Gender Paradigms
A little practical piggy back on my last post...
The other day I caught the last minute or so of the new Madonna and Justin Timberlake video. I didn't like it. My first thought was, "Dang. Madonna's lost it. She's just not the artist she used to be."
Flash forward a couple of days later. I'm sitting in my car and I hear this song that sounds amazing. I turn it up. I'm bobbing my head. Feeling it.
Yeah. You guessed it. Same song.
As I was pondering this crazy phenomenon, I started to think about what gender and sexuality had to do with my differing opinions of the same song. If I am really honest with myself (and everyone reading this on the internets), then I have to admit that part of the reason that I didn't like the song when I saw the video was due to gender and age bias. I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of a 49 1/2 year old woman dressed in a flesh-colored body suit with black knee high gogo boots, who just so happened to be dancing with a young man.
Now some people probably look at that and commend Madonna for breaking gender stereotypes, and proving that a (nearly) 50 year old woman can be sexy. It is a statement that continues to be played out over and over again. It's something I attribute to the Desperate Housewives phase. In the eyes of some, we have made progress.
I'm not sure that it's progress, though. I just think that the music industry has proved they are equal opportunity exploiters of female sexuality. The age of sexy is going up as the likes of Madonna continue to define themselves in terms of sensuality. But at the same time the age of sexy is going down as media types (women media types, I might add) are willing to publish sensual photos of teenage entertainment sensation Miley Cirus.
Good for the media. Give them a cookie.
I think that healthier signs of progress will be when people (myself included) aren't judging the value of something based on sexual and sensual bias, be it intentional or unintentional. Progress will be made when we can respect the beauty and value of middle aged women in a way that doesn't force them to virtually put out. Progress will be made when we get to the point where we are able to halt and reverse the increasingly disturbing trend of sexualizing our teen entertainers.
Fair Dinkum
The other day I caught the last minute or so of the new Madonna and Justin Timberlake video. I didn't like it. My first thought was, "Dang. Madonna's lost it. She's just not the artist she used to be."
Flash forward a couple of days later. I'm sitting in my car and I hear this song that sounds amazing. I turn it up. I'm bobbing my head. Feeling it.
Yeah. You guessed it. Same song.
As I was pondering this crazy phenomenon, I started to think about what gender and sexuality had to do with my differing opinions of the same song. If I am really honest with myself (and everyone reading this on the internets), then I have to admit that part of the reason that I didn't like the song when I saw the video was due to gender and age bias. I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of a 49 1/2 year old woman dressed in a flesh-colored body suit with black knee high gogo boots, who just so happened to be dancing with a young man.
Now some people probably look at that and commend Madonna for breaking gender stereotypes, and proving that a (nearly) 50 year old woman can be sexy. It is a statement that continues to be played out over and over again. It's something I attribute to the Desperate Housewives phase. In the eyes of some, we have made progress.
I'm not sure that it's progress, though. I just think that the music industry has proved they are equal opportunity exploiters of female sexuality. The age of sexy is going up as the likes of Madonna continue to define themselves in terms of sensuality. But at the same time the age of sexy is going down as media types (women media types, I might add) are willing to publish sensual photos of teenage entertainment sensation Miley Cirus.
Good for the media. Give them a cookie.
I think that healthier signs of progress will be when people (myself included) aren't judging the value of something based on sexual and sensual bias, be it intentional or unintentional. Progress will be made when we can respect the beauty and value of middle aged women in a way that doesn't force them to virtually put out. Progress will be made when we get to the point where we are able to halt and reverse the increasingly disturbing trend of sexualizing our teen entertainers.
Fair Dinkum