Lusting for Lust
by Guest Blogger // 30 April 2012, 19:21
Chrissy D responds to Erica Lust winning "Movie of the Year" at the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto this month.
NB: Only partial nudity is shown in the clips included but they're probably NSFW.
I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that the contemporary porn landscape has somewhat taken the joy out of sex. But here's my confession: when I first heard the phrase 'porn for women', back in the day, I scoffed dismissively. I imagined fluffy faux romance, beefcake men and way too much build up; too many words, not enough action. Because that's what contemporary mainstream culture tells us heterosexual and bisexual women want. Hell, it even claims it's what lesbians want sometimes - a man to intervene, the imperative phallus. And it tells men how to pretend to give it to women. I imagined at best, "semipornographic glamour" and at worst a few thrusts and gasps on a malfunctioning washing machine. Like 'female masturbation', 'porn for women' conjures up something novel, other than and niche.
But when I see that the woman picking up the award for "Movie of the Year" at the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto this month is none other than a Vimeo fave of mine, Erika Lust, I am reminded that there are other voices, even a realistic female gaze, out there prepared to give women something more than what we're told we should want. Lust describes her goal as, "to show modern women and men enjoying their sexuality with an intelligent and fresh script". This, at least to my taste, she does achieve.
Cabaret Desire, the award winning movie, is "a journey through intimacy, love, passion and sex" and was made in conjunction with Poetry Brothel in Barcelona. In her blurb on Vimeo, Lust states that, "I don't like the way sex is portrayed in most porn films (stupid plots, ugly locations, ridiculous characters, bad lighting...) and I also don't like the way mainstream cinema narrates sex (there's always guilt, shame, bad karma and the characters' sexual behavior tend to get them in trouble). I demand a new genre where sex is portrayed positively, where sex is associated with joy and life."
I have to agree that in my favourite of her short movies, Room 33, Lust does achieve well in her drive to counter the ugliness and guilt of most contemporary porn and replace it with a deep love for lust. In this short piece, a man and woman check into some kind of sex hotel, and (female led) passion ensues. Then another man joins and hereafter follows more bouncy, passionate sex. It's really rather good. And for me, it reads from the same script as MAYA at Feministing, by giving a positive representation to the play of submission and dominance, and group sex, for both women and men. Handcuffs also does this beautifully. This kind of scenario is something which has been snatched by the male gaze of contemporary porn, made violent and shameful and, most recently, been touched upon in 'mommy porn' literature. (Ugh, I detest that phrase, but that's another piece.)
Lust also addresses the notion that, for women, sex and desire are so often seen as superficial performance, rather than experience and, in turn, that it doesn't matter whether women experience real pleasure or not. Indeed, porn (unfeminist porn?) feeds into this idea and girls are cultivated to be turned on by simply performing desire, rather than experiencing it. Although the performance of sex isn't a terrible thing, per se, this is a damaging blanket assumption that has led to the dominance of the male gaze. And the only representation of the female gaze we seem to see is of being fangirls or 'middle-aged' housewives, who are ridiculed and deemed the premature or mature horny exception to the norm. Lust insists upon not denying the male gaze, but encouraging an honesty between performance and real life and the importance of both male and female pleasure, albeit a beautifully shot real life with lots of intense orgasms.
Her movies do have, as described, "an innovative mise-en-scène, beautiful sets, and characters we can identify with" but also a creativity, imagination and linger that we can lust for. This seems far from the Mills and Boon/Chippendale representations of female desire of days gone by.
Finally, the porn is feelgood in the sense that you get the impression everyone's been paid and/or appreciates the artistic vision behind it. Also that no one is pretending to love it through gritted teeth and a bad case of the shakes. Yes, I'm making assumptions. But as far as I'm concerned, as a sex positive feminist, Erika Lust fills a pretty wanting void.
Picture shows Erika Lust casually sitting in a chair and smiling, against a blue background. She is holding what looks like a magazine in her left hand and a pen in her right hand, wearing blue jeans and a vest top with the word "lust" in silver on it. By TV Cultura and shared under a creative commons licence.
Jean Gabin: Working Class Hero to Godfather season at BFI Southbank plus COMPETITION
by Ania Ostrowska // 30 April 2012, 13:24
Throughout May BFI Southbank celebrates a career of French actor Jean Gabin (1904-1976), one of the iconic stars of French cinema, spanning over four decades.
If we keep in mind that investigations into constructions of masculinity are yet another manifestation of feminist film history, this perhaps not straightforwardly 'feminist' season becomes worthy of second thoughts and a second look.
The season is curated by Ginette Vincendeau, Professor in Film Studies at King's College London, who in her introductory talk on 2 May explores the complexities in Gabin's projection of charismatic 'ordinariness' throughout his career.
You can admire performances of women stars of French cinema of different generations (Simone Simon and Jeanne Moreau among others) as well as catch Pierre Granier-Deferre's 1971 Le Chat, a study of an ageing couple which Rina Rosselson wrote about in her feature for The F-Word on older women in films.
For your chance to win a pair of tickets for the Gabin film of your choice or a book on French cinema please answer the following question:
Which of the films featured in the season is the adaptation of Émile Zola's novel?
Please send your answer and the date of your preferred screening by midday 2 May (Wednesday) to ania.ostrowska[at]thefword.org.uk
Photo courtesy of the BFI, A BFI Theatrical Release, Le Quai des Brumes
Weekly round-up and open thread
by Shiha Kaur // 30 April 2012, 13:12
Welcome to this week's round-up and open thread. The following are links that we have found that might interest you. If you have found anything that you think other readers will enjoy please add links in the comments section below. As usual, please note that a link here doesn't imply endorsement or agreement, and some links might be triggering.
Mean Girls: feminism, the internet, and being nice (Bright Green)
Why the sex positive movement is bad for sex workers' rights (Audacia Ray)
Why we need to keep talking about the white girls on Girls (Jezebel)
Sky News accidentally identifies Ched Evans rape victim while reporting Twitter row (Telegraph)
An open letter on glamour from a former glamour model, Alex Sim-Wise
What does Cannes have against women directors? (Film Critic)
Twitter users to be arrested over naming of Ched Evans rape victim (Guardian)
Facebook Tells Mother: Remove Photos of Down Syndrome Child (Care2)
Nuns left stunned by Vatican rebuke for 'radical feminist' tendencies (The Sydney Morning Herald)
"Why aren't there more women in tech?" Wrong question. (Cnet)
Erika Lust is occupying feminist porn (Vice)
Hair! (Not the Musical) (Vagenda)
Being a torch bearer : mixed feelings and intersections (Sisters of Frida)
Gendered Marketing Really Gets on My Tits (@unfortunatalie)
Trans in Media: The ASAI rule on Paddy Power (TENI) See also earlier posts on The F-Word here and here.
How Belle du Jour got her figures wrong (New Statesman)
A critical response to the coalition for equal marriage's new video (Marxist Queen):
Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women at Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention (The Shrieking Violet)
What men say about women when they think you've never been one (The Bilerico Project)
Inner city life (Bird of Paradox)
Why I refuse to back Boris Johnson (Speaker's Chair)
Sex Workers - an invitation to tell your story (Greta Christina's Blog)
Picture by Flickr user @Doug88888, used under a Creative Commons License
'The face I couldn't face'
by Guest Blogger // 29 April 2012, 22:00
Natalie James is performing at the hip hop dance theatre festival Breakin' Convention at Sadlers Wells on Saturday. Here she explains her piece
My daughter and I are currently staying in a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence. As a result of an ex partner, my daughter's dad, we have relocated from another city.
Some days I have doubts, with constant highs and lows. One day I'm getting VIP seating, walking the red carpet with an invite to the premiere of Streetdance 2 3D, with star dancers from the movie.
The next I'm helping police with their investigation into last year's assault. Then there are general day to day motherly duties such as supporting my daughter's transition to a new school after missing a whole term due to leaving our home to resettle, and everything that comes with uprooting and trying to move forward.
I'd like to get out of this refuge that I quote "had a choice" in moving to, according to a London local authority borough. The same advisor said: "Well, its not like somebody held a gun to your head"... so they clearly never listened to me or my refuge worker at the time.
This is where my chosen career comes in. I am working on a new solo for Breakin' Convention 2012 at Sadlers Wells to express how I feel about the whole situation. In a way it's like therapy.
The piece itself represents my inner and outer scars, wanting to change who I was as I could not accept that this is part of who I am. Revealing what I covered because of how ugly it was, and how I felt ugly inside as a result of someone else's lack of control.
The piece is called Unrecognisable and incorporates movement, lighting, set design and visual imagery to express my thoughts and feelings. It reflects my feelings about a period in which I didn't recognise myself.
Through this piece and starting afresh I feel strongly that this is facing the issue head on rather than running away.
I gradually became more and more internally angry and then the inner battle started. 'It's too late, no-one will believe me now for sure!' Eventually it became too much and I needed to deal with it in a way that felt right to me. I just couldn't live my life with regrets anymore. This was my way of rightly facing this situation... by going head to head and addressing it in a non-physical way.
Going back to the piece, I have performed it twice so far, but in different ways. It definitely wasn't easy to do and my daughter thought I was crazy when I told her I was working in the studio on my birthday. (When she came back from the sitters she crossed her arms and frowned asking why I didn't have a party!) Numerous times even today I question myself about presenting it for Breakin' Convention at Sadlers Wells next week...
Originally the piece was performed in silence, because I wanted to challenge the audience response when an image is projected. The second time I performed to my own spoken word for an event to try help raise awareness for domestic violence (which is how the piece came about).
Last year I did a solo for an event and the bruises were under my makeup (they didn't know, it was purely coincidence). I was hesitant to agree but after reading the brief I just couldn't say no, plus I wasn't going to do a solo or anything personal to my situation....
The picture of my face was the face I could not face at that time and the face that stays with me even now.
I wanted to share through my solo, how - even though I always stood up for myself - I got affected by this inside. I wanted to share how I could forgive a human for doing something that not even animals do to each other, but I couldn't forgive myself for being human and not having the strength to face the police sooner. How even when I moved to another city and finally got to press charges, the bruise was still with me even if it wasn't visible.
So many questions came up during the creative process and many of them all aimed at the human mind. What is acceptable to one person may be unacceptable to another... what maybe right to you, maybe be wrong to me and so on,how people as a community can influence a persons perspective of right and wrong. I based my solo on my interpretation of right and wrong, regarding my knowledge of my situation and people I know have been in situations similar, and how things may or may not be different when you yourself are involved.
Photo used with permission, by Irven Lewis Photography
New Review: Iron Butterflies
by Charlene Moore // 29 April 2012, 18:33
Carrie Spencer reviews Birute Regine's guide to modern leadership by becoming an Iron Butterfly, which, Regine says, will help women "transform themselves and the world"
Have you ever wondered what deep, dark, closely guarded secrets lie above the notorious glass ceiling? Using a myriad of other women's accounts of life above the glass, Birute Regine's Iron Butterflies reveals that there are still more fights to be fought in the name of equality.
As Regine shows, it is clear how far gender equality has come since the beginning of feminist activism. She provides women with the way of the "Iron Butterfly" as a guide to help us better deal with the new situations which have arisen, due to women continuing to move into workplaces which were once even more male dominated than they currently are.
Click here to read the rest of the review and to comment
Breaking up is hard to do
by Guest Blogger // 29 April 2012, 14:10
Ada Nkechi enjoys all things comedic, all things outsized and all things thought-provoking. She's particularly enthused by things with all three qualities, such as religion, politics, poker with massive playing cards
There are many ways to leave a marriage, but there are only two ways to leave your own wedding: as the bride, or as the bitch who did a runner.
I broke off an engagement at the start of 2012. It's a thing that, to be fair, few people ever expect to do once they've proposed or accepted.
In my case, it became clear that the engagement, unexpected in the short term but not undiscussed in our six-year relationship, bore no resemblance to the marriage I'd been talking about with my partner. Further to that, the piqued self-awareness that such moments bring made it clear that I could not commit to what my partner had in mind, nor he to what I had in mind. It was impossible to continue. The deed had to be done.
Whereas a 'normal' breakup is followed by tea and sympathy, the reactions of some close friends and family surprised me. A few people took it upon themselves to feel sadder than the protagonists in the wedding drama. One friend put in, 'I knew it wouldn't work from the moment you told me you were engaged... I'm not judging you, but breaking off an engagement is something I could never do.' A rather unscrupulous (divorced) aunt suggested that as long as someone was putting a ring on my finger, it didn't really matter.
These comments left a strong sense that it took me a long time to define - that an engaged woman should be grateful. Someone offers you a ring - that's the most you can ever hope for. You're a fool to turn it down. Why would you expect anything more? There was also the bind that keeps so many in bad relationships: once you've committed, it's better to be consistent than self-aware and single.
It also became clear that things became clear: the proposal, like most life crossroads, was a wake-up call. I was lucky enough to heed that my partner and I were headed for parallel and not converging lives. It's easy to see how wives-to-be can be swept up in the heady air of approval, attention and affection between engagement and marriage. Breaking up, or building your relationship, are pushed to the bottom of a long to-do list.
The awful day came to give the ring back. I'd seen this done only once before. I watched Sex and the City and followed in Carrie's high-heeled steps. Sardonic and pragmatic Miranda asks, "I'm going to ask you an unpleasant question now - why did you say yes?" Carrie, wracked with doubts, replies: "A man you love kneels in the street and offers you a ring. You say yes; it's what you do." Most of us advocate a less flaky and socially constructed response than Carrie. I said yes because I'd come to terms with whatever in our relationship had made me think of leaving before. I wanted to work towards him and he towards me, for good and all. I never anticipated anything derailing my decision. But it did.
In the end, the responses I was most affected by were positive. My father: "You've had to make a tough judgement call. But we trust your judgement and will support you in your decision." My cousin: "It's not even an issue - we are happy that you're happy." (FYI - this sort of episode highlights who you really do and really don't need to invite to any eventual wedding.)
If Tolstoy is right, "all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". Perhaps that makes it easier for friends and family to rally blissfully around a relationship in the good times, and find the bad times somewhat incomprehensible. So if ever you find yourself teetering on the diamond-encrusted brink, know two things:
No-one will have to live with the consequences of your decision but you.
Self-acceptance can take a lifetime to achieve. A ring won't change that.
Long Live Love.
Photo by Jason Eppink, shared on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Not so Lush
by Laura Woodhouse // 27 April 2012, 13:11
There's lots of debate currently going on through our Twitter feed around Lush's publicity stunt to highlight the cruelty of testing cosmetics on animals. It's a performance piece in which the female actress artist plays the role of the animal while a man restrains, force feeds and performs horrible tests on her which essentially look like torture. In a shop window.
I first heard about the campaign this morning and started to watch the video [MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING] of the stunt, but was so disturbed and upset that I had to stop a few moments in. I've actually found it hard to focus on my work this morning because of it and still feel shaky and sick.
Lush's campaign manager has defended the stunt with this blog post, where she says:
I am very aware and very sad that campaigning groups (and all sorts of other groups, industries etc) have capitalised on titillating images of women - or worse - on images and storylines that encourage the abuse of women. It is a depressingly simple way to cause a stir whilst reinforcing certain power structures. It is a way of generating 'attention' that both I and Jacqui [theactressartist involved] condemn.
We did not perform a sexy version of oppression or create a teasing 'naughty' campaign. Instead - led by Jacqui's desire to perform an endurance piece that would respect the actual suffering of millions of animals - we performed a version of oppression in which we are all complicit to challenge women and men to consider the dark secrets of a beauty industry that insists it exists to make us 'feel good'.
It was a performance of violence (not violence against women) where - unsurprisingly - the oppressor was male and the abused was vulnerable and scared.
We felt it was important, strong, well and thoroughly considered that the test subject was a woman. [...]It would have been disingenuous at best to have pretended that a male subject could represent such systemic abuse.
The crux of her argument appears to be that they needed to draw upon the oppression of women through violence and abuse in order to draw attention to the oppression of animals through violence and abuse. This implies that the general public care about violence against women and don't care about violence against animals.
But this is clearly not the case. I think most people would agree that cruelty to animals is a bad thing; in fact, as a nation we appear to care more about the abuse of animals than the abuse of women, given that we give more to donkey sanctuaries than charities supporting female victims of violence. It's a sad fact that plenty of the men targeted by Lush's stunt will have committed violence against women themselves, or used sexually violent images to get off on. I somehow doubt that they care more about women being hurt than fluffy animals being carved to pieces.
So where's the logic in using a woman for the campaign? Why not fill their shop windows with photos of tortured animals, show undercover videos from animal testing labs or perform the stunt using realistic models of animals? I can only conclude that they did indeed want to "cause a stir".
Like PETA, Lush have capitalised on the fact that women's bodies garner attention and, like PETA, they don't seem to be particularly bothered about any collateral damage.
One in four women have experienced male violence, which means that a quarter of the women who walked past the shop window or clicked the link to their video and saw a woman being tortured may very well have been reminded of their abuse, with all the upset and trauma that entails. And not a trigger warning in sight. Do Lush think we need to experience trauma ourselves in order to care about the trauma experienced by animals? I know I don't.
Furthermore, by knowingly and intentionally using the oppression and abuse of women as a springboard to raise awareness about the abuse of animals, Lush are drawing attention away from the first form of oppression and onto the second. Ignore the fact that this is a woman being tortured: imagine if she were an animal! Yeah, violence against women is bad, but look what your cosmetics consumption does to animals!
This approach would be justifiable if violence against women was universally regarded as a terrible issue of grave importance. But it isn't. Victim blaming is rife; services for victims are woefully underfunded and just this week thousands of people have pledged their support for a convicted rapist. We desperately need to draw attention to violence against women, not use violence against women to draw attention to other issues.
In this context, Lush's actions are crass, insensitive and actually damage many of the people who care about the issues they are trying to raise. As one of them, I am hugely disappointed in the company, and will never be shopping there again.
NB: I didn't watch any more of the video as I felt myself getting triggered and spacing out (thanks, Lush!), so I haven't got the full picture and would welcome other people's comments.
Image of a guinea pig - and animal I care about very much despite not watching the whole of Lush's video - by WOAW, shared under a Creative Commons licence.
Putting mothers in their place
by Guest Blogger // 26 April 2012, 21:53
This is a guest post by Elizabeth Howard. Elizabeth has recently completed a PhD in contemporary women's literature at the University of Leicester and is now enjoying planning her future as a general pain in patriarchy's backside.
BBC Sussex's twitter feed yesterday asked 'Can Mums really expect careers? Is it fair on the kids? Or is it your right?', highlighting the continuing and harmful cultural expectation that women should be predominantly responsible for childcare. Aside from the offensive assertion that working mothers are somehow being 'unfair' to their children, BBC Sussex's apparent inability to recognise that many children have stay-at-home fathers while their mothers pursue a career outside the home suggests that the censure of working parents relates only to women.
Such stereotyping reflects an underlying assumption that appears to be reinforced on a governmental level. Parental leave entitlements in the UK are the most inequitable in Europe, with paternity leave offered at a rate of only two weeks statutory pay, as opposed to six weeks at 90% pay followed by a further thirty three weeks at statutory pay or 90% pay and thirteen weeks unpaid for mothers. While recent steps to increase maternity pay are commendable, the ongoing emphasis on female responsibility for childcare is deeply damaging, both to women and to children. Feminist classics such as Marilyn French's The Women's Room and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper outline in searing detail the ramifications to both mother and child when women are forced into patriarchal models of the 'perfect' mother.
While I in no way intend to criticise any mother (or father) who chooses to become a stay-at-home parent, the rigid insistence upon female responsibility for childrearing inherent in our parental leave system reinforces a destructive pattern of familial relationships that women have long fought to overcome. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique showed that such relationships, in which women are allowed to find meaning only through their husbands and children, leads to deep psychological dissatisfaction for many women. That such models remain ideologically intact nearly fifty years later is astonishing; that it is women themselves who promote such detrimental models, a cause of deep concern.
As a woman who has fought to overcome social and economic disadvantages to pursue a career I find the idea that I, as a woman, should automatically jettison my intellectual ambitions if I want to also become a mother as intolerable as Friedan suggests. Furthermore, it would be economically disadvantageous for me to do so - another point that BBC Sussex's question overlooks. Many women simply do not have the economic luxury of choosing to become stay-at-home mothers.
Yet BBC Sussex is simply reflecting a growing movement which turns its back on the advances of the last forty or fifty years, instead reifying a romantic 'ideal' of motherhood as the ultimate fulfilment of female purpose and in which women who do not have children or do but choose to work are condemned as 'unnatural'. Although simply questioning the rights of mothers to work does not reflect this view overall, the fact that only women are mentioned betrays an underlying view that parenting (along with associated concerns such as birth choices and availability or schooling options) is solely a 'women's issue' .
This insistence upon viewing childrearing as an inherently female concern is tied to essentialist notions of women as natural nurturers, traditionally used to exclude female involvement in the 'masculine' public and political spheres. The glorification of female self-sacrifice inherent in such views should therefore be rightly condemned as sexist suppression of female potential. Women are no more psychologically 'suited' to domestic tasks than men, men no more naturally inclined towards intellectual pursuits than women. Yet we continue to be fed these same tired stereotypes, often by the very people who have overcome gender barriers themselves, presumably like many of the staff of BBC Sussex itself, and ignore the fact that not everyone has the choice to do so.
I respect anyone's choice to be a stay-at-home parent, yet the casual condemnation of the millions of women who choose to or have to work ignores the fact that the role some men and women find so fulfilling can also be injurious to anyone who is expected to do it simply on the basis of being female. I do not personally care how anyone chooses to order their home or how traditional or otherwise one chooses to be. I do care, however, when BBC Sussex uses those choices to diminish and restrict all women.
Photo of Italian MEP Licia Ronzulli by European Parliament, shared under a Creative Commons licence.
New review: Circumstance
by Ania Ostrowska // 24 April 2012, 22:40
"From an early age, I have been a translator of culture: East for West, and West for East," writes Maryam Keshavarz, director, producer and writer of Circumstance. She writes of how she grew up with Iranians burning American flags on one side of her existence, while in New York her brother was attacked by a gang who accused him of being a 'fucking terrorist'. "This was in 1981", she clarifies.
Asked by AfterEllen.com about her first feature film, Keshavarz says:
"Circumstance on one level is about a very liberal family in Tehran, Iran who is torn apart when the brother and sister start to go in different directions. But also on another level it's a love triangle about a brother and sister in love with the same girl."
Iman Qureshi reviews for us the film by Iranian director, screened in London during last month's London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (and which unfortunately still hasn't got UK distribution confirmed, as Iman found out in her interview with Keshavarz).
Click here to read the review and comment.
Pop Girls: J-Pop and K-Pop
by Cazz Blase // 24 April 2012, 18:30
Way back on New Years Eve, I was innocently sitting in my kitchen listening to the World Service when my interest was aroused by a short report on the K-Pop trend in Japan.
The report contrasted the women in J-Pop (Japanese pop) girl bands with those in K-Pop (Korean pop) bands, and what followed was a discussion revolving initially around image which also took in the wider socio-cultural context of the phenomenon.
A key point that was made was that while many J-Pop girl bands rely on a very girly, young, innocent image (which, it could be argued, has links to both lolita fashion trends and subcultures and also adult manga) the K-Pop girls were conveying a more assertive, stroppy and grown up image.
Whether you think the 2NE1 video above is any more empowering for young women to encounter than the C-UTE one is (I think the clue might be in the name there...)they do provide food for thought. Any defence of 2NE1 is liable to come close to what I like to think of as the Spice Girls defence, but I can't help but find the contrast, and what it represents in a wider sense, intriguing.
Joanna Tocher, our music reviewer in Japan, has mentioned that there have been protests in Japan against the influence of Korean culture in the country. The report on the World Service on the other hand contrasted the assertive aspirational image portrayed by 2NE1 in their videos with the reality of life in Japan for Koreans.
But if Japanese girls really do want to look like Barbie, as a recent blog post on this site suggested, then surely anything that isn't pink and depicting the participants as very, very young for a much older audience would be a good thing?
Not that the UK and US doesn't have pop music videos that cause pause for thought for all the wrong reasons. and to fail to acknowledge that when assessing Japanese and Korean pop stars in any kind of feminist capacity would be very wrong indeed.
But I can't help but think that to reduce the whole debate down to 'Japanese girl culture infantilises girls in a very pink and sinister way' vs 'Korean girls are stroppy and empowered! go them!' would be simplistic and patronising, not to mention disturbingly close to racism.
To take 2NE1 as the definitive Korean pop example, or C-UTE as the defininite Japanese one would be like comparing S Club 7 to the Sugababes: Really rather meaningless.
Comments on the look like Barbie post on The F-Word have pointed to the influence of lolita fashions in Japan, and also Ganguro both of which complicate the issues around not only C-UTE but also 2NE1 themselves.
This is 'It Hurts', a ballad by 2NE1 which references gothic lolita fashions, though the emphasis is on the gothic here rather than on the lolita.
And this is 'Tokaikko Junjou' by C-UTE, who are going for less of a pink feel this time.
I first encountered what was then known as the gothic lolita look via a report on the Japanese street fashion bible Fruits and its first book, also called Fruits I have to confess to having been rather puzzled at first because I was used to the old style goth uniform of wedding dresses and backcombed hair with lashings of eyeliner (I have some friends who have embarrassing pictures tucked away in places they hope friends, family and, especially, partners will never find them...)not excessively dainty looking girls who looked like they'd swallowed the complete works of Jane Austen.
As you can see from this picture, the gothic lolita look has spread beyond Japan.
Since then, the film Kamikaze Girls has been released, and its two heroines - Momoko and Ichigo - represent two very different examples of young Japanese womanhood. Momoko is the dainty lolita fashionista, obssessed with embroidery and all things rococco, and Ichigo is a biker girl who headbutts first and asks questions later. Theirs is an unlikely friendship and its interesting to see, as the film progresses, how their two personalities and sense of identity become challenged by the other. Something of a cult hit, the film and its soundtrack have sparked innumerable Youtube tributes, and this is one of the best. Please note though that no Rihanna songs form any part of the official Kamikaze Girls soundtrack.
To get away from discussing purely C-UTE and 2NE1 videos, I also found some other examples of Japanese and Korean girl pop to ponder.
The first clip is Japanese artist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu performing 'Pon Pon Pon', the second is Korean girl band Girls Generation, and I would say that the director of their video is clearly familiar with the 1980s film Mannequin
There isn't really much to choose between the Girls Generation video and the second of the C-UTE videos so far as girlish innocence is concerned, suggesting that 2NE1 might have the role of surly but well styled assertive girls with great jackets to themselves.
What I have noticed in my rather flimsy K-Pop and J-Pop survey is that the two Korean bands I looked at seem to be looking further afield in terms of chart success, whereas the Japanese bands/artists seemed to be largely aimed at the Japanese market. 2NE1 have started to sing in English increasingly, and this video clip below would seem to suggest a clear stab at the international pop market.
Will they go big beyond Japan? Who could say at this stage? But it would certainly seem to be premature to say 'No'.
To sum up either Korean or Japanese music as being entirely about the type of music discussed above would be misguided and unrepresentative, and for anyone whose teeth are hurting from watching some of the videos above, I reccomend reading Joanna's piece on Japanese band Puffyshoes as an antidote, if a quick blast of Shonen Knife doesn't do the trick.
You could argue that a nation is judged by its pop music or, even worse, by its Euravision entry (but lets not go there...) just as you could argue that a nations pop music holds up a mirror to a nations culture, prejudices, and on the rare occasion, politics. So just as Rihanna has been judged in the context of UK and US debates about the sexualisation of young girls, so are we judging J-Pop and K-Pop in the context of lolita fashions and our own conveniant benchmarks: the Spice Girls, the Sugababes.
For a more left of centre taste of Japan, here is the more indie sounding Everlast and the clip below, is 'Story of my life' by Chii, a refreshingly innovative slice of Japanese trip hop.
Image of 2NE1 by aBbYhaLO, shared via a flickr creative commons licence
Founder of The F-Word, Catherine Redfern, has co-authored a new book with Kristin Aune. Find out more at the 
