Shakespeare, Chaucer & Pitbull?

Last week, I watched an episode of the Ellen Degeneres show where she interviewed Bruno Mars and my life changed. In a deep and meaningful conversation where they discussed his recent album Unorthodox, she asked him what his new album was all about. He asked her if she wanted the long version or the short version; she responded with “the long version”. He said, “I’ll give you the short version: it’s about sex.”

Wow. That’s deep man. You really make me feel like I’m locked out of heaven…where heaven in this scenario is somewhere that I desperately want to be just to get away from the insane superficiality that governs our lives.

The problem is this shit is catchy! People will literally sing and dance to anything, so long as the melody and the beat get them moving. Mr. 305 a.k.a. Mr. Worldwide a.k.a. Pitbull (whose real name is Armando, by the way) is the king of this. Woah…international love, for example, is not about coming together to celebrate our differences…it’s about an international, cross-continental orgy so Shakespeare, maybe you should sit this one out, because this is what the future looks like.

John Lennon sang about changing the world in the 70s:

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.

Michael Jackson asked us all to start with the Man in the Mirror in the 80s, singing:

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
take a look at yourself, and then make a change

Even in the 90s, Aaliyah encouraged us to pursue love, through the thick and thin of it all:

If at first you don’t succeed
Dust yourself off and try again
You can dust it off and try again

There is a legacy there! What the bloody hell happened? I know everyone expected the millennium to change the world in unanticipated ways, but I had no idea that the direct impact of that was going to be on the music scene – if you can still call it that (I use the term music loosely…)!

According to recent pop culture this is what we have been taught by all of our favourite artists: Ready?

PITBULL: Grab somebody sexy, tell ‘em hey, give me everything tonight. For all we know we might not get tomorrow. Let’s do it tonight. (Translation: Let’s go bump uglies because I’m secretly a mass murderer that doesn’t take rejection lightly!)

ONE DIRECTION: Let’s go crazy, crazy, crazy ’til we see the sun. I know we only met but let’s pretend it’s love. And never, never, never stop for anyone. Tonight let’s get some and live while we’re young! (Let’s pretend it’s love…okay! Well thank you for not lying to me, I guess. I know how you feel. I get pretty horny when I’m on my period too! Don’t worry though because once you’re cycle normalizes, like mine, you’ll be able to get your brain to steadily reboot itself and move out of screensaver mode!)

KE$HA: I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums. Oh, what a shame that you came here with someone, so while you’re here in my arms, let’s make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young. (Anyone else noticing that sleeping around or death seem to be the only two options coming up…? And when it comes to Ke$ha, I’m not going to lie, I kinda prefer death! It’s nothing personal…I just don’t think she fully understands that life is about more than binge drinking and banging everything in sight with a pulse. And obviously cheating on your partner appears to not even be an issue on the radar…particularly if it means you might get lucky! What an inspirational message to send to all the tweens that look up to her! It brings tears to my eyes…!)

USHER: If you wanna scream, yeah, let me know and I’ll take you there. Get you going like
Ah-ooh baby baby ooh baby baby! Ah-ooh baby baby ooh baby! (Translation: I’m good at orgasms. I can make you orgasm. I can make you good at orgasms too. Just wanted to clear that up with you…)

KATY PERRY: There’s a stranger in my bed; there’s a pounding in my head. Glitter all over the room; Pink flamingos in the pool! (Translation: I just had sex with someone who is really gay…and I don’t know what that says about me.)

MOHOMBI:  I wanna boom bang bang with your body yo. We’re gonna rough it up before we take it slow. Girl lemme rock you rock you like a rodeo. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. (Aside from that fact that this is lyrical porn, which I can’t even begin to tackle…one question comes to the forefront of my mind! Why are there bumps involved? All I know is that anything bumpy needs to be immediately checked out by a group of physicians before it goes anywhere near my rodeo….ew!)

LADY GAGA: Let’s have some fun. This beat is sick. I wanna take a ride on your disco stick. (I don’t even know what to say…)

I just want to say that, for the record, I listen to all these artists, or have done at one point or another and I dance around to these tracks just like any other moron that thinks lyrics like ‘from the window to the wall, ‘til the sweat drips down my balls’ is poetry.

Here’s the thing though: I miss the days of poetry. I miss the seductive sounds of Frank Sinatra’s The Way You Look Tonight and Elvis’ Fools Rush In. I miss the Beatles singing ‘I want to hold your hand’. And no, I’m not a female Dorian Gray; I wasn’t born when all these artists were in their primes, and I haven’t sold my soul to the devil (contrary to popular opinion…), but I grew up, like most people I know, wanting more than a rough night of hot sex with a random stranger; I wanted love, seduction and a relationship and these days, it seems like we are moving further away from starry-eyed and more towards plain sleazy.

I’m not against sex. I’m not against freedom of speech, but this is not freedom of speech in my opinion. It sounds more like an out-of-control addiction that makes even Lindsay Lohan look like a saint!

So the next time you start dancing around manically to the sounds of Scream & Shout by Britney and Will.I.AM, yet another song about boozing away the remainder of your brain-cells, probably popping some speed and then hitting the dance floor because it might be the last day of your life…as usual, maybe think twice about what you’re indirectly endorsing here.

And as good ol’ George Michael has said:

“With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people’s self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.”

Sigh. What can I say? A BITCH’s work is never done…but we can’t be passive in how we process the messages that are constantly thrown at us by the media because, whether or not we like it, they influence our perceptions and consequently, our life-choices.

I know they want us all to constantly be turned on, but do me a favour and turn it off for a while and take up something more productive! Do some writing or meditation or ANYTHING at all that does not involve singing about one-night stands and international love…woah! Okay, okay…starting now…GO!

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