I have always thought that Yoko Ono has/had a sharp aura, if that can be said. That is, something that makes the onlooker uneasy and unsettled despite Ono being quite small and, at the moment, an old lady. She seems to have a very strong edge, something that would cut you into tiny pieces if you dared to look at her in the wrong way or asked her a stupid question. Still, if you look at her photos with John, especially the more intimate ones, she looks like another person, a soft gentle happy lady.
I woke up last Tuesday night thinking about Yoko Ono. I am not making this up. My brain does funny things to me sometimes. It just came to my mind, in the middle of the night, how unjust and unfair Mass Media has been with her. Most importantly, how John Lennon's life and artistic creation changed for the best, after they met.
Doesn't Ono come immediately to your mind when you hear the name John Lennon? This is my case. Lennon is, to me, Lennon plus Ono - them kissing, embracing, naked, their bed-in interviews and anti-Vietnam protests. I cannot imagine Lennon singing "Give Peace a Chance" without Yoko Ono. I did not live the Beetles-mania, so, to me, Lennon is more Ono's than Beetles'.
Do you know anything or remember Lennon's first wife, Cynthia? I do not. I had to look for her photo and biography on the Internet. She looks like a normal pretty lady, still unremarkable. Like a nice human being, who loved and was loved by Lennon, put up with his crap, and had a baby with. I am not saying that she has to be despised for being an average wife married to a famous person. I am saying that she did impact Lennon in a less powerful way than Ono did.
Ono was a remarkable woman when she met Lennon. She was an avant-garde artist, an intellectual with a vision, and with much clearer ideas than Lennon on what was to be done in the world of Music. She was a woman who had made a living out of her talent, and had an opinion on everything. At a personal level, she came from a harsh relationship and a missing abducted child, but she never exploited her personal misery to present herself as a victim. As my friend told me, imagine the impact that a woman like that must have had on Lennon, a normal guy with enough talent to take what she had to say on board. It is true. Ono transformed Lennon into the best possible version of himself at a human level, and that without even trying, without forcing anything, without changing who he was, without putting up with his misogynist crap. He did the same to her. It was like a chemical reaction that, once the right elements are mixed, creates magic. This is perhaps the reason why, unlike other artistic couples, they did not end breaking-up due to abuse, envy or clash of the egos. These two were remarkable fitted for each other at every possible level, despite Lennon's cheating later in life.
The Mass Media and the general public have always disliked Ono, or at least talked or portrayed her in a way that shows a macho misogynist attitude towards any woman who is brilliant, has talent and a brain, and is an individual. It is easier to attach her success to Lennon's halo, blame her for the Beetles' break-up and for Lennon's break-up with Cynthia. When she came into the public scene, she was not especially girly or pretty, had too much wild hair, she did not use make up, she was opinionated, she was not a Westerner - therefore, she was unlikeable. If this wasn't enough, she was not singing "la la la" sort of songs, nothing popular that would make her appealing to the general public. She would be yelling at times, literally. She did not give a damn about what the masses or the Media thought or said about her, so this irritated everybody. Most importantly, she has always used the Media when it suits her, mostly for good causes, and not the other way around. When she decided to lead a private secluded life, she did just that, despite the interest of the Press.
The question we have to ask ourselves is, would have the Public and the Media reacted and judged Yoko Ono the same if the case was the reverse? That is, Ono a man and Lennon a woman? Of course not.
Ono has always been, and still is, a reserved woman, an active avant-garde artist and peace activist. The culture of the 21st century owes her as much as it owes John Lennon, perhaps more, because she was "hated" for just being a female intellectual, a daring artist, an activist, and, most importantly, for not conforming, for being just herself and living her life the way she thought/thinks it should be lived.
I cannot but like and admire Yoko Ono, despite her halo of scary edginess. Yoko Ono was way ahead of her time, even if we do not sing her songs. Although her public image and appreciation has been softened and increased in the last two decades, we will have to wait for her death for Ono to be fully recognised as the great woman she is.
