Honky-Tonk Angel No. 638

Shania turns the tables on country's rules for female characters. Then she hauls off and appears on the CD's liner notes wearing nothing but a cleavage-bearing evening dress made out of what looks like a dozen chamois cloths stitched to a couple feet of shag carpeting. She's soft-core porn for TNN.

The gender mishmash that comes to the fore in Shania the Phenomena is a frustrating one. In Nashville, where women are given restrictive roles to work within, Twain's leathercentric feminism both plays by the rules and busts them wide open. One writer I know (a fan) is amazed at how Twain "plays with Nashville's notions of authenticity." Another writer (a skeptic) calls her "a T&A snowjob." Both are right. Shania Twain's brilliance lies in her ability to blur the lines between the two until they are one and the same. T&A snowjob becomes liberation manifesto.

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In the alt.rock hemisphere this kind of thing has been rendered meaningless. Male rock critics have beat this notion to death, mainly as a way to ameliorate their own liberalism and the fact that they serve an industry that markets women like meat. A Spin cover treatment of, say, PJ Harvey, will throw her on the cover in her undies, and wrap her up in an essay centered around a discussion of how our heroine "plays with her sexuality" as a means to subvert the rock hegemony held up by, well, magazines like Spin. Cynicism abounds. Country doesn't know this cynicism, not yet.

My favorite Shania Twain song is another much-publicized number, a sultry bar-blues tune called "If You Wanna Touch Her, Ask!" Like a number of the songs on Come On Over it speaks directly to a man: a beer drinkin', pick-up wranglin', New Country man. Or one of the 8 million versions thereof in small towns all over North America, who may or may not own her record by the time you read this.

Curdling soft-sell sexuality, Shania--nearly slithering out of her sleeveless blouse and size-6 leather pants--sings with confrontational sweetness: "You must start with her heart/If you wanna touch her/Really wanna touch her/If you wanna touch her/Ask!"

Consider this hunk of analysis from the Los Angeles Times, written by rock critic Elysa Gardner: "Talking to her, it is clear that Twain enjoys being a girl--even a babe. In contrast to singers like Fiona Apple and Sheryl Crow--who also wear provocative garb and affect come-hither poses but then act surprised or even offended when emphasis is placed on their appearance--Twain is refreshingly candid about and comfortable with the role her sex appeal plays in her public image:

'I refuse to play down the way I look in order to be taken seriously as an artist.'" What do you think about that?