Blog #7

Kayla Leland 

Professor Santos 

EN-003 

Blog entry #7 

Joni Mitchell 

 

This week in class we talked about Joni Mitchell and her role in female sexuality. One particular reading that we have read was called  Feeling Free and Female Sexuality: The Aesthetics of Joni Mitchell Joni Mitchell by Marilyn Adler Papayanis. I found this to be an interesting article because this was the first time I have heard of Joni Mitchell and the first time I got see her viewpoints on  woman. Joni Mitchell's songs discussed sexual freedom which as a result helped open peoples eyes to the new choices that young women can have. In the 1960s people expectations were shaped based off of the media and Joni Mitchell's songs along with other forces helped to transform this viewpoint. 

 

The more I read about Joni Mitchell  the more I found out how her songs had a storytelling component and how she wasn’t afraid to speak out. Joni Mitchell is an "ace storyteller" who started off with traditional folk ballads to a singer-songwriter who wasn’t afraid to be personal and share her voice. I think it's interesting to see how she has evolved and how her music today still continues to be listened to. Joni Mitchell doesn’t feel like a real feminist even though she is one and has become one over the years. Joni Mitchell classifies herself as a female artist which may be seen as a way for her to seem powerful. She embraces her sexuality even though she is seen as having no gender as it almost melts together. Bob Dylan even made a comment about her claiming that "she's not really a woman. Joni's kind of like a man" as the line is blurred between clothes. Joni Mitchell responds by claiming "music has become burlesque over the last few years" and believes she is just expressing her sexuality as she sees it as a bad thing that woman should not be seen as a role model who act a certain way. This may link into the whole idea of what we have previously discussed earlier this semester on whether or not the music industry has a say in how the artist performs. Joni Mitchell knows who she is and takes ownership for her identity. For example in an interview Melancholy Meets the Infinite Sadness she claims that she is a smoker and holds no guilt to it when cigarettes are what ironically stopped her from singing.