Paris Avec Avril

Two strands of thought can be ascertained in the juxtaposition of Avril and Paris mentioned in the last post:

Firstly there is Paris the photographers darling never missing a photo op vs Avril who appears in so many photos sticking her middle finger up to the (or even spitting at) the camera. The juxtaposition of the two demonstrates that there is absolutely no difference between the two positions. Paris gets slagged off for always being photographed, Avril gets slagged of for her anti-media attitude, but both generate column inches because of there continuous presence in front of the camera. In the same way we identified Avril's first two albums as being attempts to escape the binary opposition of artist/sell-out and her third as regressing back to some acting out of 'rebel', so, in her reaction to photographers, do we see that she has failed here too and is horribly immersed in this logic as much as Paris.

Secondly we are of course drawn to comparisons between their albums. Is the logic as simple: do we see that Avril's regression makes her last album apiece with Paris? Where as her first two break away? I'm not sure it's that simple. It must be stated that the reception of Paris was completely out of kilter with its content. Not that I would argue that it is a brilliant album (I would argue that it is adequate on the whole, with a couple of really good tracks (so much better than Kingston Town anyway)), but that the fact that it is a Paris Hilton album meant that it would never be taken on its own terms. This point is of course completely obvious but at the same time it is necessary to make it explicit because so much of the reaction to the album focused more on Paris Hilton's failings than on Paris' failings. And it is this duality which Avril Lavigne is constantly trying to escape on her first two albums: is it possible to combine being Avril with being “Avril”? It is a question that was never resolve and on the third album we have a complete immersion in being “Avril”. In way it is a mirror image to the Paris trajectory. Paris becomes “Paris” and her first album is created and consequently received as such; Avril fights “Avril”, but eventually becomes what she always was on her third album, which is to say that the first two albums were received less on their content than on the rebel-skater-punk which “Avril” always was outwardly but which on The Best Damn Thing she becomes artistically. In both cases there is no escaping the extimacy of identity.