My mom loves a couple of Janis Joplin’s songs. I could never completely get into her so I’m not sure how Janis: Little Girl Blue, a documentary about the singer’s life, hit my radar, but it probably was listed high in ranking among other documentaries. My mom and I both watched it and agreed that even though it was only one hour and forty-three minutes, it felt longer and repetitive. This flaw may not reside in the filmmaker, but Joplin’s life, which is tragically germane to current events.
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about Joplin outside of Janis: Little Girl Blue so if my analysis of her life is completely erroneous, my apologies and please feel free to counter in the comments. Joplin was born in Texas, and according to former Texans whom I have met in church, Texas can be a toxic place for women because you can see a church adjacent to a strip club, but it is not contradictory in spirit. Both suffer from the spirit of misogyny, which is not restricted to Texas, but is an ecumenical demonic force that crosses all borders, religions, cultures, etc. These institutions make women believe a lie-that their primary purpose in life is to serve a man either in subservient marriage or on the stage reduced to a body, which is different from being fully joyous in your sexuality, naked and unashamed. If Christ is really countercultural, and I believe that He is, the most counter cultural thing is to challenge that lie and cast misogyny to the pit of hell instead of the pulpit.
This misogyny exhibits itself in a specific way in this country: the proactive defense of white womanhood and the promotion of its fragility. In order to be sheltered by this umbrella, you simply have to accept the status quo to claim its benefits and ignore the degrading side effects, which ironically can include domestic abuse, i.e. physical violence from the person who is supposed to protect her. It is not an accident that in these videos of police questioning black people doing ordinary activities, the events were sparked by a call from a white woman concerned about her safety; however there is another side. White woman can also be exiled from the protection of white womanhood as can be attested to by Heather Heyer, a civil rights activist and local white woman who was killed by a self-professed neo-Nazi and outside agitator from Ohio that came to Charlottesville, Virginia for a Unite the Right rally.
I am a black woman. I’m also biracial. I have a black mother and a white father. I don’t really know what it is like to be a white woman, and I defer to white woman to tell me, but as an outsider, I witness a conflict that is emblematic of how Americans address systematic problems. Unlike Europeans, when we see a systematic problem, we may intellectually understand that it is not our fault, but as individuals, we psychologically condemn ourselves for lacking in some elusive element that would solve our lives. For white woman, she may know that there is a misogyny problem, but still criticize herself for experiencing its effects, which can lead to self-destructive behavior. This behavior can exhibit itself in ways that can range from superficially seeming healthy and beneficial to clearly acts of self-violence and mutilation such as the self-sacrificing martyr, the mother who gives everything to her family, or someone like Joplin who self medicates against psychological pain of rejection by men and not having the personal life that one expected.
Janis: Little Girl Blue shows that Joplin was exiled from whiteness the minute that she said that she was for integration as a child. She was bullied, called ugly and has even been categorized as a man, which black women are all too familiar with as a way to denigrate women who don’t accept the status quo. Our femininity is stripped from us without our consent. If women challenge the status quo, we don’t even get an opportunity to decide whether or not we embrace gender norms regardless of how feminine we may are. We can be treated like men by society without any of the privileges-disproportionate roughness.
Janis: Little Girl Blue then details how Joplin reacted by embracing all the characteristics of those rejected by society even if it was negative. It is very difficult not to believe what others say about you if you hear it incessantly so while she found a freedom by moving to the left, she was unable to find a healthy way to inhabit that space. Even her fellow hippies thought she needed to get off the drugs. The constant theme of her life was her unhappiness at not being desired, but once she became wanted as a woman, she was too dysfunctional as a drug addict to have the relationship that she originally sought. She was enraged that unlike the men in her band, she had no one to go home to. It is the tragedy of her life.
Janis: Little Girl Blue also shows that she did not have healthy relationships with women. Misogynistic attitudes were ingrained in her, and she wanted to be the only woman among men because she did not want competition. Her only close woman friend was an enabler of her worst impulses. She wanted to embody the principles of feminism by raising her voice, but she was unable to extinguish the systematic privileging of maleness in her psychological life.
Mom’s impression of Joplin’s thoughts was that her interviews sounded as if she was spouting nonsense, but I was not alienated by her dated vernacular and found her to be an insightful wise woman who had a psychological understanding of her impulses while simultaneously being unable to escape the societal gravitational pull. Joplin said, “After you reach a certain level of talent, and quite a few have that talent, the deciding factor is ambition, or as I see it, how much you really need: need to be loved and need to be proud of yourself. And I guess that’s what ambition is. It’s not all depraved quests for position or money. Maybe it’s for love. Tons of love.”
Janis: Little Girl Blue is a tragic story of a woman who shone in exile, but ultimately suffered from self-condemnation instead of recognizing that her problems were society’s fault, not her own. I would only recommend this documentary to Joplin fans.