Turning The Tables: 8 Women Who Invented American Popular Music
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By Ann Powers
These days history is carried forward on t-shirts adorned with Helvetica typeface, studded with ampersands. You've seen one, maybe just yesterday, on somebody at the dog park or in the club. Alcott & Austen & Bronte & Plath — great women of Western literature. Or Chanel & Louis Vuitton & Prada & Gucci — the most significant houses of haute couture. Sometimes these graphic assertions of taste and knowledge are playful, listing the cast members of TV shows like Friends or the ingredients in pico de gallo. Others make much more serious statements, including anti-racist and feminist ones.
Helvetica list t-shirts exemplify the 21-century impulse to democratize canonization, the process of determining cultural significance. The first acknowledged one, actually reinforced existing hierarchies. Released in 2001 by the graphic design firm Experimental Jetset, it listed , the members of the mainstream's favorite rock band. Almost immediately, people seized the form to argue with the content, asserting their own ideas about who and what should be celebrated, shared and remembered. This viral phenomenon shored up more organized ones, like the #OscarsSoWhite movement to
