As a once and future vegetarian, I understand the whole meat-is-murder argument. In fact, given the recent factory farming crises in the beef, poultry and egg industries, I'd hope every sentient being would have an idea by now that, for omnivores, local and compassionate is the way to go for such things (eggs? try the free-range Jones farm on 5&20 in Bloomfield; Beef and chicken? Seven Bridges Farm on the Lima side of Factory Hollow is the BEST for us locals). But I don't want to talk about animal meat. I want to talk about human meat.
Lady Gaga's meat outfit at the MTV music awards was brilliant, I thought. I don't care for her music, but loved her absurd extreme.
In the exploitative, hyper-sexualized culture that MTV et al promote, every bit of push-em-up silicone, exposed lipo-ed thigh, and botulism-infected lip turns our screens into butcher shop windows, so why not call it out quite literally? We hang our celebutantes on meat hooks and send them around the airwaves. We leer, stuff wads of cash in their g-strings, then throw them to the flash-popping, flesh-catching wolves. We sit back and shake our heads in judgment when the drinking-drug-sextape-insertscandaldujourhere inevitably breaks, complete with breathless back story, online video and falling-out-of-the-limo-curbside 8x10s.
Lindsay, Britney and Paris are just a few in the ever-lengthening line making their way across the butcher block. Who will sate our appetite tomorrow? It seems to me Miley and Katy Perry are well on their way there. As some of our young ladies and gentlemen emulate these flavor-of-the-month attitudes and actions, all the more reason to embrace Lady Gaga's outfit as cautionary:
BEING MEAT IS MURDER.
Wow, I'm really relieved you explained this because I did not notice she was wearing meat. I saw the typical Yahoo headline, "Lady Gaga's crazy dress" clicked the link, and wondered what the hype was all about.
ReplyDeleteI wrote it off because I was thinking about how people continue to scoff at artists when they express themselves artistically. I think back to people tripping out about Bjork's swan dress. I personally thought that was awesome, but she was ripped apart mercilessly.
Lady Gaga is an artist, she performs, she wears her art as her sleeves, she composes, she thinks, and she lets the world know what she's thinking through her clothes and she's called all sorts of names and consistently making the "What were they thinking?" list as some "critic" scoffs the merits of her outfits.
I intepreted this as yet another agelong battle between what is art vs. conformity and the everlasting question of who decides and why.
But your commentary was waaaaay more brilliant. Although I do wonder what happened to all that meat once it was done being worn.
"Being Meat Is Murder". Beautiful.
ReplyDelete"Being Meat Is Murder" might also apply to the dehumanization our entertainment brings us. Not just that bad guys in our tv shows tend to be all bad, cardboard cutout caricatures, though there is that. I'm referring more to the video games my sons play in which not quite realistic but very reasonable facsimiles of human beings are slaughtered in the course of "play". How desensitizing is the incessant butchering of human caricatures for a few hours at a time? (For those of you who don't know, my sons are adults. I don't control their choices any longer.)Indeed, some of these games are purported to be used in training of our soldiers. Perhaps in that, the desensitization would be considered a positive side effect.
"Meat is Murder." We think the Romans barbaric for their live fights to the death at The Forum for their entertainment. Truth is, we haven't come very far in 2000 years in that respect.
I saw an ad recently for a new on-line game. The ad's headline read: "Build an army and attack your friends' empires."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't that sound like fun?
Steve- yes, yes it does.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to get too far off topic, but video games is a topic that I love to talk about.
The reason that it sounds like fun is because it's probably meant as a social game, which is the latest craze on Facebook and "online-enabled" consoles. They're even on my iPhone now. Tracking each other stats, trying to reach goals, and interacting with each other is a way to hang out with your friends without actually being in the same room. It's ideal for the awkward, geeky kid that eats alone during high school lunch. Something I would have thrived on, back in the day. The great part is that both adults and children are taking part in this type of game.
The ones in which my father refers to are the Call of duty and grand theft auto types. When these games blew up I was already at the point in my life to know that the sort of behavior I was playing out was frowned upon. I always played them for the fun factor, knowing that I would not and COULD not act like this in the real world. It's a game, not real life and I have always been able to tell the difference. If I were to shoot someone in real life, I know that they're not going to respawn and try to come after me next.
With that being said, these types of games did not exist when I was growing up. We had Mario, Sonic, and Ren and Stimpy. There was a certain level of violence, but never as realistic or as gory as what some kids are allowed to play today. That's why they've instituted the rating system. It's to help parents choose what game is right and also to help understand what their charabs are playing when they're at friends' houses.
Now, to get back on track.
I often feel bad for celebrities. They all know that they're in the public eye. An unfortunate "perk" when doing the job that they do. Whenever there's a crisis in their life, we all know about it. Who's getting divorced or married, who's cheating on who, who went out and celebrated a little too hard. When they do it, there's always commentary and it's, unfortunately, very hypocritical of us. Who doesn't know someone that's been divorced? Who doesn't know someone that's cheated? Who hasn't gone out and partied a little too hard? I feel bad for the celebrities that this happens to (except for Paris. She's famous BECAUSE of this behavior). I love what Lady Gaga does. She's not afraid to make a statement and knows just how to do it.