Ambivalent Feminism and Ukrainian Pop in Emergency Time: Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil Go to Eurovision

• In Event: Interrogating the Discourse of Liberation: Critical Feminist and Queer Perspectives for Ukraine

Abstract

Since beginning their musical collaboration in the aftermath of the Russian full-scale invasion, Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil have cultivated images of Ukrainian femininity in contradictory ways, and engaged with discourses of feminism with marked ambivalence. “Ambivalent feminism” has been theorized in terms of the neoliberal cooptation of emancipatory social movements (Fraser 2015), and “celebrity” or “pop” feminism has been criticized as opportunistic and superficial (McRobbie 2008), or potentially subversive (Halberstam 2013), this paper intervenes to explore how such ambivalent feminism is constructed and constrained in times of emergency, and more so when expressed by prominent culture workers from historically marginalized locations like Ukraine. Which genealogies of feminism are Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil delinking from, reifying, embracing, or rejecting, as they craft a musical message meant to appeal to the broadest possible audience in the world’s largest song competition?

Authors

• Maria Sonevytsky, Bard College

• Galina Yarmanova, Bard College Berlin (Germany)