In my previous posts, I tried to enlighten some of the problems of being an artist in music and what kind of cultural boundaries we have to cross every day to give the best in our job. Our job is based on a mixture of musical talent, ability to perform, creativity and knowledge, but we all know that stage presence, style and physical appearance are sometimes even more important, especially if you are a female artist.
I always get angry when someone, talking about Ravenscry, compliments not for Giulia’s voice but for her appearance. We never wanted to base our activity on the fact that our singer is a charming young woman, even if we could. Her appearance on stage is never discussed before, we do not force her to wear in a particular way to be more provocative or sexy, and she is always deciding how to manage her public image in the way that she feels more comfortable.
Sadly, this is not very common since, as we all can notice looking around us, not only in music, often women’s bodies are exploited to make a commercial product more appealing. I will probably say something uncomfortable for some of my readers, but even in the “female metal world”, the examples of this kind are a lot. Just think about how many times is so natural for us, seeing a picture of a female-fronted band, thinking “she’s hot” even before every other comment about the music. So natural and so sad, indeed.
We believe that music should be the only thing that is important, even in a world that puts appearance before everything else. Every member of Ravenscry has his own personal style; everyone decides for himself/herself how to manage his/her stage appearance following just his/her personal taste and no one can change this.
We really appreciate the fact that we are not alone in this fight against sexual exploitation of female figure, as there are other very talented female fronted bands as The Great Discord or Guano Apes who are working to be great musicians regardless of physical appearance (even, to be honest, they could have, since both their singers are good looking).
Could you name other band who are following this philosophy of thought? Let me know in the comments!