Monday. And I am annoyed again. My work requires me to view quite a bit of fairly unwholesome material and I like to think I have a strong stomach, but occasionally something creeps into popular culture which I find truly offensive. In this case, a piece of military propaganda masquerading as a pop video. I speak not of 'In the Navy' by the Village People. Those were simpler times and even though the song was used on a Navy recruitment ad, it remains more charming by far than the latest offering by Katy Perry.
Despite my Village People reference, I like to keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening in pop culture, and to facilitate this, for a couple of hours a week, I like to take in some media from sources that I would normally completely avoid. This might manifest itself as reading a copy of the Daily Mail, or the Watchtower, or in this case the UK top 20 on Viva.
I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't realise how bad it would be. I know I'm coming across as a whining old sod, and I should make clear that I have never been able to successfully be around pop music so this is by no means a new feeling for me. I remember watching girls formation dancing to Take That when I was about 10 and thinking "what is this putrid rubbish?" Even at 10 I had recognised that Robbie Williams was a bog-eyed leg fucker, and my opinion has never changed. In more recent times I have been driven into paroxysms of rage by N-Dubz, among others. I still feel that anything which makes you pray for the return of Brian Harvey can only be evil to its rancid core.
So, back to Viva... I should mention that I watched the new Justin Beiber video too, but with the sound down to protect myself as much as possible. It was a weird experience, akin to a pastiche of the Grease Megamix by a troupe of hispanic lesbians. I'm afraid I do think that young Beiber has certain virtues- excellent marketing for one thing. You can't help but admire the team which put Beiber into an episode of CSI to get shot. I think a stunt like that has the potential to please almost everyone on the planet. Fans will like it because they can say Beiber is something more than a dancing fuck puppet, and I enjoyed it because of the shooting. People ask me if I would fuck Beiber, and of course I would, he has a tight young body and the potential to hit some very high notes with the right motivation. He needs an internet sex tape, and I am the man to help.
But I digress... I was here to talk about Katy Perry. The thing which rankles most about this is that I thought Katy was alright. She ditched Russell Brand, which can only be a good thing for the soul, and she was putting out tracks that had some wit and a bit of warmth about them. She seemed like she wasn't taking herself too seriously, and came across as likeable and even fairly sorted. Good for her.
So what the fuck is 'Part of Me' all about? The track itself is a fairly innoffensive little romp and little need be said of it apart from that it contains the refrain "this is the part of me which you'll never gonna ever take away from me" and would appear to be in most respects a standard break-up song. Boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, girl writes break up song. Fine. However, the narrative of the video is nothing short of a Goebbels level exercise in propaganda by the American Military. Boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, girl shaves her head and joins the infantry to kill unarmed brown people in unidentified desert locale. Pissed off with your relationship? Why not take it out on these brown fuckers? One can only imagine that the war at home is not going so well if they have to recruit Katy, who would normally not even get conscripted. This, perhaps is a good thing. But not if we have to be subjected to this kind of heavy handed foolishness.
Anybody singing about sticks and stones while dressed in Territorial Army combat fatuiges in a desert deserves to have their twitching parts taken home in a shoe box.
Despite my Village People reference, I like to keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening in pop culture, and to facilitate this, for a couple of hours a week, I like to take in some media from sources that I would normally completely avoid. This might manifest itself as reading a copy of the Daily Mail, or the Watchtower, or in this case the UK top 20 on Viva.
I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't realise how bad it would be. I know I'm coming across as a whining old sod, and I should make clear that I have never been able to successfully be around pop music so this is by no means a new feeling for me. I remember watching girls formation dancing to Take That when I was about 10 and thinking "what is this putrid rubbish?" Even at 10 I had recognised that Robbie Williams was a bog-eyed leg fucker, and my opinion has never changed. In more recent times I have been driven into paroxysms of rage by N-Dubz, among others. I still feel that anything which makes you pray for the return of Brian Harvey can only be evil to its rancid core.
So, back to Viva... I should mention that I watched the new Justin Beiber video too, but with the sound down to protect myself as much as possible. It was a weird experience, akin to a pastiche of the Grease Megamix by a troupe of hispanic lesbians. I'm afraid I do think that young Beiber has certain virtues- excellent marketing for one thing. You can't help but admire the team which put Beiber into an episode of CSI to get shot. I think a stunt like that has the potential to please almost everyone on the planet. Fans will like it because they can say Beiber is something more than a dancing fuck puppet, and I enjoyed it because of the shooting. People ask me if I would fuck Beiber, and of course I would, he has a tight young body and the potential to hit some very high notes with the right motivation. He needs an internet sex tape, and I am the man to help.
But I digress... I was here to talk about Katy Perry. The thing which rankles most about this is that I thought Katy was alright. She ditched Russell Brand, which can only be a good thing for the soul, and she was putting out tracks that had some wit and a bit of warmth about them. She seemed like she wasn't taking herself too seriously, and came across as likeable and even fairly sorted. Good for her.
So what the fuck is 'Part of Me' all about? The track itself is a fairly innoffensive little romp and little need be said of it apart from that it contains the refrain "this is the part of me which you'll never gonna ever take away from me" and would appear to be in most respects a standard break-up song. Boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, girl writes break up song. Fine. However, the narrative of the video is nothing short of a Goebbels level exercise in propaganda by the American Military. Boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, girl shaves her head and joins the infantry to kill unarmed brown people in unidentified desert locale. Pissed off with your relationship? Why not take it out on these brown fuckers? One can only imagine that the war at home is not going so well if they have to recruit Katy, who would normally not even get conscripted. This, perhaps is a good thing. But not if we have to be subjected to this kind of heavy handed foolishness.
Anybody singing about sticks and stones while dressed in Territorial Army combat fatuiges in a desert deserves to have their twitching parts taken home in a shoe box.
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