When we read a text, we have to consider the time at which it was written. We need to understand whether the author’s ideas aligned with the majority – or if those ideas actually served as challenges to the ‘norm’, thus underlining the writer’s own role as an outsider or maverick…

• MUSIC FOCUS: Nirvana.
• ACTIVITY FOCUS: Context Study.

How many female artists on the Reading 23 & 24 lineups?

How many female artists on the Reading 94 bill?

What do you notice about the role of the females in the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?

Top Of The Pops was watched by millions every week. In what ways does this Kurt Cobain’s performance on that show seem surprising? How does our understanding of the 1990s help us to understand why it is surprising?

Let’s read about some of the other things that ensured Kurt Cobain stood out from the crowd…

Kurt Cobain’s Feminist Legacy and Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’

ABOUT A GIRL

Nirvana’s unprecedented feminist outlook changed music for women and girls.

Nirvana has been celebrated, rightly, for giving voice to the freaks and the weirdos, for opening up a lot of kids stranded in the suburbs to the idea that there’s something more to life than this, and for very briefly creating a path for the counterculture to enter the mainstream (a path that had already fallen into tatters when Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994.) One aspect of their brief reign that has been somewhat forgotten, however, is how strongly the band broke with the sexist norms of the era, choosing instead a pro-feminist public stance and song lyrics. Feminist fans never forgot, however. After canvassing for interviews online with women who identified as both feminist and as Nirvana fans, I discovered that the group’s aggressive questioning of gender roles may have had as long-lasting an impact as the invention of “alternative rock” radio, and that influence has remained good and pure even as the era of rock dominance comes quietly to a close.

Nirvana’s opening salvo in its assault on mainstream rock, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” did more than just wash away any musical relevance of bands like Poison and Winger, but it also laid waste to the sexism that fueled so much hair metal and other dude-centric hard rock. The first human faces you see in the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” belong not to the band members, but to a group of heavily tattooed women dressed like anarchist cheerleaders, a swift but brutal rebuttal to all the images of acceptable femininity that your average suburban teenager lived with at the time. Forget the hair metal groupies or the bubbly beauty queen cheerleaders. For girls watching this video, it was a revelation: You could instead choose to be a badass.

The cheerleaders were just a taste of what Kurt Cobain had up his sleeve when it came to subverting traditional gender roles. It wasn’t just the kick-ass women in this one video. Nirvana baked feminist ideas right into their lyrics and image. Nirvana had songs like “Polly,” “Pennyroyal Tea,” and “Breed,” which dealt directly with gender issues from a pro-feminist perspective, and songs like “About a Girl” and “All Apologies,” which employed a layered, nuanced understanding of love and gender. 

“He was ironic,” said Jo, a 29-year-old resident of London, citing Cobain-penned songs like “Rape Me” and “Polly” as ones that spoke of feminism powerfully, if sideways, “and he played around with gender roles, which I loved. There was an androgyny about him that was very refreshing.” Many of the women interviewed initially found “Rape Me” an unsettling song, but eventually came around to seeing it as Cobain’s clumsy but well-intentioned attempt to incorporate feminist theory into his worldview. It’s one of the few songs in all of rock history to acknowledge rape as a crime of power and violation, instead of excessive sexual desire. Many feminists object to using rape as a metaphor this way, but what was undeniable was Cobain’s extreme hostility to the possessive mentality that leads to rape.

Female fans detected a humanistic view of women in the lyrics and certainly in Cobain’s public pro-feminist persona. Cobain was an early advocate of Sassy magazine, the late ’80s through mid-’90s magazine aimed at teenage girls that had a definite feminist bent. He also enjoyed provoking and mocking American gender anxieties, engaging in previously unheard of behavior in a major rock star—glam rock aside—such as wearing women’s clothes and making out with male bandmates in public, just daring people to have a problem with it. “I really picked up on the sensitivity and girl-positive nature of Nirvana,” explained Kate, a 30-year-old from Toronto, “it was important to me to see a famous, attractive man share some ideas about feminism with me and be unapologetic and forthright about it.”

Now, let’s explore some of Kurt Cobain’s lyrics with reference to the 1990s context.

How does Kurt Cobain present – or reflect – ideas about gender?

How does our understanding of the era Kurt Cobain lived through influence the situation of the female ‘characters’ in his songs? How does that understanding of the 1990s influence our opinion of Kurt Cobain? Which of our A-Level texts feel relevant to this discussion? Do the writers you’re studying – and the characters – they’ve created feel typical or atypical? How will your answer to that last question inform your understanding of each writer/speaker/character?

‘Polly’

“Polly wants a cracker
Maybe she would like some food
She asked me to untie her
A chase would be nice for a few
Isn’t me, have a seed
Let me clip your dirty wings”

‘Been A Son’

“She should’ve died when she was born
She should’ve worn the crown of thorns
She should have, been a son
She should have, been a son
She should have, been a son
She should have, been a son”

‘Sappy’

“And if you save yourself
You will make him happy
He’ll keep you in a jar
And you’ll think you’re happy
He’ll give you breathing holes
And you’ll think you’re happy
He’ll cover you with grass
And you’ll think you’re happy now

You’re in a laundry room
You’re in a laundry room”

‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle’

“In her false witness, hope you’re still with us
To see if they float or drown
Our favorite patient, a display of patience
Disease-covered Puget Sound
She’ll come back as fire to burn all the liars
Leave a blanket of ash on the ground”