You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged pop culture.
“ I am a woman of colour with a deep – almost unhealthy – love of popular culture. It is a love that is sorely tested in the face of such prejudice when I am told, loudly and with few qualms, that the stories of people who look like me just aren’t viable in a specific universe. It is often explicitly stated by my co-fans that I am not – ever – what they picture when they read these books or hear about these movies. The language may be coded: “She’s not how I imagined” or, in the case of interracial couple Sam and Mercedes on TV’s Glee, slightly more explicit: “They don’t look right together, like, they don’t … fit.” But the message is clear. We get to be supporting characters – the redshirts – or the villains. But heroes? Um, no. That would make things too … ethnic.
— Bim Adewunmi, in a moving editorial for The Guardian (UK)
This is a bit late but I think this piece really summarizes some of my frustrations with what they (havent) done with Mercedes’ character.
(Side eye to myself: why do I still watch Glee…?)
…Much of the criticism I’ve seen of “Run the World (Girls)” has been about how girls do not, in fact, run the world. This is true, of course. Girls don’t run the world, and girls and women are oppressed all over the globe. However, this line of criticism also employs a literal interpretation of a pop song, which, unless you’re willing to claim that Lady Gaga unethically promotes casino gambling, doesn’t totally work. Lord knows I love to analyze song lyrics, but saying that because women don’t actually hold power no one should sing about women holding power is kind of like saying that since we don’t all live in a Rhythm Nation no one should sing about that either. Young girls singing along to a song about running the world is, to my mind, preferable to them singing along to a song about wanting a man to fill you with his poison or about “cuffing” a woman so she won’t cheat on you (both of those messages are present in songs from this week’s Billboard Top 10). In fact, I’d say it’s preferable to them singing along to most pop songs, since most pop songs contain off-putting sexist messages about how girls should do anything but run the world.
Again, this is not to give Beyoncé a feminist pass and say that her song, with its focus on female empowerment through sex and money, or her video, with its focus on female empowerment through sex and money, should dance on by without criticism…continue reading
also check out this great piece that was linked to in the article - The Journalism Bingo Card
Are you writing an article that profiles or even tangentially involves a disabled person? Make it easy on yourself: string together these words and phrases with a few voyeuristic references to the person’s body parts, and call it a day!
