What Paula Irmschler has to say after three seasons of “Euphoria” and about Ikkimel’s album “Poppstar”.
It happened: I watched “Euphoria” in its entirety again because I had a few questions. Was the series really any good? Was it one of those hazy Corona hypes that we look back on today with some shame? Is it really the case that you fell for Supercreep Sam Levinson and it was always a shitshow? Or was it once brilliant, but that was just an accident?
In fact, when I re-watched the series, I found it even better than the first time. I thought she was brilliant. The final product that flashed across my television was almost perfect. Regardless of whether it was a coincidence or not, whatever was going on behind the scenes, who stole what and from whom or whose Nepobaby is who: Season 1 and 80 percent of Season 2 are outstanding in my opinion. And you can also understand why this is the case, even though the guy who significantly shaped the series is such a slob, who didn’t ensure a good working atmosphere, was partly responsible for the stupid series “The Idol” and of course used other people’s art. It’s exactly the latter that matters.
“Euphoria” is so brilliant because, like almost everything, it wasn’t created from the crap of a GENIUS, but because a lot of people work on a series like this. People did great casting, got great clothes, did crazy make-up, did amazing lighting, created wonderful images, made fantastic music, helped develop the stories and, above all, acted incredibly.
The preparation
Now everyone may have found something different about the series. For me, the harm that girls and young women experience through pornography and romantic ideas has rarely been discussed so accurately without showing anything in a spare way. Almost everything in these girls’ lives revolves around submitting to patriarchal capitalism. There is no future for them either, it’s all about the value they have in the now and here, and that lies in reaping the “fruits” of performed porn sexiness. The fruits: male gaze, male violence, online attention, a little money. That’s why they think they have to like it because it works, because they’re told it’s worth it and, above all, because there are no alternatives.
The only one who doesn’t take part or can’t take part is the drug-addicted, depressed Rue, who is a lesbian and, because she can’t take part in the hyper-pornosexual activity, is sometimes considered asexual. Although she does feel lust and desire (for example towards Jules), she can’t live it out in this world that is too full of porn and sadness.
Otherwise there is little prospect of a better world. Rue doesn’t get the psychological and medical help she needs, and her and the others’ families apparently don’t get any social help either. They all seem completely alone and isolated. Everyone muddles through, everyone acts out their adjustments on each other. In the course of this, Rue repeatedly tries to become religious – in order to get away from the drugs that help her, but because of which her loved ones have to fear for her – first on the advice of her sponsor, but then again and again herself. The search for God extends into the third season, into the seventh year of Euphoria, into her 20s. But it doesn’t save them either.
Still more
The fact that the third season is so cartoonish is somehow fitting. The desperation is only smeared in your face even more. There is more porn, more sex industry, more sacrifices to be made, more violence, more stupid things. The faces are even more grimacing and trying harder, the clothes have to be held together even harder, and the functional fucking around becomes even more infantile and cramped.
I’m a bit confused as to how intentional anything is here, because in my opinion it’s rarely been shown more clearly what a one-way street this capitalist form of sex positivism is and that porn has to die so that we can live. None of the women are happy or even okay, but they are all supposed to be sex industry girl bosses in some way.
Ikkimel’s “Popstar”
And so to the new Ikkimel album “Poppstar”. I know that most pop fans and critics supposedly don’t want to talk about it anymore and then do it all the time. Here I am! But if something always raises questions, maybe it doesn’t matter, although I would be very interested in Ikkimel albums being just any fun albums, for people who enjoy them. But the representatives of music labeled as “sex-positive” have long since become powerful – Ikkimel, for example, also performs for the Die Linke party. So you can’t blame anyone for wanting to take a closer look, especially when it’s used to pose the big question of feminism.
The irritation probably lies in the fact that Ikkimel is a woman who uses the naughty porn language that the previous generation only knew from naughty comedy men (outside of porn, that is). Because many people still act as if porn is in a secret, dirty corner and has not long since permeated language, fashion, music and sexuality.
But Ikkimel basically does something completely normal: it reproduces exactly what far too many people have been consuming for a long time. Constricted body, squeaky voice, submissive looks and poses, hackneyed cumming practices, you name it. Seriously, you name it, because I’m not in the mood for it. She does something completely in line with the market, basically downright brave, something that daddy capitalism has long honored: having fun with what is being done to you, cheekily “turning it around”, as if this turning around wasn’t already part of the narrative. But capitalist logic is so strong and has permeated so much that we can hardly imagine a world without porn, but rather a “playful,” “ironic” approach to it. That’s why it seems directly progressive.
Who appropriates what from whom here?
And this is then referred to as “reclaiming” or “appropriating”. But who appropriates what from whom? Women have long been bombarded with porn just as much as men, from childhood onwards. They’re involved in this. So there is no such thing as a pure, unpatriarchal “female gaze” or a pure “female desire”.
Appropriation here only seems to mean that everything continues as before, only that you think it’s good and do it yourself. But the violence remains in sex. Sex is not freed from domination. In Ikkimel’s songs, sex is still an opposition, a power game. So it’s not feminist, it can’t be.
Of course it doesn’t have to be. Ikkimel is an artist who makes songs, not a person who writes political manifestos or teaches children. But you still don’t have to fool yourself. She has fun and makes money with the preparation and affirms this culture.
That’s why “Euphoria” simply works better for me as a provocation, because it shakes things up more, because from every frame, even in the unloved third season, it’s in my face: This has to stop. That’s silly. This is dangerous. That’s not free. Maybe a fluke for Sam Levinson and his people, but one nonetheless.
