Sun 8 Her unconventional concept and multi-disciplinary practices in film, text, sound, photographic, and telegraphic works deeply inspired John Lennon’s music production and concept development. Meanwhile, marrying John helped Yoko’s creativity with emotional and financial support, giving her a broad publicity but also access to master music and composition. 37 However, such a mutually beneficial creative partnership unavoidably fell in a skewed male-female relationship, involving observable factors, for instance, age, gender, ethnicity, fame, and latent factors like intellectuality.38 The film Rape (Fig. 4) and the conceptual music Plastic Ono Band made right after their marriage exemplifies how Yoko Ono and John Lennon are exclusive to each other and how such exclusivity influences their art practice. Rape is never an easy film to watch, nor was it easy for Yoko, a Japanese female marrying an eight-year younger British superstar and living with him after WW2.39 It brought a sudden violent scrutiny and over public exposure. Thanks to the paparazzi, the annoying disturbance faced by the couple became worse and worse. Rape visually and audibly reflects an omnipresent invasion of privacy, where Ono adopted an introspective and meditative approach to staging a shared situation and feelings.40 They chose a random woman on the street and chased her for the rest of the day. On the one hand, the close shot, the wavering camera, the random sound in the city, unknown language, and high-heels’ knock in the film lead to intense anxiety, irritation, fear, and designation. Such ill-treatment to a female unacquainted with London symbolized the extreme embarrassment faced by Yoko and John. The film crystalized a shared feeling, where Yoko’s production and performance experiences helped to express their situation in an empathetic and theatrical presentation. Under the rape culture in the 1960s to 1970s, the film could also be interpreted as a confrontation of the couple against violence.41 To Yoko, public gaze, broad
Clayson, Jungr, and Johnson,135. Ibid, 137. 39 Kvaran, Årbu and Hanne Beate Ueland, 135. 40 Ibid, 139. 41 Nancy Princenthal, Unspeakable Acts: Women, Art, and Sexual Violence in the 1970s (New York, NY: Thames & Hudson Inc, 2019), 39. 37 38