As IF Times

link Lady Gaga and the death of sex | The Sunday Times.

Most people would profess not to care for the shtick and move on.  Not Camille Paglia, a person you do not want writing critiques of you.  Ms. Paglia, for those not familiar with her writings,  is a teacher, author and social critic who is quite influential among intellectuals and liberals.  However, despite writing articles that appear in Salon Magazine, one could hardly describe her as a liberal.   She can write opinions that are divergent from the typical liberal mindset and has been known to voice opinions quite in contrast to them.  Though many conservatives may not agree with many of her views, they are insightful, original and thought provoking.  It would be unfair to categorize her as a liberal, she is independent and iconoclastic in her views. 

So when she decides to take the scalpel to the whole Lady Gaga phenomenon, it’s not as a music critic but as a culture critic.  At last someone more qualified than yours truly, has dared to come out and declare what I’m sure has been on the minds of many.  Lady Gaga?  We don’t get it. Banal music aside, the most interesting thing she had to say was not about Lady Gaga per se, it was this comment:

“…despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…”

I have a simpler, less intellectually embossed version of this.  It’s been done.  The originality and honesty of musical artists appears now to have been replaced by images and personas that are packaged and marketed according to successful formulas created on an excel spreadsheet.  Fame and exposure has taken precedence over talent as a measure of success in western society. When William Hung famously mangled a Ricky Martin song on American Idol years ago, he achieved not boos and the hook, but instant fame, fortune and a record deal!  When you consider almost any ‘rock’ or pop band over the past 20 years, they could be interchangeable versions of each other.  The long hair, dirty jeans and  unkempt look is essentially a uniform for musicians.  It’s as if band publicists all shopped at one rock star store like some LL Bean outlet to outfit their people.  “Hey Irv, if you’re going to the Rock Store, could you pick up a few things for me from the new Keith  Richard collection?”.

It’s almost impossible to think of any successful young female artist today that isn’t obliged to flout her sexuality and comeliness in the most overt ways in order to achieve popular success.  If it’s not outrageous, it doesn’t capture media attention, if it doesn’t capture media attention, it’s not going to sell.  The phenomenon of Lady Gaga is reminiscent of cars you’d see in Tijuana or Manila, garishly overdecorated vehicles which only happen to be cars.  A lot of today’s acts are far from being edgy and original, in fact they are stereotypical and cliche.  Any argument as to good or bad is doomed to endless inconclusive debate, but the biggest danger to ‘outrageous’ acts is not that they are bad, it’s that they are boring.

And don’t even start me on that hugely oxymoronic genre of rap music.  Rap music has as much to do with Black sensibilities as Chop Suey does to Chinese food.  We’ll visit this later.

link Britney Spears accused of sexual harassment – Yahoo! Canada News.

How did men become such weenies?  If you’re in the bodyguard business, that implies you must be prepared to risk possible bodily harm during the course of performing your job.  Presumably, you’d be physically capable of moving unwanted people aside while protecting your client.  This poor guy was not prepared for the rigors of guarding Miss Spears.  The paparazzi, the fans, ok, but to have to look at her naked, well apparently, that was too much.   Mr. Fernando Flores is,

“…accusing the pop star of repeatedly parading herself around in the nude and having sex in front of him…”

 Where did Britney hire this guy from?  The Pee Wee Herman bodyguard agency?   We’ll assume our hero was not an ex military type but rather a pool cleaner perhaps who thought that being a bodyguard would be a better career path.  That being the case, he was probably looking to fill in the shoes left behind by the former Mr. Spears.  We all remember Kevin Federline who somehow managed to carve off a big slice of Britney’s dough without any evidence of redeeming value or good taste.  You have to give Flores credit for trying I suppose.

This guy is mildly retarded and a weasel. If he thinks seeing Miss Spears naked is stressful, he obviously has never worked for Rosie O’Donnell or Joy Behar.  He’s must be looking to make a career change since I can’t imagine there are hordes of clients out there willing to hire someone who can’t handle the stress of viewing a nude pop star.  If he wants to sue because he was exposed to Britney’s privates, then the whole world has a potential class action lawsuit in the works. 

As usual, I blame the lawyers.  Mr.  Flores somehow managed to corral a lawyer while on a break from chasing ambulances and convinced him/her that Flores had been heinously violated.  Sensing fame and possibly a big fee for telling their story, off to court they go.  They are off to feed on the biggest source of ‘success’ today, fame and notoriety.  In place of producing anything meaningful, the path taken by many is just fame for the sake of fame.  This is all encouraged by the popular media who need fodder for their sensationalist headlines.  How many times can you write about Angelina fuming at Brad anyway?  Or Lindsay in rehab episode 14.  

Maybe this is all a ruse to get into show business.  I’m sure there will be a tell-all book, which leads to a movie and possibly a Broadway musical and a reality show.  Maybe he’s not that dumb.  However, in the immortal wail of the famous You-Tube geek, “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!”