I had a thought the other day. Am I the only person (in my respective age group anyway) that isn't understanding the public's recent fawning over Christina Aguilera? Pardon me, USO-Style Christina Aguilera: Limited Edition.
You remember the Dirrty Skank Edition? Or the Naked & Proud Edition. Or the X-Tina Edition. Those were fun, for a spell. Although the Naked Edition didn't have quite enough outfits with it to make it even nominally interesting after a couple hours. Certainly we all remember the videos. Or maybe some of us don't, depending on the strength of our parental blocking technology. As one friend described it to me before I had seen it: "You can smell the tuna coming through the TV screen." A rather off color visual; but then again, so is the video.
Isn't Aguilera just another on the long boring list of "Pop Princesses Gone Bad"? They're cute, and bubbly, and we collectively pinch their cheeks for a while. Then they grow up, get a nose ring, and start welcoming lower forms of cheek-pinching at clubs on Sunset, seven nights a week. Wait, didn't Christina have a nose ring during the bubbly stage? Then she essentially kicked it up a notch every year thereafter. Now she's the clean-cut, near appropriately clothed enough, 40's pin-up, USO Christina Aguilera. With "singing to the troops" action...trashy singing. Am I the only one that can still see the USED tag sticking out of the new white dress? It's like when bruised and tattooed porn actresses dress up like Lil' Bo Peep for Halloween. It's hard to believe someone with an I LOVE (picture of rooster here) tattoo does nothing more than "tend" to those sheep.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in redemption and also in forgiveness...but something just seems off about this whole Aguilera dog and pony show. Suddenly I'm supposed to take her seriously as a "musician" because she traded in the black lipstick for some more conservative red. Truth be told, I'm just waiting for her to rip off the sailor uniform and grind on a Marine in an American flag bikini. I'm sure this is what the real sailors even showed up for in the first place. So far, much to their dismay, she has remained suspiciously well-behaved. Call me a cynic, but I'm just not buying it. Something smells fishy...no pun intended.
Maybe I missed the boat on this argument. It's been a while since X-Tina...sorry, USO-Tina has been on the cover of Rolling Stone. For all I know, she's sporting a burqa now, as Jihad Edition Christina Aguilera.
I tend to be a week or so behind on issues relating to pop culture, for good or ill. I'm not a very exciting pundit when the conversation gets into who's walking out of Mr. Chow's and celebrity crotch shots. But I am Hell on wheels if someone happens to mention the works of John Cassavetes. How do I function in modern society? You might ask. Answer: with a great deal of difficulty, my friend. Sometimes I even find it near impossible to go out of my apartment. But at least I've got my health.
All sarcasm aside, I'd have to be living in some kind of cave not to have noticed the recent nose dives girlies like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan have been pulling off, in plain view of the public. Nay, it'd have to be one of those caves on Mars even...a warm, and comfortable cave of blissful ignorance. Unfortunately I live on a street sandwiched smack in between Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, if Norma Desmond could possibly pop a few in my back just after I publish this, that'd make my proximity to these ex-pop divas all the more worth it. Every time I hear a police siren out my window, it could either be responding to one of the million plus illegal immigrants milling around the city, or to Paris Hilton, speeding by my apartment building on a midnight diet of In & Out Burger, Margaritas and X. I pay the taxes on that police cruiser now, I should at least know what Party Girl they're after, and what she's being pulled over for this time.
Aside from knowing the boys down at the LAPD are keeping me safe from too many unsolicited crotch shots, I feel I know just enough to be justified in saying: "who gives a shit", when it comes to hearing another story about any of these chicks from this night forward (this would be a good cue for Norma to pull the trigger, but alas I'll continue).
Pop music's reigning Queen of alternative, punk feminism Avril Lavigne appears on the current issue of JANE magazine and is quoted on the cover as saying, "I'm not a party person, and I always wear underwear." Great, reassuring point. Now go forth and continue making horrible music. What does she want, a fuckin' medal? So now the standard for positive female role models, in our culture, is the girl who doesn't routinely display her vagina. The girl who doesn't go bottomless to clubs, shave her head, and make (not all that inaccurate) claims to being the Anti-Christ.
I went to sleep at some point in time and woke up to discover that the new feminism means not the right to vote, the right to work, or the right to sing; but the right to be voted on at a wet t-shirt contest, the right to work the streets, and the right to sing...dirrty. We're suddenly back to dragging our women around by the hair and tuning out if they use any phrases other than "hot" or "where's the party?" And the media is gobbling this up and spewing it out faster than Lindsey Lohan does on the corner of Camden and Wilshire on any given night of the week.
I can't help but wonder: if they just stopped turning the cameras on these irresponsible (socially or otherwise), self-destructive, talentless air heads...would they close up shop (or, at least their panty-less thighs) and go home?
Who knows? What came first, the chicken legs or the birth controlled egg? Maybe the demand for a reversal of feminist ideals in this country became so great that the young girls who could have had so much going for them back when they could still sing before the Marlboro menthols, decided to give the people what they wanted and drop the G-string. Or maybe we always wanted more out of our female role models for our sisters and daughters, but turned around one day to find they had grown up and have long since passed out at the bar. Whatever the case, they'll either go to rehab or escape...at this point, who cares. What's to become of our sisters and daughters?
Like anyone who has hung around a Party Girl long enough to eventually grasp the kind of pathetic concept, the media will inevitabley get bored and move on to something probably more boring and/or socially damaging. But the dust will have already settled on our unfortunate, and always impressionable, young girls. And it's up to us to convince them that there's more talent in their little fingers, and more feminism in their futures, than any one of the self-proscribed Party Monsters down the street from me that will hopefully go the way of Genie-in-a-Bottle Edition Christina by this time tomorrow.
