Does the Pussy Riot protest taste bad?

September 4, 2012

Oliver Heath gets his protest on and is left with a bad taste in his mouth:

The arrest of masked Russian punk band Pussy Riot for staging a protest in an orthodox Cathedral united the kind of cross section of celebrities usually reserved for the plight of starving children.

It was a great media op and association for supporters: The Evil Russian Empire vs The Warm Hearted Women. As a cause they are aesthetically the baby seal equivalent of a radical, they looked very striking in their brightly coloured balaclavas – when I find some merchandise I’ll finally have something to complement my Che Guevara & Free Wynona t-shirts. After the media spectacle and my amusement at stiff-lipped newsreaders saying “pussy” subsided, I was left wondering if the many new internet pages with that word would serve as a kind of accidental google-bomb. Would countless trolls, cock in hand, be getting unexpected lessons in feminism when they searched for “free pussy”? I hope so.

It’s astounding how, overnight, a word can be repositioned; the whole world was talking about pussy and meaning a feminist band instead of a sex object. Activists now have an unprecedented ability to reach a global audience via social media, but as I was reminded, so do media savvy brands.

My friend Ray, from punk rock promoter My Sydney Riot, put out a music compilation and organised a drum protest in Taylor Square, Sydney, to coincide with the announcement of the verdict. In a cheerful mood of solidarity I went along masked, drum in hand. I wasn’t expecting so much press at the Drum Riot, and I was shocked that videos and photos of the event were syndicated globally. A friend in America spotted it on Democracy Now; another in the Mexican press; I saw it in The Guardian. One photo with me in it, clearly chosen because I was with Skarlett Saramore who is a rad drumming babe, wound up in the video for their new song. I feel a little like an impostor in the pictures, as if to accompany the happy accident of the media google bomb, I’d just inadvertently pulled off an epic photobomb.

I was also surprised that the protest was sponsored by artful astroturfers Sailor Jerry Rum. It is difficult to take this contradiction lightly. A rum brand, riding the coattails of a long-gone tattoo artist, riding the cool of a protest. Their logo appeared on the poster and album, their product was lined up in a video made to document the event. I like the video, I dislike the association. I still can’t quite get my head around it. It’s as banal as denim being positioned as a symbol of rebellion.

One might argue that this is no different from an accounting firm sponsoring the opera, or a streetwear brand sponsoring an art show, that it’s facilitating another form of expression. But for me, unlike their delicious spiced rum, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s vulgar. Disrespectful to the band’s action and missing the point of protest. A protest does not need a sponsor. The beauty of a protest is that you are able to mobilise the only thing that us plebs have lots of… more plebs.

Perhaps this particular event might not have had the attention without the sponsor, and maybe in Ray’s position I would have taken whatever I could get. But I don’t think that’s a good trade. Ask yourself “What would Pussy Riot do?” I like to think that they would steal the rum, smash the bottles and stab us sellouts in the dick with it. Grim, but at least we’ve moved on from thwarted masturbation to internet porn to being punished by masked women. “Gaaah put on your masks and punish me Pussy Riot.. I’m a sellout.” Shit. I’ve always been a lousy feminist.

And that’s the danger, the ability to recontextualise something goes both ways. Pussy Riot becomes a masochistic fantasy or a Rum ad and Ghandi was used to sell apple computers. There’s opportunity for activists in social media but the traditional marketers are well aware of this, and are vying for the same space, buying our compliance with sweet, sweet booze.