still call you ugly and shrill and a bitch, who say that those bullets should have found their way into your body that night and not that man who you loved and who you watched be gunned down and lost.

Yes, This. Exactly.

[silkmoth101]

Here via lanning.

You made me cry. Thank you so much for writing this, it is simply beautiful.

[scrollgirl]

I never paid much attention to the Beatles or to Yoko Ono, but I did see an art exhibit of hers once and was moved by the simple, pure compassion of its theme. This was a wonderful post, thanks for sharing.

FUCK YEEEEEAHHHH

[haddayr]

A) this post was a wonderfully perfect roar.
B) I now have more, specific data, for my semi-annual Argument With Some Dumb Fucker About Yoko Ono.
C) FUCK YEAAAAAAAHHHH

[noldo]

This is fantastic.

[duraflame]

Yeah, this is seriously amazing. You, and Yoko, are the best. ♥♥♥

[trinker]

Maybe I've been hiding under a rock or something, but this is the defending Yoko Ono essay I've been waiting for my whole life.