Pussy Riot and the Power of Myth
08.17.2012
Distressed at the notion that the three female punk rockers from the six-member group, Pussy Riot, were being slapped down way too hard for their anti-Putin protest in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral on February 21, we joined 300 other Parisians this broiling noon hour (Friday, the 17th) in a demonstration of solidarity at the famous Niki St. Phalle fountain next to the Pompidou Museum. (That's the fountain in our masthead, above.)
As the world knows, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and her band-mates Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, wearing knitted balaclavas, burst into the Orthodox church with three other band members (who are currently in hiding) and performed a song beseeching the Virgin Mary to oust the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who was standing for re-election.
The choice of venue, and of the Virgin, were a protest against the way the church has become, in the eyes of the band and other Russians, an arm of the Putin State during his twelve years in power.
Pussy Riot specializes in sudden, often illegal public performances, of the kind associated with flash mobs, including one in Moscow's Red Square. In a freer tradition, Pussy Riot would be recognized as the honored form of Trickster we call the court jester, the holy fool whose job/art it is to tell truth to power.
The State was not amused.
The women, all in their twenties, were arrested and charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," because their performance was called, by the government, a hate crime against the church. Pussy Riot called it free speech.
We call it myth. You don't have to believe in myth; it unfolds all around you, whether or not you believe in it.
In these last few days of Leo, with the Sun and Moon both in the sign, we've noticed many cat posts on Facebook. We're spending a lot of time with Marley, just admiring his feline beauty. And today, we're in a public square awaiting the verdict on Pussy Riot.
I've been re-reading Candide. Just imagine what Voltaire would have to say about this miserable witch-burning still going on in Russia. Enlightened Eighteenth Century philosophers, writers and politicians in England, the U.S. and France, were clear about the need to keep church and state separate, and to allow free speech, without repressive repercussions from religion or the government.
In an earlier age, the band, Pussy Riot, would have been burned as witches. There is a reason why cats and witches are connected. Cats are creatures of mystery. They are beautiful, not utilitarian. You don't see cats out herding cattle and sheep.
Zoologist Desmond Morris said, "Cats are artists, dogs are soldiers." Soldiers of the state like Putin don't understand artists or witches. Witches were probably early feminists, equally versed in magic and nature. They wanted to transform the world, as artists do. As these singers did, appealing to the Virgin Mary to stop Putin.
On a mythical level, the Virgin Mary is the goddess, Demeter. She is an earth goddess. In earlier times, women addressed the goddesses with such protests, and no man would dream of silencing them.
Despite worldwide protests, and appeals for leniency by creative artists ranging from Danny De Vito to Yoko Ono to Paul McCartney, the women, who were jailed for the five months awaiting trial, faced up to seven years in prison.
Our Paris demonstration, as well as others across Europe, were held at the time the court was to release its verdict. Organized by the French chapter of Amnesty International, aided by the International Federation for Human Rights, this Paris iteration attracted a cross-section of Parisians, including members of the local Federation of Anarchists. They carried black flags, and didn't mix much.
Despite the lack of shade, and an eighty-eight degree Fahrenheit temperature (31 Celsius), the fashion for the day was the balaclava, in spandex, leopard, or you-name-it, with or without slogans.
While the length of sentence was not handed down before the demonstration ended, the crowd was told by the event's Amnesty International host, who was monitoring the Internet on his iPhone, that the members of Pussy Riot were found guilty, expected information that was met with a chorus of boos.
Later Friday, the judge, Marina Sirovaya, sentenced the trio to two years in prison.
Astrology is just the time dimension, the seasonal aspect of myth. And today, as Leo draws to a close, the pussy cats are rioting.
Demeter, Leo, Pussy Riot, Putin, Russia, art, cats, demonstrations, mythology, protest in Paris Life, World Affairs
Reader Comments (16)
Wow!!! It looks like you had quite a day! The title was quite an attention grabber.
Love and miss you.
Kari
I can think of performances that screamed it out with better art. At least for their time. Now is now and we're in sad bad hours as far as the collective humanity and its rage against repression in country after country.
But art is art.
Munch’s Scream, Genet's the Blacks, Odets Waiting for Lefty The Beatle's Imagine, Dylan's Leather Boots or Mister Jones, Wilde's Dei Profundis, Paul Robeson’s Go Down Moses! …all were performance art in their way and time...and are remembered for content not only for the scream.
The sentence handed down by the Russian court is fascism in motion, and tragic in the path of human rights, of women being squelched and harmed. No question. But their act ain’t art. And I have a problem with that.
Ok, I'm gonna stick my neck out— yes, their statement is wonderfully impressive. Yes, they would have been burned in another day. Their written statement at the end of the trial was eloquent and important. Yes, they can write and they can think—about oppression and fascistic treatment, and they can express it in language. And, the Russian government strong arm is horribly wrong in the punishment they have meted out - to make their point. And the present day Russian Orthodixy is in cahoots. All so.
BUT, why is the initial girls in tights and hoods with screeched lyrics (dubbed in later for you tube,) why is it so, so, so so inane? No art to it. Imho. Yoko Ono in her day – screeching her lyrics had far more going for it, and she was criticized for lacking artistry, at the time. So I remember.
If these are young women capable of writing and speaking as they have - why the hell did they do such a dumb performance? Why not something wise or humane or or or? From my limited perspective, perhaps. Admittedly, I’m admittedly neither a fan of punk or rap, so I may be behind the veil of aesthetics.
Yeah, well. One gets no press for wise & humane. But to match up high-minded protest against a fascistic government with inane woman-as-fool presentation is maybe attention getting, but what one remembers is the performance at the end of the day. The hoods and pink tights. Press for being freaky. Guess I’m outta touch. Punk is like 40 yrs old anyway, so the whole approach I find retro at best. but worse, just bad art.
I wish the women instant freedom. Of course they do not deserve imprisonment. But – just sayin’.
Personally, I'll stick to Dylan or Vysotsky or Paul Robeson if I have a choice. But I don't. Not in this historic moment.
m
ps.
"Strict is the world of shadows and angels.
No worries, no fears beyond the grave.
Here we are, always living in danger,
Only the ones in the coffin are safe.
Some may accuse me of worshipping corpses.
No! It’s just with fate I’m upset!
Some day someone will run all of us over,
Unless of course you’re already dead.
Some day we all will get run over,
Except for the ones who are already dead."
[by Vladimir Vysotsky--from "A Merry Funeral Song/1970]
Hi, Margo:
We particularly noted this paragraph from the closing statement of defendant Maria Alyokhina: "I would like to point out that very similar methods were used during the trial of the poet [Joseph] Brodsky. His poems were defined as “so-called” poems; the witnesses for the prosecution hadn’t actually read them—just as a number of the witnesses in our case didn’t see the performance itself and only watched the clip online."
For our other readers who haven't read them, the translated full text of the defendants' closing statements are here, and make for some powerful reading: <http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements> .
You say: "to match up high-minded protest against a fascistic government with inane woman-as-fool presentation is maybe attention getting, but what one remembers is the performance at the end of the day."
We say, The SDS did a lot of weird, freaky, sometimes inane, sometimes terrible stuff, but in the end, we remember the Port Huron Statement. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron_Statement> Pussy Riot's performance got us reading their more eloquent critiques, so their art serves our continuing political education.
It may well be speaking to a different generation than ours, and for that, too, more power to them. Whatever art gets that generation thinking, and into the streets, is worth defending.
Hugs,
--R and K
p.s.: Perhaps Pussy Riot is speaking to the folks who think themselves "already dead."
Kari:
Paris would welcome you back in a heartbeat. Good to hear from you.
Love,
Kaaren and Richard
Hi R & K,
won't do much of a ping-pong match on this - the info is out there for all who care a lot. I will say that Brodsky may have been dissed by those who didn't know his poetry, but hard to diss the fine poet he was.
And having watched the videos and done a bit of research on the PR women, I have to say my opinion remains. Re SDS – well, not SDS, but another powerful force for activism and protest of that earlier time -- SNCC-- if memory serves, they even gathered actors who performed a production "Waiting For Godot" in the deeply segregated South, and even the smallest town children came and understood what they were eternally waiting for. Not an example of freaky stuff in my book, but rather of using art to make/help greater understanding.
If the question is generational, well, that's one thing, I suppose. But as I mentioned, Punk is some 40 years into being water under the bridge. Not so revolutionary any longer. What's important is that a finger is in fact being stuck in the eye of Putin's tactics. That's important, in my opinion. But, again, it could be done with art, not with hoods n screams.
Vive la difference.
xx, m
Hi Margo,
Punk rock is not 40 years old in Russia. It's still radical there. We weren't addressing the quality of Pussy Riot's art, but rather, their right to express it, and their right to speak truth to power.
The Russian art I'm reading right now is Chekhov's short stories. Literature: that's the Russian art we prefer. And Kandinsky.
Hugs,
K & R
"In the 1980s an underground scene of rock artists emerged that based their style on a mix of Western rock music (particularly those from the 1960s and 70s but also, increasingly, those that emerged out of the Western punk rock and New Wave) and the Russian bard tradition. "
here's more on Russian rock, punk, etc etc see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_rock
btw, I do understand that one important point of early punk was anti-elitist & a can-do attitude, reliance on self and not on the commercial systems. (my questions regarding 'art" perhaps raise similar questions to the over-accesibility of publishing on the net, in my mind.) But that's another kettle of fish.
@ Kaaren, Go Chekhov & Kandinsky! Yes. 2 of my preferences, too. And go: truth to power. Just make it good. :) Fail, or fail better!!
xxm
Wow! I love those ladies. So brave.
Go Pussy Riot!!!
Byeyoo!
Brave artists, just like you! Only you have the freedom in New Zealand and the U.S.A. to speak freely in the language of your art. These women deserve the same, and, given the public outcry, will probably be freed before their full two years is served.
Art: the wildest, deepest language of all, and we are all her servants.
Love,
Kaaren & Richard
Dear Margo:
We have drifted.
As defendant Maria Alyokhina was saying in her comparison with Brodsky's trial, the first step to being able to define someone as a criminal is the State saying what they are making is NOT art. Then the State can define art as "hooliganism," and the repression continues from there.
So someone who says, "Oh, I wish it was really art so I could better defend it" helps the State get away with its terror against artists by buying into the State's definition of not-art.
I'm sure we all wish Robert Mapplethorpe had photographed gay men holding lilies in their hands instead of in their rectums; so much easier to defend in our parlors and in the Congress. But he didn't; as an artist he chose the latter photograph.
And if only Lenore Kandel hadn't used such "dirty" words in The Love Book, we could have more easily defended her against those obscenity charges.
And if only Pussy Riot were better singers. But they aren't, they are performance artists who have been doing their art their way for however many years now, and their body of work as performance artists should speak for itself.
But the real drift was not into the discussion of "art/not-art," it was away from considering all of this in the mythological dimension, which is the point of the post. You don't read myths like the news; you read the news in the context of what our friend Alex Eliot calls the mythosphere.
As our post relates, the current Pussy Riot story is part of a longer, deeper story of women and their relationship to the patriarchal state, and of any state's desire to control protest and art, often, in history, by redefining it as hooliganism, or as witchcraft.
Hugs,
K and R
I admire anyone who is bold enough to tell the truth (my lifelong struggle).
And I admire those passionate Parisians, going out in all weather, to cheer for the truthtellers.
MEOWW. A saucer of milk to each pussy.
Jane
Dear Jane,
What a delight to come home from having dinner with Mona and Gabe to this message from you. It was wonderful to see them in Paris, and among many things, we talked of you and Bayu and Rachel.
You ARE a truthteller in your art.
MEOWW back, from Marley too,
Kaaren & Richard
K & R,
Got it! "...the real drift was not into the discussion of "art/not-art," it was away from considering all of this in the mythological dimension, which is the point of the post. You don't read myths like the news; you read the news in the context of what our friend Alex Eliot calls the mythosphere. As our post relates, the current Pussy Riot story is part of a longer, deeper story of women and their relationship to the patriarchal state, and of any state's desire to control protest and art, often, in history, by redefining it as hooliganism, or as witchcraft."
The attempts at discounting, dismissing, stonewalling, diminishing of my/the feminine voice is an incessant, tiresome theme in the world and your posts offer ways to masterfully, fiercely, and playfully dismantle those attempts. Your looking and documenting, encourages me to see what I see, foresee, and courageously act in ways to consciously create my future experience. With Paris Play's language of myth and images it's clear that life is leading me.
Tangential Point again: Punk rock is a favorite musical genre for some of my friends, who attend shows. There are fresh contributions from the genre every day, just as there is in new classical, jazz, alternative, world, etc.
Love,
Marguerite
Lest there be any misinterpretation of my words: ZERO support of ANY "State's definition of not-art" --is or was intended.
xxm
Dear Marguerite,
We love hearing your comment. Never have we needed the feminine voice more than today, with planet Earth so out of balance.
It seems to us relevant that the band members, while protesting against Putin's re-election and the lack of separation between church and state, DID cross themselves, bow to the altar, and address the Virgin Mary with a PRAYER, in the form of the song, "Mother of God, Put Putin Away." They were escorted out of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow after less than a minute. The harm by their performance is nothing compared to the harm such patriarchal repression has done to Russia and her people. And the harm that one-sided patriarchal values has done to Mother Earth.
Keep speaking up, dear friend. And thank you for your wisdom.
Much love,
K & R