Wrecking ball

Ok-- I am well behind the cultural zeitgeist but two days ago I heard the song Wrecking Ball for the first time. And I liked it. Mainly I liked the chorus and the way Cyrus cuts it up on “You wreck me”.

Currently listening to it on full volume now that the kids have gone to school.

So watching this vdo, and having heard much of the brouhaha about it when it first came out, but not having seen it—I have to say the part that disturbs me most about the vdo is the sexualization of a sledge hammer.

I know there was a lot of talk about Cyrus being highly sexualized in this vdo but the part that is most gratuitous, most meant for the male gaze, is where she licks the sledge hammer. This is purely a male fantasy. No woman wants to lick a sledge hammer. And this is what bothers me the most. I don't mind if she performs acts that satisfy her own sexuality but to pander to male sexual fantasies is why I will not let my daughters watch this vdo.

Being naked and swinging on a wrecking ball may be stimulating –I have no problem with that. The air on your skin, the internal spike that swinging sensation causes—could be a good thing for a woman. Not that I am going to test out my theory-- but I can imagine it.

And I find her clothes in the vdo much more disturbing than her nudity. Her clothes are skimpy, highly sexualized while the shots of her when she is naked are somewhat tasteful. Nice angles, good positioning to hide the obvious, more risky, bits. The human body is a work of art-- it was her clothes that reduced her to the lowest sexual denomination.

I dislike most pop vdos-- its all women slapping their scantily clad asses and pushing their augmented breasts into your face—this is far from the worst offender in terms of the sexualization of modern day pop divas. Cyrus got called out for what I think is the least offensive part of the vdo-- her naked body.

Undecided

Does celebrity erase past crimes? Does time served efface the evil done?

An acquaintance of mine met Mike Tyson today. She posted her encounter with Iron Mike on Facebook noting that he had a strong handshake and that the person who offered to take her photo with Tyson was shaking so badly that all the photos were blurry.

My first reaction was-- cool, she met a celebrity.

My next reaction was-- Hey, what's up with the photo op with a convicted rapist.

If you were walking down the street and saw a man walk by who you knew was a convicted rapist would you ask him if you could have your picture taken with him? Most likely the answer is no. I predict that not one person would, when given this scenario, answer yes.

Of course when you throw the fact that the rapist is a celebrity in the mix the answer to this question seems to change-- at least for some people.

I have to think that, like me, her first reaction was –cool, a famous person just entered my orbit. Maybe her impulse to snap a selfie with a celebrity was as far as her mind worked through the situation.

I also have to consider that she is younger than me and from a different country and may not even be aware of Tyson's stint in jail or his conviction for rape. Maybe she just knows he's the guy in the Hangover movies.

And even if she did know about his conviction maybe she believes in rehabilitation. This leaves me questioning if I do. If you do the time for your crime should you forever be painted as your former self; a sort of Dorian Gray, never finding release from your past? Or are some crimes so heinous that a person should never be accepted in society after they have been convicted of committing them?

Following this line is making me question whether it is acceptable or not to take a selfie with Mike Tyson. For me—celebrity, redemption, debt paid to society with time served—I'd still walk away. What about you?

Hope

This morning I was prepared to write about climate change. There were protest marches across the globe yesterday to focus attention on the issue as the UN is set to meet in New York this week and climate change on the agenda.

I love a good rally but there were none scheduled close to where I live; the nearest was 1 1/2 hours away and I could not bear the hypocrisy of driving that far to protest the fossil fuel economy.

The course I am currently in, Health and the Environment, deals a lot with climate change and the effect it will have on us all-- from increased adverse weather events to the spread of disease. I would love to use less petroleum based energy but right now the best green technology is out of my economic reach.

So instead of driving to a rally in Cape Breton or Halifax I went to my local beach and picked garbage from the shoreline. It's a little thing, and next week there will be just as much, but it is the least I can do at the moment.

This and more is what I planned to write about but then I got sidetracked by Facebook. And not by the thousand useless, inane updates: post if you love your mother, think cousins are the best or believe it's always wine-o'clock somewhere. I was distracted by the great suffering of a little girl. A little girl whose mom was a childhood friend of mine. Reading her post about how her eldest daughter has been suffering these past months and how, at this moment, she is in hospital, struggling with an unknown illness, is so heart wrenching. I, and everyone else except her medical team, are helpless.

This morning I thought about sharing her most recent post which detailed the horrible night they had just been through-- but then I didn't really know why I wanted to share that update. I guess I wanted to share it because a shared pain is easier to survive than a hidden one. I guess I wanted people to know why I was distracted today. I guess I wanted to share it just in case the energy of our thoughts could help this child and her family.

There's nothing else I can write at the moment. I can't think beyond the word hope. That's what I will be doing today.