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Amanda Palmers provocative oeuvre: feminist poster girl and Brechtian

punk cabaret goddess.


Eyebrow-less, but eye-catching. Theatric punk entertainer, but without the typical punk-
nihilism. Feminist and enigmatic provocateur.

These three descriptions immediately suggest that Amanda Palmer, ex-front lady and pianist
of the Boston-based punk cabaret band The Dresden Dolls, and now solo artist, isnt your
typical American singer-songwriter: as a talented musician she fights with an unseen bravado
against the monotony in the contemporary music scene, and as a woman, she refuses to be
enslaved by todays superficial beauty standards that are dominating the music industry more
than ever. If there are any words to describe Palmers artistic performances, then one ought to
compare her style to a postmodern, hybrid mix of PJ Harveys and Lady Gagas styles:
Palmer isnt a typical British demure siren like Harvey, but she nonetheless is as multitalented
as Harvey and can handle a lot of genres. Palmers love for outrageous, artsy shows instantly
reminds us of Lady Gaga, but where the latter really tries to put as much glitter and glamour
in her performances as possible, Amanda opts for a more sober and minimalistic approach.
One could even say that if Lady Gaga claims to have become postmodern art, an Amanda
Palmer-performance can be seen as the anachronistic paradigm of entartete Musik, but then
with a touch of feminism and gothic punk.
Although Palmer doesnt like to be labeled as gothic or emo, and has always refrained
from defining her musical style in a rigid way, there are nonetheless some apparent leading
motives operative in the oeuvre of this musical rebel: both her duo and solo projects touch
upon the genres of cabaret and punk, they always seem to engage with Kurt Weills and
Bertolt Brechts raw, almost alienating theatricality; and all of this comes wrapped in a
package of ironic self-mockery and a strongly developed sensitivity towards feminist issues. It
is this combination of Palmers playing with alienation and her feminist awareness that could
help us in giving an overview of the oeuvre of this remarkable punk cabaret goddess.

The Dresden Dolls & Who Killed Amanda Palmer. From Brechtian punk cabaret to
bittersweet ballads with a bite.

I can paint my face
And stand very very still
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Its not very practical
But it still pays the bills (The Dresden Dolls - Perfect Fit)

Amanda Palmer actually started her career in music as a street performer: in a white wedding
gown, and with a white-painted face, she, masked as the Eight Foot Bride, learned the tricks
of the trade on Bostons famous Harvard Square. As a living statue, Palmer played with the
environment and spectators around her and tried to transform the ordinary into something
artistic and extraordinary. During these mime-like performances, Palmer actually created the
foundation for the later vision behind The Dresden Dolls; Palmers punk band with drummer
Brian Viglione. The philosophy of The Dresden Dolls mainly consisted out of the idea that
engagement with the audience was of the utmost importance: during performances, the band
always seemed to symbiotically amalgamate with their public by giving them a voice and an
active role in the performance itself. Thats how the concept behind the The Dirty Business
Brigade was born, and many street performers and artists, such as burlesque dancers, fire
breathers, and circus freaks in general, grouped together under this name to support and
enliven Dresden Dolls shows. This illustrates that Palmers performances always have been
highly theatrical, and her histrionic attitude should therefore not be regarded as a mere
gimmick.
Besides Palmers passion for the grotesque and bizarre, one could also detect a certain
paradox in the oeuvre of The Dresden Dolls: on the one hand their songs always portray a
certain fragility and tenderness, but this musical loveliness usually tends to be disrupted by
either a threatening drum solo by Viglione or an even more daunting shriek by Palmer. This
predilection for discontinuity, paradoxes and the alienating, also has played a role in naming
the band: although Amanda and Brian at first wanted to name their band Eleven Eleven, after
Amandas bizarre fetish with the number eleven, they in the end opted for the combination of
Dresden and Dolls. The Dresden Dolls therefore not only allude on Palmers idolization of the
German Weimar-culture, but it also, according to Palmer, reveals the essence of their music:
Dresden (the German city that was bombarded during World War Two), symbolizes
destruction and chaos, while the Dolls-element relates to Palmers sometimes softly sung
vocals. Their debut album, The Dresden Dolls (2003), depicts this contrast: songs like Half
Jack, Slide and Truce that start of as calm, end up in an overwhelming mix of drum solos
and screams. Interesting is that this constant movement towards alienation is not only typical
for the musical arrangements of The Dresden Dolls, but also has found its way through
Palmers lyrics. The themes of their debut album exemplify this perfectly: provocative topics,
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such as pedophilia (Missed Me, Slide), intersexuality (Half Jack) and self-destructional
tendencies (Bad Habit) are all present, and the song Missed Me in particular can be seen as
a typical, paradoxical Dresden Dolls-track that shows their love for instrumental and textual
discontinuity.
In Missed Me, Amanda Palmer plays the role of a young, somewhat nave girl, who
is admired and lusted after by a much older man and actually cherishes his attention: Missed
me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me, if you kiss me, mister, take responsibility. Im fragile,
mister, just like any girl would be, and so misunderstood (so treat me delicately). The older
man then appears to be cheating on her, and abuses her frequently, and this victimizes the
little girl, voiced by a softly whispering Palmer, into a situation of powerlessness and
muteness. But, since in Palmers world the boundaries between innocence and guilt are rather
blurry, Missed Me ends in a rather unforeseen way: shockingly, the little gullible girl was
never a victim after all, but was rather the force behind this forbidden love affair, and actually
was fully in control the whole time: If you trick me, mister, I will make you suffer, and
theyll get you, mister, put you in the slammer and forget you, mister. Throughout this
textual deceit, Palmers voice also changes from a sweet, childish timbre into a roaring, self-
confident tone, and in the end relapses back into soft, but not so innocent, mutterings: Do
you miss me? Miss me? Will they ever let you go, I miss my mister so.
These lyrical confrontational turns characterize the entire oeuvre of The Dresden Dolls
and are hence also manifest in their two other, slightly more poppy, albums, Yes, Virginia
(2006), and No, Virginia (2008). Its because of these elements of defiance and alienation,
together with the fact that both Amanda and Brian perform with mime-like painted faces that
got the band labeled as a gothic group. Although The Dresden Dolls-performances are indeed
post-punk, Palmer wanted another, less narrow label for the band, and thats how she came to
the term Brechtian punk cabaret. With this definition, Palmer not only wishes to emphasize
the varit-aspect of the band, but she mainly uses this concept as a strategy of diversion for
inquisitive music journalists who are obsessed with categorizing everything. In the end, this
paradoxical conceptual combination actually tells us what The Dresden Dolls are all about:
their cabaret-like style and Palmers liberated punk-attitude are an obvious part of their act,
but the concept Brechtian needs to be explained a bit more, since Palmers solo-performances
also seem to play on Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Although it would be an overstatement to
say that a The Dresden Dolls-performance is completely identical to Brechts epic theatre,
since Amanda Palmer herself isnt so occupied with social criticism, it is nonetheless true that
she, just as Brecht, wants to raise awareness and feelings of passion in the audience, without
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sentimentalizing the performance result.
This tendency of anti-sentimentalizing isnt that prominent anymore on Palmers solo-
album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer (2008), since she, for the first time, experiments with
more sober, ballad-like compositions. This however doesnt mean that Palmer all of the
sudden only wrote schmaltzy, sugar-coated love songs: even the more serene songs on the
album after some time reveal their venomous essence. Strength Through Music, for
instance, appears to be quite a bare song, lyrically seen, but when one finds out that this song
actually addresses the Columbine-drama, and Palmer is in fact mimicking the killers
ambiguous apathy and bloodthirstiness, the lyrics get a whole new dimension: Dont bother
blaming his games and guns. Hes only playing and boys just want to have fun. And it is so
simple, the way they fall. No bang or whimper, no sound at all. Even the sweet-toned cover
of Rodgers and Hammersteins Whats The Use of Wondrin?(a song that in itself is
already pretty ambiguous) from the musical Carousel in the end alludes on domestic violence.
In the original version, the victimized female lead character will condone these acts of
violence and tries to explain them away: Oh, whats the use of wondrin if hes good or if
hes bad. Hes your fella and you love him, thats all there is to that. But Amanda Palmers
version is quite ironic and liberating at the same time, as can be seen in the accompanying
video clip, where the victim confronts her abuser, lures him into a trap, and skins and lynches
him alive.
Who Killed Amanda Palmer thus is an album filled with deception and absurdities, and
its main source of inspiration was not Brecht, but the American filmmaker David Lynch. The
title of the album reminds us of the murder on Amanda Palmer in Lynchs cult series Twin
Peaks, and this famous whodunit was staged by Palmer in a magnificent, yet slightly creepy,
photo album where Palmer staged her own death in more than fifty different ways. Placed
next to photographs of lifeless Amandas in bathtubs, rivers, and playgrounds and in a baking-
oven every housewifes favorite suicide tool!, the Who Killed Amanda Palmer-lyrics
strangely enough were enlivened. This gimmick luckily didnt diminish the quality of the
album: Who Killed Amanda Palmer still is Palmers best album so far, since it offers a space
for more intimate songs, and this intimate atmosphere in its turn gives Palmer the opportunity
to show off her feminist sensitivities.

Amanda Palmer as a postmodern Riot Grrrl? Feminism and other provocations.

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No one's asking to go dancing, its not like that anymore
Its romantic if they mean it when they shut your fingers in the door
Its a gory sort of story thats been told a hundred times before
It gets tricky, dont be picky, if the slipper fits you, wear it whore (The Dresden Dolls Glass
Slipper)

Who Killed Amanda Palmer is not only an interesting album, because of its paradoxical
nature; this CD also shows us another side of Palmer, a voice that often got silenced midst the
bombastic musical violence of The Dresden Dolls: namely the voice of an emancipated
woman. This of course does not mean that Palmer all of the sudden transformed herself from
an anti-feminist into a feminist, but Who Killed Amanda Palmer does present her with the
opportunity to candidly take on feminist and gender issues even more. Palmers feminist
attitude always has been present: she was the fierce leading lady of The Dresden Dolls, and on
stage she often presented herself as a frenzied, postmodern piano playing Riot Grrrl. In spite
of that, Palmers relationship with feminist thought is often ambivalent: Amanda loathes
patronizing forms of feminism that are too preoccupied with sketching out feminist dos and
donts, since this kind of thinking would, according to her, create a new kind of dominating
hegemony. As a true punker, Amanda isnt too keen on a political feminism that works with
strict definitions and essences of how men and women should act. Palmers feminist attitude
therefore isnt as unambiguous and in your face as the feminism of the Canadian electro
clash-punker Peaches (Merrill Nisker), for example, who tries to subvert traditional gender
roles and norms by means of outrageous performances and explicit lyrics. Whereas Peaches is
known for her boundary-crossing mockery of gender identity and androgyny, and advocates
to change the denigrating term motherfucker into the likewise condescending fatherfucker,
in order to pay an ironical tribute to feminist equality politics, Amanda Palmer on the other
hand does not want to attach any radical political message to the her manifestly unshaven
armpits.
Does this all imply that Amanda Palmer rather is an opportunist when it comes to
feminism, and only exploits its conceptual framework when wanting to make a personal
statement? Although criticizers have often reprimanded Palmer for indulging herself in this
egoistic approach to feminism, she nonetheless is a feminist trough and trough, but, she is just
too much of an individualist and with her DIY-attitude, she is not really inclined to join any
political feminist movement. So, although Palmer does not want people to think that her
music is some kind of a feminist political manifesto, the foundational themes operating in her
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oeuvre are strikingly gender and identity aware. For instance, both of the tracks Half Jack
(The Dresden Dolls) and Sex Changes (Yes, Virginia) deal with gender issues, and
intersexuality and transsexuality in particular. Half Jack is a multi-layered song: at first
sight, it refers to an absent father figure, but Palmer has once stated in an interview that this
song also deals with the matter whether gender determines our identity and whether
femininity and masculinity are as fixed as our society wants them to be. Palmer hence plays
with intersexuality in this song, in order to denounce this rigid societal vision on gender
identity: I'm half Jill and half Jack. Two halves are equal, a cross between two evils. It's not
an enviable lot. Sex Changes deals with the same issues, although the title of the song
confronts us with a double entrendre: on the one hand the lyrics allude on the constructivism
of gender roles (Boys will be boys will be boys will be girls with no warning, girls will be
girls will be guys.), on the other hand the song itself talks about how societal norms often
pair biologic sex and gender together, and how hard it is to struggle against this kind of
biological determinism.
Ampersand and Oasis (Who Killed Amanda Palmer) also have an obvious meaning
attached to it. The beautiful, bittersweet Ampersand ballad is Palmers own hymn on
freedom of choice and female autonomy. Amanda here refuses to be enchained by a
relationship in which she would only be known as the better half of, as in Juliet of Romeo &
Juliet: Im not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand and even if I went with you,
Im not the girl you think I am. And Im not gonna match you, cause Ill lose my voice
completely no, Im not gonna watch you, cause Im not the one thats crazy. The
autobiographic Oasis is a plea for female independence as well; but the lyrics of Oasis are
a bit heavier, since this song touches on the issues of date rape and abortion. Oasis presents
itself as a poppy, cheerful song, and Palmers lyrics appear to be downplaying the seriousness
of the abortion theme, since the main character is more preoccupied with writing fan letters to
the British rock band Oasis: Oh, oh, Ive seen better days, but I dont care, Oasis got my
letter in the mail. This ironization is of course done on purpose, and Palmer indeed intended
to leave all kinds of gravitas out of the picture, in order to incite a catharsis within the
listeners, and within herself. This multiplicity of meanings behind Oasis wasnt really
applauded by everyone, and the song was quickly banned from British radio stations (and
surprisingly, not from the American ones!) because it mocked rape, religion and abortion.
Amanda herself stoically replied that abolishing black humor would only cause more misery
and bitterness.
This Oasis-controversy wasnt Palmers last conflict with the music industry: the
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video clip for Leeds United provoked many angry reactions, not because of its subject-
matter, but because of the fact that Roadrunner, Palmers record company, wanted to cut out
some up-close belly shots of Palmer, because she looked chubby, according to their standards.
They thought I looked fat, I thought they were on crack., Palmer responded laconically.
This dispute in the end led Palmer and Roadrunner Records to part ways, and also caused a
massive online belly love campaign, named The ReBellyon, in which Palmers fans
supported her in her battle against the unrealistic and misogynistic beauty standards in todays
music industry.
Although it is obvious that Amanda Palmer does not want to be enslaved by any kind
of feminist movement, she does share the same progressive and emancipatory attitude of the
Riot Grrrls-movement of the nineties. Palmer also shares her experiences of being a woman,
without relapsing into essentialism or gender stereotyping, and combines this with the same
DIY-ethics that made the Riot Grrrls so famous. Even in her most recent album, Amanda
Palmer Goes Down Under, Palmer appears to be playing with feminist issues in an, of course,
ironic and provocative way: Map of Tasmania, for instance, is a tongue-in-cheek protest
song that alludes on the horrors of shaving: I say grow that shit like a jungle, give m
something strong to hold onto. Let it fly in the open wind, if it gets too bushy, you can trim.
It is thus no overstatement to portray Amanda Palmer as a postmodern Riot Grrrl,
who, by writing provocative and equivocal lyrics, and by bombastically playing on her Kurz
Weill-piano (AKA Kurt Weill, as she calls it), challenges todays oppressive beauty standards
and rigidly fixed gender conventions. Seeing Palmer solely as a feminist singer-songwriter
wouldnt honor her diverse and multi-faceted oeuvre enough, but one could of course label
her as a feminist provocateur, who, ambiguously and with lots of biting wit, moves through
the field of feminism and challenges not only traditional societal norms and roles, but
confronts feminism with its own sometimes reductive perspectives and academic seriousness.
And it is exactly this punk-like, provocative and critical attitude that has made Amanda
Palmer into a feminist poster girl and a punk cabaret goddess for todays DIY-generation!

Links:
http://www.amandapalmer.net/

Back catalogue:
The Dresden Dolls The Dresden Dolls, 8ft. Records, 2003
The Dresden Dolls Yes, Virginia, Roadrunner Records, 2006
The Dresden Dolls No, Virginia, Roadrunner Records, 2008
Amanda Palmer Who Killed Amanda Palmer, Roadrunner Records, 2008
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Amanda Palmer Amanda Palmer Performs The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her
Magical Ukulele, 8ft. Records, 2010
Amanda Palmer Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under, Liberator Music, 2011

Written by Evelien Geerts (freelance music journalist and Gender and Ethnicity
student at Utrecht University).