Bruised Fruit and the Belle Jars

Arizona Daily Wildcat M. Stephanie Murray

That image is scary. I don't know when the 17 to 21 age group splintered off from my own 23-29 demographic, but this pack of young 'uns is something else entirely. And Ms. Apple is the voice of their dissatisfaction. Which is allowed. Every generation's got its own disease, as some bad song stuck in my head goes. My generation continues to do battle with its own highly-developed sense of irony. Cynicism looks awfully cool, but it sucks the life out of us. At the same time, we spawned a whole passel of tough girls who took over music and popular culture.

Now Generation Y is making a name for itself. And its name is Apple, queen of the Belle Jars. (This appellation I stole from a disgruntled letter writer to Spin. My little irony-jaded heart loves it to death.) In a recent Rolling Stone article, Apple, trying to make her dysfunction functional, said "Every girl in fucking America has an eating disorder." She said this after justifying a period in her life where she refused to eat food that "clashed" with what she was wearing. I'm sorry, no.

There are plenty of girls in America with eating disorders. There are plenty of girls in America without eating disorders. To try to "normalize" the sufferers of these disorders is to marginalize them. If "everyone" does it, it must be ok. (To quote my mom, and probably yours, "If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?") Similarly, those girls who aren't in the throes of anorexia, bulimia or that "clashing" are "othered" and equally marginalized.

I see what Apple is trying to say. She wants everyone to feel alright about whatever problems they are in possession of. But that's not what blanket statements like this mean. This says, in effect, "I am not weird. You are all weird like me and that makes us the majority, so we can say what's normal." Which is a noble gesture. But using eating disorders as the party plank is irresponsible and unhealthy. Eating disorders and the obsessive-compulsive disorder that lies behind Apple's "clashing" problem are in no way normal and in many ways harmful. To say that everyone does it makes it unworthy of attention; these problems need that attention.

There are many victims in this world of many terrible things. Apple is one of them, raped at 12. This fact comes up in just about every interview. But that's all that happens with that tabloid-esque fact of Fiona's life. Let's parallel Fiona and another musically-famous rape victim, Tori Amos. Fiona wrote a song about the rape; so did Tori. That's where the parallels end. Amos no longer discusses the incident in interviews; she's also gone on to found the Rape and Incest National Network, a hotline for victims of any kind of sexual abuse. Apple? Just more interviews.

Not that Apple is obligated to turn her experience into a public service. That's just one way of dealing and moving on. Apple's coping mechanism seems to be using dysfunction as an accessory: I hurt; ain't I cute? My friend Maggie calls this the Cult of the Victim. Rather than take responsibility for their own reactions to the world around them, the members of this cult retreat into the "please save me" techniques that give them this disturbing and manipulative power.

Just for fun, let's try another comparison, this time with Janeane Garafalo, the Anti-Fiona. She's got her own batch of issues; her production company is named I Hate Myself Productions. But she's aware of her own power, both as a media figure and as an individual. "I'm trying to be one of the few people in my job who don't make teenage girls feel bad about themselves," she once told Vogue. Garafalo's theory of inclusion doesn't make everyone equally troubled and dysfunctional, but shows that one's individual troubles and dysfunctions can be overcome.

Mostly, I'm sad for Fiona. She's convinced herself of her own victimhood. But there is hope, for both her and her Belle Jars. "I've been a bad, bad girl" she sings in "Criminal," with a mixture of penance and bravado. Every teenage girl should hear this song, should recognize that power that it holds, a power entirely removed from victimization.

This is self-knowledge and it's a fabulous little accessory.

M. Stephanie Murray is a senior majoring in English literature. Her column, "What Fresh Hell?," appears sporadically.