The XX Factor: What women really think.

M.I.A.'s Swagger

Marjorie, are you offended by M.I.A.'s Grammy duds because they're fugly or because they're inappropriate? As to the first—well, we could argue ourselves in circles about that outfit's aesthetic value. I happen to think it's a perfect encapsulation of a look we might call le punk rock jolie laide. (Björk being another big proponent of the look, as Jessica pointed out; Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a third.) We could also talk about the fact that Ms. Arulpragasam can only pull the look off because she's totally gorgeous—which makes the look compelling, rather than repellent—but that's another post.

As far as whether it's inappropriate—I can't say I agree. Pop-lets have certainly appeared in less. Modern dancers at Alvin Ailey wear less! You write:

The imagery of a scantily-clad, or should I say scandalously-clad, pregnant young woman dancing onstage with a bunch of male rappers whose rhymes sometimes debase women, was just too much for me.

I read it completely differently. In M.I.A.'s hook (which clips from her hit "Paper Planes"), she brays that "no one on the corner have swagger like us/ swagger like us, swagger swagger like us." I thought the performance seemed defiant, cool, confident. Check out the video: M.I.A. and the boys look like 21st-century Rat Packers, what with the elegant suits and bandstand in the background. Not every pregnant woman has to be beatific and glowy. Sometimes they can be rock stars! Note the awesome way those crazy polka dots echo her big belly and other round, pregnant parts. She looks like a hot, Sri Lankan version of Baby Huey.

Is Your Sense of Whimsy M.I.A.?

I missed out on the Grammys live, so when I read Marjorie's post on M.I.A.'s polka dot outfit, I figured it would be a fashion disaster of Lil' Kim proportions. But looking at the photos of the Sri Lankan star, it seems that her frock was more Bjork than Beyonce, which is to say: whimsical and slightly ridiculous, but certainly not worth any gaspy pearl clutching. Her fashion has always been silly, and this over-the-top outfit is no exception.

M.I.A.'s pregnancy peekaboo actually seems to be very similar in spirit to the "gross-out girls" Meghan blogged about last week. Just as my old colleagues at Jezebel and writers like Miranda Purves are debunking notions of feminine delicateness, M.I.A. is showing the world that a woman who's just shy of the delivery table can rock out on stage in a peekaboo getup. Like everything else, though, it's all about execution. I can say for the Jezebels that when they write their most graphic pieces, the aim is not just to potentially inform, but also to make the reader laugh. Which is why Wetlands is such a failure. I read it last month, and when it wasn't actively turning my stomach from its exponentially disgusting descriptions, it was turning my stomach with its aggressively artless prose.