Ellen Willis’ years as a rock critic were a blip, comparatively, to the rest of her work, deep and engaging pieces on feminism, economics, anti-Semitism, revolution, mass consumption, Marxism, and … believe it or not … pleasure. Pleasure was a big big deal to her. It was political. Because of this, her work was often against the grain of mainstream feminism, and Lord help you if you are against THEIR grain. Believe me, I’ve been there. Nobody SHUNS more effectively than a mainstream feminist. Willis’ focus on pleasure, on happiness, on JOY, is still radical to read today, maybe even more so. We live in a humorless age. And because there is no humor, there is no joy. I mean, obviously people still feel joy on occasion but joy as a GOAL, pleasure as a GOAL … this, for Willis, was looped into politics.
I first came to her because of her music writing, collected in the wonderful volume Out of the Vinyl Deeps. Her beginnings are amazing, and disheartening at the same time because the world is so different now. She wrote this massive wild personal piece about Bob Dylan for an underground magazine. It’s an OPUS. This is the definition of “letting your obsession run the show”. Be as obsessive as you want to be, and do it in an authentic way. People are always trying to tell you to calm down, get some perspective, focus on serious issues. Especially in 1967, when she wrote that piece. The piece, as I said, was in an underground magazine, but it created a wave. Out of that wave, she was given a column on rock and pop music in The New Yorker, the first of its kind. She literally had no established fingerprint as a cultural commentator. The Dylan piece was enough. There were no women writing about rock music at the time – at least not at her level. And The New Yorker! The bastion of high culture! Covering rock music? By a WOMAN?? She crushed it with that column. Her music writing also appeared in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, etc. She saw Elvis perform twice, once in Vegas, and once at Madison Square Garden, and she wrote about both experiences. I treasure these pieces because they are a rarity: writers responding to him in real time while he was still here. He STILL wasn’t being covered in a serious way. He was seen as schmaltzy, silly, out of touch – never mind that he sold out Madison Square Garden in minutes for four separate shows. Willis covered the Elvis phenomenon seriously.
Her writing inspired many people – like Greil Marcus, for example – who are way more well-known than she is. Typical. Robert Christgau cites her as influential on him. Many others do as well. If you know you know.
She expressed some frustration that her “legacy” was mostly her music writing. She did so much more, but it was mostly feminist writing for feminist journals, and therefore not as well known. Don’t get me started. Her voice in feminism was just as unique as her voice in music writing. It’s like there are all these different strains of feminism … and because we live in a world that sucks, it’s just assumed that only ONE strain can “win”. You can’t allow diversity in a demographic under siege. (Apparently.) But Willis’ feminism – and how she keeps coming back to pleasure – (and we’re not talking about just sexual pleasure, but a life of joy and fun as political goals) … is a missing piece for me in today’s rhetoric.
I realize I’m speaking in generalizations but this is not abstract territory to me. I came of age in the 90s, so … very different from 1970s feminism, but the divisions were pretty much the same. Ellen Willis wrote a piece about Monica Lewinsky that I think about probably daily. It is SO out of step with today’s discourse I am sure some people would reject if without even having read it. But I LOVED her perspective. Reading it was like coming up for air.
Read Out of the Vinyl Deeps, absolutely. But then go on and read The Essential Ellen Willis filled with everything ELSE she wrote. “Essential” indeed.
“Music that boldly and aggressively laid out what the singer wanted, loved, hated — as good rock ’n’ roll did — challenged me to do the same, and so, even when the content was antiwoman, antisexual, in a sense antihuman, the form encouraged my struggle for liberation” — Ellen Willis
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