There seems to be a kind of shift in what the term 'feminism' means at the moment in the Pop arena and I find it difficult to understand - and I want to understand it fully.
I'm someone who truly believes in equality. That's pretty much all I believe in, in fact.
It kind of seems like my view of feminism within mainstream Pop is in line with Sinead O'Connor (reading her open letter to Miley Cyrus I agreed with every point), or on the flip side, 90's Madonna (sexploitation on her own terms, for her own ends/with her own philosophy, coupled with music aimed at adults).
Right now it seems that reacting to someone being pimped out by their record company can have you labelled a misogynist, or, if you're a woman reacting to it (e.g Sinead O'connor or Lily Allen) you'll be branded a 'slut-shamer'. I don't really understand this and I think it's reaching a point where the reaction is ridiculous.
A good example would be this - if two friends were watching a video with a male popstar in it, let's say Peter Andre, and he had no top on, a gym created six pack and was gyrating around to a tame, predictable, industry pop song that was being targeted at children and one friend commented 'bimbo', or 'airhead' or lets say one commented in an aggressive tone 'I can't stand this fucking vacuous moron', the person sat next to them would probably chuckle in agreement, they certainly wouldn't be shocked. The comment would simply be taken as their displeasure of the style of culture that was on show.
If however you replace the male popstar with a present day female one, lets say Miley Cyrus, doing the same thing, singing the same song and one made the same comment/s, for the same reason, it would be a very different reaction.
I guess for me, personally, it comes down to this - If someone's using their body to flog a crappy product, I think it's lame, especially when that 'product' is art. Whether they're male or female I think the person is an airhead and that they're lowering the cultural barometer by doing so.
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than a white woman in her position talking about racism for black women. My god. I cringed as I read it. It's not a racist video. You can't win. Had Lily chosen only white dancers that would've caused another row. She chose the best dancers for f**k's sake. If they happen to all be not white who gives a shit? Anyway Lily has gained publicity for the new song. People like Moore make me barf into my cereal. If I saw her I'd slap her silly.