« Shameless | Main | Flowers By the Door »

June 10, 2004

V-D Day

Posted by nerdling | June 10, 2004 02:18 PM

I consider myself to be a bright, well-educated, independent woman. I wouldn't call myself a feminist, nor do I hate men; I'm more often guilty of misanthropy than sexism, but every now and again there are occasions when I feel it necessary to point out the absolutely ridiculous inherent in us all. In this post, "us" refers to womankind.

That said, why must reasonable, assumably well-intentioned women parade around making a mockery of themselves (and the rest of us) by championing empty gestures, simply because those gestures happen to have something vaguely female about them? Case in point: the self-appointed playwright for the double X-chromosome set, Eve Ensler. Ms Ensler is once again on the vagina warpath, urging those of us who possess them to vote, using—you guessed it—our vaginas. I'm pretty sure she means that metaphorically.

Ms Ensler's vagina rally in New York featured Kathy Najimy and musical stylings with relevant, pointed lyrics, such as "V is for vote because my womb is aching for peace." Thank you, Rha Goddess. That is just barely poetic enough to earn you another turn through a community college poetry workshop. See you in the trenches.

Aside from being a silly and condescending campaign, she is also promoting generalizations against the Bush administration which muddy up the waters currently clouded with real issues, rather than nebulous rantings about the analagous raping of a country and a woman. Perhaps both have the same root motivation, but foreign policy has little to do with domestic rape convictions, sister.

Worse, at least at the moment, is that such generalizations reflect badly on all women. Because they are delivered by a representative of our sex who, though she probably means well, didn't bother to ask the rest of us before running off her mouth, I get to look like an idiot right along with her.

On the topic of generalizations, why does Rolling Stone even bother with album reviews? While browsing through a recent issue, I noticed an alarming trend in the rating system: out of twenty-eight reviews, sixteen rated three stars. Roughly proportional to each other were the two and three-and-a-half stars albums, with six and four total albums, respectively.

The only two albums to receive higher ratings were the Judas Priest Metalology box set, with four stars, and the reissue of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline, with five. Not that both albums don't deserve the kudos, but I sincerely doubt that anyone with half a brain or a reasonable interest in music couldn't have written those reviews. It doesn't take much thought or journalistic ambition to write a glowing review of a Dylan album, fellas. Way to go out on a limb.

Even worse, someone actually wrote in to defend the new Blondie album: "With 'Shakedown,' Blondie take rap in a new direction, just as they did in 1981 with 'Rapture'—the first rap song to hit Number One."

Blondie also have not been musically relevant, on the charts or otherwise, since 1981. Who the hell are these people, and where do they come from?