Living & Arts

Lessons found in 'The Teaches of Peaches'

In print | February 14, 2008

It’s fairly easy — I know, since even I was guilty of it in the brief folly of my very mature, very knowledgeable youth — to overlook the genius, the innovation, the revolutionary, the (wo)man, the myth, the legend behind Peaches. It’s okay, I promise, don’t worry, you’re not the only one; dozens of innocent, unknowing dance-party-goers make the same mistake every time “Fuck the Pain Away” comes on, but lucky for you, I am here to set it all straight and show you just how silly you’ve been, but of course. Aren’t you so pleased? Of course you are!

The first time I heard Peaches, I think, I made a face that was so clearly Are-You-Serious-This-Is-The-Most-Ridiculous-Thing-Ever with that curled upper-lip sneer thing that gray-haired British men in red silk robes with tobacco pipes make at the tax-paying commoners — complete with the solitary raised eyebrow, naturally. The second time, I was terribly amused by the wit, charm and eloquence of lyrics like “Stay in school ‘cause it’s the best” and the repetition of “Fuck / Shit” ad nausuem. While Peaches quickly became, and continued to be, a staple of every dance party playlist I ever made from high school onward, it wasn’t until much later on that I started thinking of what Peaches was doing as ground-breaking, necessary, important and revolutionary.

Although I’m aware that Peaches is not really trying to make any sort of feminist statement with her music, I don’t really care. I am going to completely ignore everything that she has said about her intentions (or lack thereof) because her intentions don’t really matter at all to me. Hey Peaches, what’s up, I don’t really care what you’re trying to do with your music — once you let it go and release it into the public sphere, your music is, intentionally or not, making certain statements — it’s speaking, and loudly. You have no control over how the music that you made will interact with the plasmic matter of the real world, how it will be interpreted within the context of everything else that is going on. Like it or not, you are actually saying something more than “Shake Yer Dix” and, given the state of things, your music is not just about having a good time. The “Teaches of Peaches” extends beyond sex on the beaches.

Peaches’ music is about questioning our traditional notions of gender, about challenging the way we identify with a particular gender, about redressing the imbalance between the sexes; it is about empowerment in a rock culture that is aggressively masculine and about what it means to be sexually attractive on your own terms. In naming her second album “Fatherfucker,” Peaches made a move that, to me at least, very much resembles the third-wave feminist movement to reclaim derogatory words like “bitch” and “cunt.” For those who aren’t Wikipedia-savvy, Peaches has said about the name of her second album: “Motherfucker is a very mainstream word. But if we’re going to use motherfucker, why don’t we use fatherfucker? I’m just trying to be even.” Sporting a full beard on the cover of the album, her choice of cover art blurs the distinction between genders in the same way that her lyrics do.

Although she seems very reluctant to state that her work has any feminist undertones, intentionally or not, the fact remains that it does: in concert, she prances around on stage wearing a bra and tight, hot pink hot pants with exposed pubic hair, a little bit of a tummy, unshaved armpits and an unapologetic attitude. Sometimes, she dances around with a strap-on dildo. Though the body hair is, as she has repeatedly stated, a result of laziness, the reason for the body hair doesn’t matter so much as its very existence. One music video shows Peaches growing body hair at an exponential rate — a commentary on how much attention her act of laziness has received, but also an indirect commentary on female body image and what it means to be sexy on your own terms.

Peaches’ live performances challenge the heteronormative social standards against which we measure ourselves and our relationships with others; they blur the distinction between genders, combine feminist ideas about body image with queer gender politics and put forth a new notion of sex appeal and beauty that doesn’t conform to the stale, mainstream ideals that are elevated in Victoria’s Secret advertisements. Sexed-up and glammed up, she asserts power over her own body and sexuality, combating the portrayal of women as sexualized objects who cater solely to men or to the music world’s predominately masculine sphere. She is subversive, she is self-confident and empowering, she is iconic.

Anna is a sophomore. You can reach her at azaloko1@swarthmore.edu.