Your Song

Music icon, Janis Joplin, once said, "Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers."  An interesting observation, as we consider  transnational feminist praxis  -how TFPX encourages active witness, and resists definition as it grows, changes and overlaps within and beyond itself.  

Through our current lens of feminist activism, Joplin's remark is both an accurate commentary on academic-activist dichotomy, and is also a wonderful summary of what it is to be active and engaged as a socially conscious, self-and-world-aware woman.  Joplin's words were consistently profound, honest and distinctly Janis. Joplin's unmatched sound, unique viewpoint and full-frontal passion for life made an indelible impact on the music scene, and in a broader sense, on popular culture. Her intensity and style were so well-matched for the time in which her star rose - it was as if she had a premonition that her window of opportunity would be small - and oh how she filled that too-brief vista with her mega-watt energy and talent!

The music industry was (and is still is) a very male-dominated space to make a living.  It was intensely "more-so" in the 60s and 70s when Ms. Joplin was working her magic. When asked about settling down (the patriarchal societal model vs. free love and no wedding ring), Joplin quipped, "I won't quit to be become someone's old lady."

Some say Janis was inspired by great American singers such as Bessie Smith, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday and Big Mama Thornton.  Similar to Elvis Presley, people weren't accustomed to hearing those sounds come out of a white person. Janis' response was a wake up call for cultural stereotypes: "You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things."

So, was her contribution to our life, our world, our music, our time - was it activism? She definitely shaped our view through her sharing of her talent and take on race, sex, music, politics, life, and everything in between. Very few will match Joplin's  impact on music, and no one will ever duplicate this person we know as Janis, but her life reinforces that activism is much more than lobbying government, writing reports and protest marches.

"When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills." - Janis Joplin