CHiPsJr
Ginger-headed Troll
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504 |
quote:
Originally posted by Thimbles worth of opinion
Look Chipsy, I'm not saying that the comercial exploitation of the human body is a good thing, I'm not saying that the breast exposure was appropriate or tasteful (becuase of the way it was done), but I disagree in the general catagorizing of female naughty bits as obscene and detrimental to our society. That's the type of bullshit we tried to free Afgani women from.
"We"? Funny, I don't recall you being overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the US actions in Afghanistan at the time.
You're right about the whole genitalia fixation, but you're blaming the wrong parties. Nobody is more delighted by our silly taboos about naughty bits than MTV. They're making a mint off the whole thing. The people who are bothered by them are certainly not a bit less obsessed with them than the people who insist on showing them off; they're both exhibiting an obsessive fasciation with a particular bit of flesh. The main difference between the parties is that the people who'd rather not view them are not trying to impose their standards on everyone else. No, really, its true. For all the hype about the "moral majority" and "conservative right," there's pretty much nobody trying to make it illegal for you to own Playboy or watch Cinemax at 2 am on Saturday. What they want is a public space in which they can be free of that sort of thing in their own lives, and what the exhibitionists seem to think is they shouldn't even be able to have that.
quote:
Originally posted by Thimbles worth of opinion
Oh fuck, IT'S FOOTBALL! Balkaized? Let's forget that it's a meeting place for rival teams to yell at eachother. Let's forget that it's a societial valve for terrtorial aggression (New england vs Whoverever the fuck). Let's forget that the game is a showcase for violence and jock culture.
Let's pretend it's a venue for world peace.
BWHAHAHAH!
Your stereotypical, dogmatic assertions put you about fifteen years behind the curve on this one. The Super Bowl is not in any meaningful sense a football game. It's a spectacle. About 70% of the viewing audience has virtually no interest in which team wins or in the on-field action at all. About 50% of those who do have a rooting interest have one because they laid down a bet. In point of fact, the Super Bowl is an EVENT, a quintessentially American one, where all the advertisers try to outdo each other and the sports media gathers for a berserk interview-frenzy and the mayors make silly side wagers. It is, in short, supposed to be for everyone; it's about as close as we come to having a national get-together. It's a place for everyone to gather and party together in comfort. A venue for world peace? No, but an All-American event in the literal sense.
quote:
Originally posted by Thimbles worth of opinion
I have a problem with mysogyny as a social more. Is JJ an attention whore? Sure. So's Madonna, britney, Christina, etc etc. The FCC didn't investagate their threeway as an offense and the major difference was the bit of skin. And I say it only makes a difference becuase its a threat to the social order similar to birth control.
The reason I wasn't as bothered by that business was that it took place at an event explicitly dedicated to the celebration of the more populist elements of youth culture. All of the audience participants in that one were there for pretty much that sort of thing. It was by definition an insular gathering subject to different standards.
The business of whether taking off your shirt in public is as fundfamental to female liberation as birth control doesn't really merit a response. I will say this, though: we would appear to be living, by this standard, in the freest society in history. If there's ever been a place and time in which running around semi-clothed
was as acceptable, indeed MANDATORY as it is now, I'm unaware of it.
If you want to get pissed off about misogyny in entertainment, start with the gangster rap community in general and the explicit advocacy therein of outright violence against women. Call be crazy, but I think that objections to public breast displays are perhaps just a WEE bit less of a threat to female empowerment than an entire subgenre of music which habitually refers to women as "hos." Of course, it's so much easier for a person of your beliefs to lash out at people who object to a mindless publicity stunt--this way, you get to side WITH the oppressed minorities against the mean ol' white man, whereas a consistent anti-misogynist position would place you, at times, on the same side as Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms against a bunch of inner-city African-Americans. Somehow, though, I can't envision you picking that particular battleground.
quote:
Originally posted by Thimbles worth of opinion
Our society makes a big deal about female nudity. To thousands of societies all over the world it's viewed as daily dress. This is rooted in the mistakes of Patriarchy. That's my point.
And my point is that REGARDLESS of whether this particular taboo is in accordance with all principles of equality and logic, it is not worth starting a huge fight over. Nor is it worth driving its adherents from the public sphere over. Flat-out: I care more about the ability of a solid fifty percent of the American public to engage happily in the public arena than I care about the particular desire of a few exhibitionists to take off their shirts.
I think that casual drug use is perfectly acceptable as a lifestyle choice; I don't think people ought to be shooting up in the hallways of my Catholic school, or even that teachers such as myself ought to advocate drug use.
I think it's perfectly legitimate for any two consenting sexual partners to engage in whatever act they desire, but I don't think it's acceptable for them to do so in a public park.
I think that the existing socialist ethic in American politics is destroying all semblence of personal responsibility in the population as a whole, and I love to argue the point, but I don't choose to do so at social gatherings with liberal friends.
There is an arena for everyone to engage their personal peccadilloes, but there is also a point at which our pet causes have to take a back seat to the larger goal of forging a society in which people can live comfortably. It's not a point which can be regulated in terms of legality; it is, rather, a matter of simple courtesy and politeness. To engage in behavior deliberately designed to bother the community in order to make a buck is impolite, crass, gauche--pick your favorite term. There are reasons, perfectly good ones, why these terms have long histories and why they still endure despite change in every aspect of society. They are concepts worth preserving if we want to live together.
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02-09-2004 09:48 PM
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, CHiPsJr has a good point. While I, personally, feel that my country's obsession with breasts is bizarre and probably pathological (has anyone tried discreet, non-visible breastfeeding in a public place? It's amazing how it makes people feel free to comment), the Superbowl incident was pretty much deliberately violating broadcast standards for buzz and ratings. Like it or not, there is an accepted standard for what should be shown on daytime, publically-accessible TV, and this was not within that standard. Violation of standards carries the cost of social opprobrium.