Superbowl 2020: good clean fun for the whole family
I cared even less about this year’s Superbowl than I usually do – and since I usually don’t care, that means I didn’t bother to turn on the TV. But I know many people do care, so here’s a thread in case you want to talk about it.
What I have seen a lot of discussion about is not the game, but the halftime entertainment, and the consensus is that it was an empty, sad, soft-porn, would-be-titillating mess. Ace – not known for puritanism – has this take on it (and a video of the proceedings can be found here). I only watched about a minute or so because it both bores and saddens me that this is what entertainment – “family” entertainment? – has come to.
But Jeb Bush loved it. Go figure. Is he planning another campaign, or is this the inner Jeb Bush finally coming out?
The halftime act made me think about some of the writings of Allan Bloom, and I was all set to write a long post linking the empty sex demonstration of the halftime show to some of Bloom’s much older critiques of rock and roll. But a faint bell of familiarity starting ringing in my head, and it occurred to me that I might be repeating myself.
And sure enough, when I did a search on the blog, I discovered that I had passed this way before, back in September of 2015. And so without further ado I will repeat the post I wrote then, which constitutes the rest of this post.
I’m a little late to this party, but I wanted to say a few words about the Chrissie Hynde brouhaha:
…Chrissie Hynde has waded into another contentious area ”“ the overly sexualised nature of modern pop music.
In an obvious reference to scantily-clad stars such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna, the former Pretenders lead singer branded them ”˜sex workers’ for selling music by ”˜bumping and grinding’ in their underwear. The 64-year-old also accused them of doing ”˜a great deal of damage’ to women with their risque performances…
Miss Hynde added: ”˜I don’t think sexual assault is a gender issue as such, I think it’s very much it’s all around us now.
”˜It’s provoked by this pornography culture, it’s provoked by pop stars who call themselves feminists. Maybe they’re feminists on behalf of prostitutes ”“ but they are no feminists on behalf of music, if they are selling their music by bumping and grinding and wearing their underwear in videos.
”˜That’s a kind of feminism ”“ but, you know, you’re a sex worker is what you are.’
There are two messages here. One is that today’s female pop stars go so far in their sexual come-ons, and their scanty dress, that they effectively are porn stars of the soft-core variety. The second is that this behavior creates an atmosphere that provokes and increases sexual assault.
I pretty much agree with the first. I’m not at all sure about the second, and it’s a subject so vast (what encourages sexual assaults and what decreases them, and also how broadly one should define the term “sexual assault) that I’m going to shelve it for now and concentrate instead on the first.
Over the years I’ve watched pop music degrade to the point that it’s so sexually explicit as to be virtually indistinguishable from what was considered to be soft-porn entertainment in my youth. That sort of thing is now mainstream, accepted, and even considered by many feminists to be empowering. Who was the entertainer who made it that way—Madonna (whom I’ve always found coldly repellent—but then again, I’m neither a heterosexual male nor a lesbian woman, nor even a gay guy)? Whoever it was, it’s in full flower now, and even pre-pubescents get to watch, right in the comfort of their own homes.
When I read what Hynde had said, I immediately thought of Allan Bloom’s 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind (not necessarily an obvious segue, I know). The book has long been one of my favorites, and I’ve written about it and recommended it many times, usually in the context of a discussion of education (especially colleges) and PC thought, and the takeover of the university by special interest groups.
Bloom’s book was focused on the university and its effect on our society. In fact, it’s subtitle was “How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students.” You can see the emphasis on colleges, but what is sometimes lost is the second half of the subtitle, the part about impoverishing the souls. In the service of that idea, Bloom mounted an attack on rock and roll music, a critique I thought odd at the time I first read it, and which I haven’t discussed much on this blog when I’ve written about him because it hasn’t been relevant. Now I look back on it and I think I understand better what he was getting at:
Civilization…is the taming or domestication of the soul’s raw passions—not suppressing or excising them, which would deprive the soul of its energy—but forming and informing them as art…Music, or poetry…always involves a delicate balance between passion and reason, and even in its highest and most developed forms—religious, warlike, and erotic—that balance is always tipped, if ever so slightly, towards the passionate. Music, as everyone experiences, provides an unquestionable justification and a fulfilling pleasure for the activities it accompanies: the soldier who hears the marching band is enthralled and reassured; the religious man is exalted in his prayer by the sound of the organ in the church; and the lover is carried away and his conscience stilled by the romantic guiter. Armed with music, man can damn rational doubt. Out of the music emerge the gods that suit it, and they educate men by their example and their commandments….
[Rock music] has risen to its current heights in the education of the young on the ashes of classical music, and in an atmosphere in which there is no intellectual resistance to attempts to tap the rawest passions…[R]ock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire—not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored. It acknowledges the first emanations of children’s emerging sexuality and addresses them seriously, eliciting them and legitimizing them, not as little sprouts that must be carefully tended in order to grow into gorgeous flowers, but as the real thing. Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later…
…[A]n enormous industry cultivates the taste for the orgiastic state of feeling connected with sex, providing a constant flow of fresh material for voracious appetites…
I could go on and on and on quoting Bloom, but I’ll stop there and just say you should read the book, or reread it (Bloom has a whole chapter entitled “Music,” from which I got those quotes). He further ties the sexuality fostered by rock music, and the rebellion against parents and authority that it both reflects and engenders, as generalizing to a more blanket condemnation of parents, authority, tradition, and society, and also to the embrace of leftism: “From love comes hate, masquerading as social reform…In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.”
Bloom’s book was published in 1987, and it was based on his lectures and notes that in some cases were even older. The rock music of that time was chaste compared to that of today (and much of the music was better, too, IMHO). Going back even further, the rock music of my 50s/60s youth was, comparatively speaking, a celebration of puppy love (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”). And yet it contained the seeds of the blatant and loveless sexuality we see today.
I like quite a bit of pop music, especially the music of my youth. However, I find today’s explicit and coarse sexuality in music, that Hynde deplores and blames—and that Bloom already seemed to foresee, although I wonder whether even he would have been stunned by how far it’s come so fast—deplorable. But I’m not the demographic it’s appealing to, and that demographic celebrates and is affected, influenced, and shaped by it.
[NOTE: And yes, the left intends these developments, which suit their purposes admirably.]
[NOTE II: See also this about the 2020 halftime show.]
P.U.
Garish bad taste.
If you’re going to have something questionable, why not Grace Jones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCGGCSbT7G4
Can’t do better than zydeco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhhHJgciKrk
We left our TV at halftime to take the dog for her evening walk. It was a good choice, evidently.
I think this is all a little nuts here, and yes, Allan Bloom comes off a little nuts here as well. Maybe he thinks classical music beyond Mozart and Beethoven went too far, and would find nothing worth listening to in Prokofiev, Bartok or Olivier Messiaen, much less Steve Reich, Ligeti, or some of Philip Glass.
The pop music of Shakira or Madonna, or Lady Gaga, is on an entirely different track than the music of the Beatles or Bob Dylan or someone newer like Wilco, Lucinda Williams or Gillian Welch. Maybe someone could get excited by finding the early Rolling Stones and all of blues and jazz to be worthless, but if so, I’m not close to being on your side.
Sure, the halftime show was trash. So was almost all of Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and all of the dancing inspired by Paula Abdul.
Since when are Shakira and JLO rock and roll?
miklos:
I initially thought that was the weakest part of Bloom’s book, and I only skimmed most of that part first time I read it because I just didn’t agree. But I’ve come to think he saw the germ of what was going to happen.
I am mostly talking in this post about the show and the “dancing,” although there’s a lot of today’s music I find repellent as well, and incredibly repetitive. It is often all beat and no melody, with dreadful words and message. But for the halftime show, my post is meant to be more about the movement and costumes.
I believe there were several turning points in pop dancing. One was Fosse, whom I’ve written about before. The other was Michael Jackson’s crotch-grabbing. Now it’s gone far far beyond both.
Matthew:
They’re not. Actually, there’s very little “rock and roll” being made these days. It’s a term Bloom used because he was writing thirty to forty years ago. But he meant popular music that appeals to teenagers and is marketed for teenagers.
I quit watching NFL football several years ago, the whole big show has been over the since Tom Landry was coaching the Cowboys and that was over 30 years ago. As for the half-time shows when I did watch the Super Bowl they just annoyed me, I would rather see and old fashioned band marching and playing Sousa music, I am that old.
As for this year half-time show, I clicked on Neo’s link to the performance and found the whole thing creepy and disgusting hoping my grand kids had better things to do than watch a pelvic thruster, 50 year old pole dancing following belly dancing and playing with ropes and the costumes on the guys seemed kind of off. Not much of artistic performance, more like a soft porn workout to loud noise.
From what I could tell, Jennifer Lopez was completely covered from ankle to breast by a body suit.
I suggest we look at it from the other side. Art has always been cutting edge so what can you possibly do that is new? Rammstein have supposedly done live sex on stage and Madonna is limited to flashing her nipple in Turkey. How do you keep up? I asked a friend who is a rock musician about the dearth of creativity in rock music and he said ‘all the combinations of “yeah”, “love” & “baby” have been played out.’ Not everybody can follow the footsteps of Boccioni who said that “these days I am obsessed by sculpture! I believe I have glimpsed a complete renovation of that mummified art.” Till then the music scene will drone on and artist will try to tell us that real art is submerging a plastic crucifix in a glass tank filled with the artist’s urine.
“From what I could tell, Jennifer Lopez was completely covered from ankle to breast by a body suit.” That was my visual impression, too. I didn’t watch the SuperBowl but after reading all the outrage on line (including the people who called it “soft porn”), I watched the show on YouTube. And all I can say is “Meh.” The people who found the show “soft porn,” etc., my must lead sheltered lives.
Now THIS on the other hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TliE9rTrzXg
This is a topic on which I could undoubtedly write at least a short book, but I’ll limit myself to one remark on this side issue: “…Madonna (whom I’ve always found coldly repellent—but then again, I’m neither a heterosexual male nor a lesbian woman, nor even a gay guy).”
I am a very heterosexual male and have always reacted to her this way, though I have to admit that I’ve never really spent much time either listening to or watching her. I’m not sure I can explain but “cold” is definitely part of it. The vibe is of a jaded stripper (or worse) who’s going through the motions of lust but is really just focused on the financial exchange. And the power dynamic.
And who knows how much damage she did to young women who thought imitating her was the way to go?
I know some people say she’s actually very talented. But I was made very aware of her image etc long before I heard any of her music, and when I finally did hear “Material Girl” on the radio I thought “That’s it?!? That thin little voice?”
I suggest we look at it from the other side. Art has always been cutting edge so what can you possibly do that is new?
I want to appreciate someone’s virtuosity. Novelty per se doesn’t interest me.
I would rather see and old fashioned band marching and playing Sousa music, I am that old.
Can someone with a background in criticism tell me if ‘Up With People’ qualifies as ‘camp’ or ‘kitsch’?
I know some people say she’s actually very talented.
Her performance in Desperately Seeking Susan paired with Rosanna Arquette was engaging. I’m wondering, though, if it only hits you if you’re of a certain vintage and in a certain state in life. You were married with children in 1985. no?
There’s plenty of rock and roll being made, tho it’s often called “alternative” or “indie” (independent) – without big record companies giving the makers big contracts.
Sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll.
(Is what my body needs. Ian Dury (and the Blockheads) ~80s )
Sex is essentially a natural drug.
Rock ‘n roll was always “sexual” — starting with the King, Elvis.
But not so public about it. Tho many copiers of the Sex Pistols were pretty public, it was a more selective public.
The SF gay pride parades always include naked men; often including public oral sex.
Promiscuity, with or without rock, has been mainstreamed and accepted – from Reagan’s divorce & remarriage, thru Clinton unwilling to keep his trousers zippered, thru Trump’s three gorgeous wives. In Slovakia, we have a popular rich party leader with 10 kids from 9 different women, none who were ever his wife. (We’re Family – Sme Rodina)
Young rock / pop / hip hop has also always included some rebellion. Going further than whatever line there is that’s acceptable to the “establishment”. The commonality, and banality, of F-bomb language, including WTF on T-shirts for 6 year olds. How to outside the borders when there are no borders?
It’s too much for human civilization, it’s going backward, devolving … DEVO.
(Are we not men? We are DEVO)
And Chrissie? One reviewer writes of Precious:
“Chrissie spits out the lyrics with a sexually venomous feel that brings extra punch to what is one of the Pretenders’ best barn burning rockers. Hynde creatively manages to name check both Howard the Duck and Cleveland harmonica legend Mr. Stress in the span of just a few seconds before telling an unknown subject to f-ck off.”
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-pretenders-songs/utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
I really liked the Ramones (The K K K took my baby away…), still do.
Passion. Anger. Energy.
Sex.
F-speech. See/ hear f*in’ Lou Reed (Live! on) Take No Prisoners.
But while willing to pay for it at the time, and enjoying it then, there was a society cost. See Roger Scruton on aesthetics, and being led to be a conservative from that point.
I also like beauty, and real intimacy.
You don’t get intimacy in public. You need the intimacy of privacy, and the exclusivity of intimacy, to have love grow.
The young confuse (easy) sex and feelings, with (commitment based) love. The sellers of music sell to the buyers based on this confusion; which the sellers of eyeballs, advertisers, want to encourage to get more eyeballs.
People are addicted to Porn.
People are addicted to computer games.
People are addicted to various drugs, pot, coke, heroin. Alcohol. Coffee. (me)
People are addicted to sex; and multiple partners; and various fetishes.
Rock music is fun. Easy. Sexy. Fun. One could even say
addictive.
Supporting addiction, instead of independence, is not good for society.
Talking about it as a problem is the First Step towards reducing, never fully solving, the problem.
Art Deco: I want to appreciate someone’s virtuosity. Novelty per se doesn’t interest me.
Schubert’s Unfinished was considered unplayable. Paganini was considered to be a heretic. I rest my case.
Didn’t watch the halftime show, but from what I’ve read about it, I’m grateful that baseball doesn’t subject its fans to such trash. Sure, the team mascots sometimes do silly things with the fans, but the closest thing I’ve seen to anything resembling last night’s show is one of Baxter the Bobcat’s (Arizona Diamondbacks) antics: he sometimes moons the opposing team showing underwear that says “Beat [team name].” I don’t expect to see Mr. Met doing a pole dance during seventh-inning stretch.
Promiscuity, with or without rock, has been mainstreamed and accepted – from Reagan’s divorce & remarriage,
Huh?????
Reagan was the defendant in a divorce suit brought by Jane Wyman. If she had grounds, no one has yet discovered what they were. (The grounds she cited were ‘mental cruelty’, which beggars belief). Wyman never commented publicly on the matter. Our best information is what was said later by family members, which is that he was poleaxed when she had papers served on him (as husbands commonly are in divorce suits). How is he culpable?
Reagan re-married for several reasons, but one of them was that he’d never in his life belonged to a denomination with a sacramental conception of marriage, a conception which would have forbidden re-marriage.
Art Deco:
Just off the top of my head, I think it would be “kitsch” (according to a critic using the word) if the performers are serious about what they’re doing, and “camp” if there is an element of the performers being in on the joke.
My post on kitsch from 2006.
Not a bad football game. The halftime show was amazingly talentless and lacking in creativity. There were a few bars of Led Zeppelin that I noticed, probably for us old timers.
As I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite films is Almost Famous by Cameron Crowe and is autobiographical. The time period is back when Led Zeppelin was new, and there are several references in the film to the notion that rock and roll was already dead; one delivered by Philip Hoffman, another indirectly by Jimmy Fallon portraying a manager.
Hoffman’s character’s point is that rock was supposed to be a rules-free means of expression, and it is becoming inexorably commercialized. The feelings you express don’t have to be pretty or even civilized, but you’re supposed to have really felt them when you wrote the song.
_____
Neo’s Chrissie Hynde quotes caught my interest. A few paragraphs below that quote is the line:
“The mother-of-two sparked a backlash when she said she took ‘full responsibility’ for being the victim of a sex attack by a biker gang in the US while high on the sedative Quaalude.”
Ignoring the brouhaha of the “responsibility” element, I vividly remember when that song hit the airwaves. “Tattooed Love Boys” was the song she wrote about that assault. I didn’t know the back story until now. But that song grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.
Within a few years of the Pretenders meteoric rise to success, not one but two bands members were dead from drugs and alcohol. Did they learn nothing from Hendrix and Joplin?
Apart from the all-round vulgarity and sexual degeneracy, the half-time show was a gigantic Hispanic Fuck You to Regular White Americans.
The Ruling Class hates Normies and wants them dead, but is more than happy to mock them first.
Pardon my Farting in Church, but you know eppur si muove and all that.
PS: Spot on about Madonna, My Good Man Above: She is a repellent reptilian whore and it beggars belief that any remotely normal person could find her attractive.
Andy:
It’s all been done before.
In case anyone missed the point (I know my arguments are too subtle hehe), it’s EASY to go the High Road about social standards and sexual morality. Read my words again: ‘Easy’. This battle is so lost right now that there can be no real reversal before Lamp Posts and Ropes come together in 2 part harmony. So railing about these issues is just pissing in the wind. It’s the usual Conservatives Conserving the Coop after the Birds have Flown stuff.
However, the current ongoing Great Replacement (of us, just in case anyone thinks they get a pass) is another story. This is the battle that needs to be fought. And it’s a scary one because there’s more personal risk than involved in sending checks to the Heritage Foundation and collecting Franklin Mint memorabilia.
Really quite simple: If you feel comfortable complaining about something… it’s not the real issue which is going to ravage your descendants.
I agree. I think the “Las Vegas” style half-time shows just do not come across well visually or audibly on TV.
The Super Bowl is the epitome of secular degeneracy, in the stadium and outside. Aside from the game itself, which has degenerated by rhesus monkey-like dancing by the (usually black-NFL is 75% black) dude that scores a TD, the whole thing, half-time especially, is the triumph of vulgarity. The athleticism of the players and their memories of plays and routes are the redeeming features of the NFL.
I’m not being racist, merely observing what is patently obvious.
neo: Bloom was spot-on, but Sayyid Qutb got there first:
A few decades back, a young middle-class Egyptian spending some time in the US had the misfortune to be invited to a dance one weekend and was horrified at what he witnessed:
‘The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . .’
Where was this den of debauchery? Studio 54 in the 1970s? Haight-Ashbury in the summer of love? No, the throbbing pulsating sewer of sin was Greeley, Colorado, in 1949. As it happens, Greeley, Colorado, in 1949 was a dry town. The dance was a church social. And the feverish music was ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, as introduced by Esther Williams in Neptune’s Daughter.
Revolted by the experience, Sayyid Qutb decided that America (and modernity in general) was an abomination, returned to Egypt, became the leading intellectual muscle in the Muslim Brotherhood, and set off a chain that led from Qutb to Zawahiri to bin Laden to the Hindu Kush to the Balkans to 9/11 to the brief Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt to the Islamic State marching across Syria and Iraq. Indeed, Qutb’s view of the West is the merest extension of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ — America as the ultimate seducer, the Great Satan…
–Mark Steyn, “Baby, It’s Cold in the Far East Without a Sheep”
https://www.steynonline.com/9074/baby-it-cold-in-the-far-east-without-a-sheep
Art Deco: yes, I was married with children when Madonna hit the scene, but I don’t think that had anything to do with my reaction to her. It could just be personal taste, but I was struck by the fact that Neo felt the same way, as does the presumably male Zaphod above. There were certainly any number of music and film stars, including “video vixens” in music videos, who definitely gave me a jolt back then. But not Ms. Ciccone.
I remember laughing out loud at a newspaper story about her marriage to Sean Penn when I got to a line that began “The bride, whose nude photos appeared in the [whatever] issue of Playboy, wore….” and thinking it really summed up the times.
I do remember people saying that Desperately Seeking Susan was enjoyable but I never saw it, or any of her other movies.
There is some New Testament along with the Old Testament going on here, an excellent dance to amuse the Ruler and:
3 For Herod had arrested and imprisoned John as a favor to his wife Herodias (the former wife of Herod’s brother Philip). 4 John had been telling Herod, “It is against God’s law for you to marry her.” 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of a riot, because all the people believed John was a prophet.
6 But at a birthday party for Herod, Herodias’s daughter performed a dance that greatly pleased him, 7 so he promised with a vow to give her anything she wanted. 8 At her mother’s urging, the girl said, “I want the head of John the Baptist on a tray!” 9 Then the king regretted what he had said; but because of the vow he had made in front of his guests, he issued the necessary orders. 10 So John was beheaded in the prison, 11 and his head was brought on a tray and given to the girl, who took it to her mother.
That dirty dancing goes back to the olden days. Just Say’n.
“[Sayyid] became the leading intellectual muscle in the Muslim Brotherhood,…” — huxley
Ha! The first part of the story reminds me of the film Dirty Dancing. Supposedly, the screenplay was quite autobiographical for the woman who wrote it. Jewish families partying in the Catskills in the 50’s.
OldTexan, TommyJay: True, there is nothing new under the sun. Humanity has been wobbling back and forth on the balance between eros and logos since forever.
I don’t claim to know the optimal balance. Sixties rock’n’roll seemed to me then, and mostly still does, a welcome opening to eros. I’d agree things have gone too far, but I’m not sure how that could be fixed or whether it can be fixed or even whether it should be fixed. An appeal to moderation?
In Western philosophy there is a clear succession from the Enlightenment to Modern to the (dreaded) Postmodern philosophy. Should we have junked the Enlightenment for its “closing of the Western mind” to the glories of Thomas Acquinas and Scholastic philosophy?
neo and I had a pretty good tussle over Bloom’s attack on rock’n’roll in 2018:
“Allan Bloom quotes to ponder”
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/11/24/allan-bloom-quotes-to-ponder/
‘
Art Deco: yes, I was married with children when Madonna hit the scene, but I don’t think that had anything to do with my reaction to her.
Not to her in general. To Desperately Seeking Susan and the characters therein. You say you missed it. Certain things about the Arquette character in particular I think might be viewed a particular way by people with family responsibilities than by people still sunk is post-adolescence, and that I suspect vitiates the appeal of the film to people not of a certain vintage. But maybe not. You get lost in the comedy and you forget why the Arquette character is desperately seeking.
I found Madonna desirable early in her career, until about the time Open Your Heart was released. It’s been all downhill since then, more vulgar and debauched every year.
Huxley – I have a brother-in-law, an incredibly smart retired lawyer who is turning 80 this year and he is kind of liberal and I am mostly conservative, we love to talk politics and respect each other. My last conversation with him he said, “At least at our ages we don’t have to much more skin in the game.” I love him dearly and today they are taking him off of life support and sending him into hospice and I have always admired his, “to the point wisdom”. Feeling sorry for myself because I would like a few more conversations with my buddy of 55 years but, with this life stuff, it kind of all comes down to this. We are all here for awhile and then we do move on.
Well, that is one way of framing the matter, I guess.
But the fact is, it’s not precisely the same people wobbling back and forth, saying that “Today I’ll join the Bacchanalia, or whore myself in the back alleyways of Rome, and then next week I”ll devote myself to explicating the moods of the categorical syllogism.”
Some, do something similar to lesser degrees supposedly; Augustine, St Francis, but I think that the contrasts are not quite so deep.
It seems to me that we are by and large talking about sub populations though, with relatively modest crossover. Of course what one means by “eros” may change that interpretation.
I’m using the very common if simplified Dionysian versus Apollonian dichotomy which most of us were introduced to in high school literature or humanities classes.
And of course what we are seeing nowadays is not simply a turn from classicism toward romanticism, but a very deliberate and conscious turn toward nihilistic appetite, and a war on the logos itself, and all that that implies.
My personal opinion is that people ought to be free to an enjoy such lifestyles and communities, the only stipulation being that I’m equally free to let them die on the roadside or remove them by any means convenient if they show up on my porch or jump my fence.
I am one of the contrarians on this issue. I enjoyed th half-time show for the first time in quite a while. A couple of observations:
Firstly, this is one of the most difficult venues in show business. The Performer, to be successful, must fill or occupy an entire football stadium with their stage presence. I have seen a lot of otherwise talented performers fail utterly to achieve this. Plus, they have a very short amount of time to do this. In my mind, both Jennifer Lopez and Shakira succeeded. The fact that everyone is still talking about the show proves it.
Secondly, in American culture, there is a profound lack of understanding of the distinction between “sexuality” and “sensuality”. In Latin American culture, sensuality can be freely enjoyed without it being interpreted as overt sexuality. Granted, the two concepts are closely related. But American culture treats them as synonymous. The first time I lived in LatAm, I was uncomfortable with watching young children dancing in a way I felt was inappropriate for their age. I eventually relaxed after reexamining some my puritanical attitudes.
I eventually relaxed after reexamining some my puritanical attitudes.
You say ‘puritanical’ like it’s a bad thing.
“Bloom’s book was published in 1987, and it was based on his lectures and notes that in some cases were even older. The rock music of that time was chaste compared to that of today …And yet it contained the seeds of the blatant and loveless sexuality we see today.… I find today’s explicit and coarse sexuality in music, …that Bloom already seemed to foresee, although I wonder whether even he would have been stunned by how far it’s come so fast—deplorable.” – Neo
Disclaimer: I have no claim to expertise in popular music, as I quit listening when Simon & Garfunkel broke up, but you can’t live in America without picking up a few names and hearing a few songs; however, I apologize (esp to huxley) if I ruffles any feathers.
Some years ago, I had friends complaining about the horrible music their kids (then teenagers) were listening to.
But their own record collection (yeah, that’s old) contained groups named Sex Pistols, Guns and Roses, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, etc etc.
What did they think was going to happen?
Kids always go past their parents cultural boundaries — not a new observation!
These are quotes from people who liked the music.
https://www.thetoptens.com/greatest-bands-of-the-1970s/
I cherry-picked those to make the point, of course.
Reading through the list and comments, many, many bands and songs were probably completely inoffensive (Monkees, anyone?) – but kids aren’t going to stop at pushing past them because it was already done in their own day.
I have no idea where music (at least some strands of it) will go from here, although I’m happy to see that there is a substantial market still for other music genres, some even retro.
However, it is a mark of individual and societal pathology to adulate Madonna, J-Lo, and their colleagues, and simultaneously complain about sexual objectification.
PS The same bunch of kids, including some of my own, were “caught” one time playing out of my “Great American Songbook” collection (as Steyn calls it). They said that it was nice to have something they could actually sing and play themselves, and they liked some of the songs better than their current hit parade.
Neo – your 2013 fashion post had some very interesting comments!
Looks like the spam filter wasn’t working up to the top of its game that day.
Very funny, really.
However, this one was legitimate, and still correct.
leigh on November 14, 2013 at 2:44 pm said:
I’d like to congratulate Hollywood on doing the impossible: making sex boring.
Or as Scott quotes in a Tweet at PowerLine
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/02/halftime-for-halfwits.php
https://babylonbee.com/news/cant-have-a-wardrobe-malfunction-if-you-dont-wear-the-wardrobe
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing women that stripping off their clothes and gyrating their booty was empowering.
AesopFan: I quoted Steyn on Qutb for a reason. Qutb watched Americans mildly dancing to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” at a sober church social. Qutb accurately extrapolated where such lasciviousness led.
“And yet it contained the seeds of the blatant and loveless sexuality we see today.…” Indeed. Bloom just started his version of the same slippery slope argument a few decades later.
If Bloom and Qutb are making the same argument, maybe that should give us pause.
Anyway. I don’t think much of slippery slope arguments and I don’t think much of Bloom or Qutb.
My own view, to be clear, is that humanity moves through these changes in historical time. Good grief, what went on in Rome before Christianity took hold!
Perhaps the #MeToo movement is the harbinger of a new puritanism.
Did anyone else know this?
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/saturday-night-special-the-jay-sekulow-rock-band/
I remember the Gibson case distinctly, because it was as outrageous in it’s own way as the persecution of the florists & bakers not wanting to put their talents to work for a same-sex wedding, but I didn’t ever find out what had happened.
Three cheers for Sekulow!
Jenny said, when she was just five years old
There was nothin’ happening at all
Every time she puts on the radio
There was nothin’ goin’ down at all, not at all
Then, one fine mornin’, she puts on a New York station
You know, she couldn’t believe what she heard at all
She started shakin’ to that fine, fine music
You know, her life was saved by rock’n’roll
–The Velvet Underground, “Rock and Roll”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dahqz-R49I
I’m an American of a certain time and place — the prime time of rock and roll. I wouldn’t say my life was saved rock and roll, but it made a difference. I can feel it.
My bad : -10 points for using the incorrect apostrophe.
Neo – for beautiful dancing, on ice, see this from 1984:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUqI-HqACUY (about min 44).
The perfect score for free dance.
HT https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2020/02/one-perfect-day-in-sarajevo.html << Peter Grant, an indie writer, interesting conservative blogger.
I think more people today watch the Winter Olympics & Ice Skating than ballet. It's a better TV sport.
I watched this in the moment and felt embarrassed for these two women. There was nothing “cutting edge” or “next generation” about this cringey spectacle. It’s boring old soft porn – omg you can almost see her undercarriage!! – except really well funded. Gee, thanks for the porn production value, NFL. Both of the ladies are lovely and quite fit and encased in shapeware but they’re also well past their soft porn sell-by date. Sad! I’m sure this will draw “to each his own” comments and thoughts (and prayers) but you know it’s true. They looked like shiny decorated sausages lumbering around out there! And I resent the immediate onslaught of piped in corporate and social media (BIRM) ratification of this garbage entertainment. In other news, the Super Bowl should stop trying to be more than it already is. Just focus on football and get the reffing right.
… get the reffing right.
AMartel: Words to live by.
no one objectifies women more than women…
just dont look if your a man..
The women are pushing their children forward thinking that doing things like this are “brave”…. (and a lot of men, find it disgusting and ruinous of the potential of relationships and relationships)
the point is who would be willing to push back?
you cant push back, so they have no limit but the ideas they have
they are pushing themselves over a cliff and all we can do is watch
Thelma and Louise is more understanding by this concept than any other
the addictions mentioned above are all SAFE and withdrawn
they do not require the participation of another, and replace the other
who wants a woman who pulls a train? who wants to drink from a filthy glass?
who wants to deal with someone who has contempt for your opinion of that behavior?
see marriage strike, freezing eggs, etc..
if only the Germans were this smart, they could have removed the same target and yet, made a fortune and not fired one shot… which is the point of it…
it is not the men who wanted the dichotomy of a hooker and a saint..
its the women… who want to wear these concepts like costumes and feel them
and by blaming the men, who actually dont like it much as it plays with their feelings and being teased constantly is not fun but frustrating, they get to push more and not be responsible…
in the end we are all responsible
if this had happened before WWII – the opposition would have rolled over us
which is why its happening now, as a response to that problem, if you can go back long enough to read and know what that was and who was pushing it from their positions wearing sheeps skin clothing… (like Willi Munzenberg did and many others who followed)
“just dont look if your a man..” or a woman.
Why would you? The spectacle is insulting to men as well as women. Constant shots of the upper and lower end of the alimentary canal and tongue wagging set to music that has no spirit nor soul. It’s “dance” music for robots. It’s spin class music, loud and with an obvious beat to drown out questionable taste. And then, immediately following, more insults from the corporate media peer pressure, like if it doesn’t excite you you’re a sexist prude. Also racist for not responding to supplemental hamfisted political shaming.
Screw THAT. This is how youDo Vegas Right
With comedy
I laugh whenever I hear about “American puritanism”. This is a country where thongs are marketed to six-year-old girls… Not to mention the slander on Puritans, who would not recognize themselves in caricature.
” We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is in the least danger, and fix its approval on the virtue that is nearest the vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running around with fire extinguishers whenever there’s a flood; and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gone under…Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.” — Screwtape
Good conversation.
Regarding huxley’s juxtaposition, that’s certainly good food for thought. Clearly one issue is context; someone from a different culture is going to see things differently. Similarly, the debate over the half-time show, and over various cutting-edge or provocative artists, is in a sense cultural, with different US subcultures seeing things differently.
Of course the analogy breaks down pretty quickly when we remember that Qutb founded a movement that embraces violence.
Regarding Madonna, I liked some of her early songs too, she had a certain talent for catchy pop music and she clearly has charisma — she was good in Desperately Seeking Susan, and that was a pretty good movie; you have to have something to pull that off. But I think the most interesting thing about Madonna is in fact the commercial aspect of her work, and that does suggest she’s more of an entrepreneur than an artist (I don’t claim to know, I haven’t read anything about her and I make it a point never to attribute intent to anyone). I remember Forbes magazine published a piece about how good she was at making money by re-inventing her brand over and over in a way that skillfully took advantage of the market. (That’s funny, I googled to see if that story was readily available and I see that Forbes covers Madonna a LOT!)
On the topic of the overall post, I am finally old enough to understand that there is a difference between what is fine for any given individual and what is good for society. Things I argued for in the past on the basis of liberty, I now see as destructive. But I don’t claim to know what to do about this!
Is it both? Is there a balance? Is there a cycle?
It is nice to have a real conversation. Thank you, neo, for the intellectual rigor you bring to this blog, and for the community you have built.
Art Deco: “Certain things about the Arquette character in particular I think might be viewed a particular way by people with family responsibilities than by people still sunk is post-adolescence.”
Oh yeah, that could definitely be a factor with movies.
No more sham……
https://twitter.com/i/status/1224713479199907841
Sarah Rolph: “But I think the most interesting thing about Madonna is in fact the commercial aspect of her work, and that does suggest she’s more of an entrepreneur than an artist….”
I’m saying this mostly from a position of ignorance, but I will speculate that such will be the longer-term verdict on her work. One thing that kind of jumps out at me–as one who reads about these people frequently but rarely encounters their work–is that all these “divas” who specialize in sexuality seem to be desperately seeking attention.
Interesting tidbit about Madonna, possibly unknown to folks here: her sister is married to Joe Henry, who deserves to be considered a Serious Artist if anyone in the pop music field does. I’m pretty sure his sister-in-law covered one of his songs, which is certainly to her credit in my eyes.
Mac’s first comment, up top, mentions Madonna’s “thin little voice.” She actually caught a great deal of flak from critics about her voice, back in 1983 give or take a year. She spent a couple years or more with a vocal instructor working on deepening her voice and increasing her range downward.
Not that I’d know, but would the same thing happen today? Are there any critics that matter? I suspect that the industry is too far down the tubes to care about any of that. The producers know how to manufacture a positive media buzz (e.g. Jeb Bush) so who cares.
Neo is correct that Madonna was one of the artists who really commercialized sex in pop music. Some of it was a little interesting to me in terms of the concepts she was pushing, but the music did not do much for me. And except for the first few years, she was always very unemotional.
Being unemotional worked well in the film Desperately Seeking Susan (nice work by director Susan Seidelman) because of the contrast with Rosanna Arquette’s highly overwrought character, but that same lack of emotion no doubt killed the movie “Swept Away.” I never saw it, but it nearly destroyed the director’s (Madonna’s husband) career.
Neo, you say,
That’s because she is coldly repellent. The reaction is in you, but it’s a reaction to something objectively present in her.
Some folk are insensate to this aspect of Madonna; they suffer from a kind of tone-deafness. Intuitive awareness of What’s Wrong With Madonna naturally varies from person to person, but any person’s natural awareness can be destroyed over time by repeated exposure to ugly, meaningless, brutalist, joyless stimuli. (If you’d done nothing but drink acid for years, you’d no longer be able to taste food properly. Same thing.)
Neo, I’d guess you’re still sensitive because your tastes have been sufficiently-educated by exposure to good ballet, music that features real melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic interest, skillfully-rendered representational art, attractive buildings, and the like. Maybe even good poetry and literature.
In short, you have sufficient prior exposure to the transcendentals (truth, goodness, and beauty) that you can still see, hear, and in a certain intellectual sense, smell what’s wrong with Madonna.
People’s ability to compartmentalize their thoughts is unlimited. Feminists complain about “objectifying” and “sexualizing” women and simultaneously laud J-Lo and Shakira’s simulated sex show:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/02/03/super-bowl-halftime-why-jennifer-lopez-shakiras-performance-empowering/4643848002/
Note that this reviewer praises Shakira’s belly dancing. I wonder if she knows that belly dancing was used by slave girls and concubines (I’m not really sure where the dividing line is, so don’t ask me) to garner their master’s favor. I doubt it. (Don’t get me wrong — I love to watch belly dancing, but at least I know what it’s all about.)
As far as Madonna is concerned, she went to Michigan as a dance major. Need I say more? Go green! Go white!
Here is Lady Gaga’s 2017 Superbowl performance.
The first minute is surprisingly nice and even politically incorrect. How dare she violate the separation between church and football. The rest is a little trashy and sexually charged, but overall much better than the Shakira/Lopez performance IMHO.
Reagan’s divorce was out of his control, and in his remarriage I understand he was faithful. But that’s the way of any “slippery slope”, isn’t it?
The first step, accepting divorce and divorced people, starts with these clear cases which should be accepted.
Like Elvis gyrating, and rock being called “the fertility rites of the jungle”.
It gets slippery from there on down…
The name of John Schlitt cropping up in a thread! Wow!! Never thought I’d see that. I still have the occasional fond memory of _Beyond Belief_, and for a little while enjoyed his first solo album. My goodness, that was a long time ago.
Tom Grey – the slippery slope is of ancient lineage.
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
? Alexander Pope
Sarah Rolph on February 4, 2020 at 12:35 pm said:
…
On the topic of the overall post, I am finally old enough to understand that there is a difference between what is fine for any given individual and what is good for society. Things I argued for in the past on the basis of liberty, I now see as destructive. But I don’t claim to know what to do about this!
Is it both? Is there a balance? Is there a cycle?
* * *
There is definitely a cycle; there needs to be a balance for social stability.
Keeping that balance takes a lot of familial and community Tough Love.
Sarah – Neo’s post about Sartre and de Beauvoir, with the comments, kidn of addresses your question. Sometimes, individuals taking great liberties really is destructive.
Good points, AesopFan!