The Great Satan
2010-02-12 - by
The other night, snowbound, I turned on the television: The Grammy Awards started with a gentleman dragging a blonde – I think it was Lady Gaga – across the stage. Then wearing pink glitter eye make-up and a kind of show girl costume with lime green wings the blonde went to bumping and grinding. Then she was dumped into a pit of fire only to reappear sitting at a piano banging away with Elton John who was wearing face camouflage.
After the commercial another lady who’d rival Venus de Milo strutted onto the stage wearing a leather corset and grabbed her crotch and the whole place went wild; then out of a cloud of smoke dancers materialized dressed as storm troopers and space aliens.
Then the program turned somber – Michael Jackson appeared, metaphorically, speaking from beyond the grave (on videotape) saying how much he loved the earth and how much he loved the trees and in a blink the Grammy’s turned into an orgy of Pan-like nature worship which ended with some shameless mogul, trying to milk the last dollar out of Jackson’s estate, parading Jackson’s children onto the stage.
All this would just be odd except for one thing: These showgirls and Venus de Milos and tree worshippers aren’t on the fringe of some avant-garde art movement – they’re the pinnacle of America’s cultural elite. They’re the most popular entertainers in the country. And what they did on the stage in Hollywood rivaled anything seen since Nero fiddled as Rome burned.
Over in the mountains of Pakistan, Muslims must have been leaning toward their television sets grumbling, See, I told you, they’re the Great Satan.
And at the Grammy’s we didn’t give them much reason to change their minds.
Posted in General
The Great Satan
2010-02-12/
The other night, snowbound, I turned on the television: The Grammy Awards started with a gentleman dragging a blonde – I think it was Lady Gaga – across the stage. Then wearing pink glitter eye make-up and a kind of show girl costume with lime green wings the blonde went to bumping and grinding. Then she was dumped into a pit of fire only to reappear sitting at a piano banging away with Elton John who was wearing face camouflage.
After the commercial another lady who’d rival Venus de Milo strutted onto the stage wearing a leather corset and grabbed her crotch and the whole place went wild; then out of a cloud of smoke dancers materialized dressed as storm troopers and space aliens.
Then the program turned somber – Michael Jackson appeared, metaphorically, speaking from beyond the grave (on videotape) saying how much he loved the earth and how much he loved the trees and in a blink the Grammy’s turned into an orgy of Pan-like nature worship which ended with some shameless mogul, trying to milk the last dollar out of Jackson’s estate, parading Jackson’s children onto the stage.
All this would just be odd except for one thing: These showgirls and Venus de Milos and tree worshippers aren’t on the fringe of some avant-garde art movement – they’re the pinnacle of America’s cultural elite. They’re the most popular entertainers in the country. And what they did on the stage in Hollywood rivaled anything seen since Nero fiddled as Rome burned.
Over in the mountains of Pakistan, Muslims must have been leaning toward their television sets grumbling, See, I told you, they’re the Great Satan.
And at the Grammy’s we didn’t give them much reason to change their minds.
Posted in General