Analysis Of The Gurlesque

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The way the Gurlesque applies mockery and exaggeration through a feminist perspective is more often than not directly linked with a subverted language, a language that purposefully deviates from what is standardized as “the proper language for a woman”. Refusing such standardization and responding to masculine “high-art”, the poems exhibit a political stance through the Gurlesque which employs the feminist understanding that multiplicities and even conflicting alternatives could very well coexist (Irigaray 28-29). The aesthetics of the distasteful comes into question in that regard and constitutes the third completing element of the Gurlesque. The Gurlesque copies the masculine culture without identifying with it, that is to say, it kitschifies …show more content…

It corresponded to the emulation, which emerged among the lower classes of the postindustrial era, to pretend to have a good taste of art like the upper class. After the Industrial Revolution, the underprivileged, who had previously produced things to fulfill their own daily needs, turned into the working class of the urbans, producing things whose value in daily usage they would never see . This shift from crafting to manufacturing, from formulating to fabricating, and from creative to repetitive triggered a new need among these people. Although they did not have the time or education to enjoy and appreciate fine arts when they were in the countryside, the lower classes felt a new inclination towards art in the factory towns where they had the opportunity to observe that taste in art provided social status. Their desire to own works of art was precluded by their incomes which were no match for the high prices of the art market. With the aid of the mass production technologies and the manufacturing-commercial culture that followed, it became possible to produce multiple copies of artistic works and reduce the prices. This situation not only expanded the scope of art market but also provided the lower class with what they desired –or at least what they thought they desired: affordable art

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