Sunday, November 27, 2011

American 'culture' today, such as it is....

When I was looking at a recent article about the 'Most Admired American Women' list, I couldn't help but gape in disbelief as Lady Gaga made the list.  The article did not say where she was on the list, but she did not appear in the Top Ten. 

However, the fact that Lady Gaga made the list AT ALL was stunning to me. 

Most of my flabbergasted disbelief stemmed from the fact that Lady Gaga's entire professional persona is that of a pornographic slut.  And she is admired for this by more than a few idiots among the 1019 Americans chosen by Gallup to partake in this foolish telephone poll in March of 2011.  Some might say that Lady Gaga's persona is just that, an onstage act that has no bearing or resemblance to her personal life, and that she is actually chaste and pure, much like her button-down, 'church lady' mother who appears from time to time with her trollop, hussy looking daughter.

Lady Gaga can certainly claim that this is true, but in the real world perception is reality.  And her onstage presence is one of a shameless, scantily dressed strumpet.  Who gets mention on the Most Admired U.S. Women List.  What has become of us, and Western culture in general, when we adore pornographic personas such as this brazen harlot?

Now Oprah and Laura Bush have legitimate standing on this list, as both are accomplished Americans, Oprah in the entertainment business, and Laura Bush as the wife of an ex-president and a supporter of many charities and foundations too numerous to mention.  Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie also made the Top Ten, although I might note that Angelina Jolie is closer in public persona to Lady Gaga than to Laura Bush, although not to Lady Gaga's extremes.

At times, I know why Osama bin Laden hated the West. And, sad but true, these are the times that I agree with Osama.

Our culture is at times one that lauds decadence and debauchery.

13 comments:

Silverfiddle said...

Virtue begat prosperity, and the daughter killed the mother.
-- Cotton Mather

Chris W said...

Has anyone actually offered proof that Lady Gaga is indeed a woman?

Looks like a guy in drag to me.

Fredd said...

Silver:

Ol' Cotton could turn a phrase back in the day, eh Silver? And to think that Cotton Mather in his day sought to diminish the debauchery, lechery and indeed witchcraft he saw as rampant at the time.

The Good Rev. Mather would be spinning in his grave, and the bearings would be smoking were he aware of today's lowly morals on parade.

Fredd said...

Chris W:

You may be right.

Kid said...

Fredd, I'll bet real money that lady gagme is a guy. I looked at theat picture and in a nanosecond thought "That's a guy" before I even knew who you were talking about.

But, I've had the same thought. Look at the women who are at the top of pop culture at least in terms of media exposure, let alone self-exposure.
lindsey, brittney, paris, this person, and geeez, an extremely no talent bitch who's claim to fame is a sex video on the internet, thousands of pictures of her posing like an untrained seal. and her sister. No talent unintelligent whores, usually on drugs, that couldn't give me everything they have if they paid me beside.

Now I see Chris's comment. Yea, obviously I agree.

The whole subject makes me think of the KGB agent Brezmanov(sp?) who described how the first step in taking over a country is to demoralize.
This has been going on a while.

Fredd said...

Kid:

Yeah, the Kardashians deserve their own discussion, and it parallels this one, in that the culture values looks, and nothing else.

Yes, Kim is a looker. But a high school drop out, slut of an idiot looker.

And for that, she is famous. That, and her OJ Simpson defender dad, that's a plus.

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

Cultural rot.... What does the West need to stop it and turn it around? I can't think of a thing that would work other than a prolonged, severe, crushing existential crisis.

God forbid it. And God help us.

Fredd said...

El:

Just out of curiosity, what form would this prolonged, crushing existential crisis take?

Seems to me we have one now, in the form of the Democratic Party, as it is currently constituted.

Incognito said...

I watched a video of hers, and was apalled. but did enjoy this one by those 2 soldiers. :-)
http://youtu.be/haHXgFU7qNI

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

Just out of curiosity, what form would this prolonged, crushing existential crisis take?

Well, the Second Financial Meltdown comes to mind. I figure unless there is a sharp turn to the right in the next five years, we're going to see it before 2020. And this time, it's probably going to be accompanied by early 1980s-level interest rates, late 1970s-level inflation (in the short term, at least), supply shocks to energy sources, and massive civil unrest, as the have-nots are suddenly cut off from the benefits they had foolishly assumed would last forever.

Thank God a huge proportion of Americans are armed. It's the only thing that would save the country.

I sure hope I'm wrong. But with each passing month, I become more convinced that there is no avoiding this.

Fredd said...

El:

You are right: as with check bouncers, the first few checks they bounce, they enjoy the goodies, and didn't have to pay for them. Then, their reputation gets out, the police get involved, and in time they are held accountable. There has never been a check bouncer that has gotten away with this forever.

As a society, we are bouncing checks, and we are starting to see the chickens come home to roost in a meaningful way. Have-nots are still living large on our government's borrowed money. Living the life of Riley, with 46" LCD flat screens, sitting in their fully extended Lay-Z-Boy armchairs, sipping Moleson, watching the Bears season start to slip with a mediocre back up QB. All on the public dime, these moochers, having never held a job in their lives.

But, like the check bouncers, these moochers are starting to see their mooching ways come under scrutiny. And of course they are squealing like stuck pigs (the OWS mob). We hosed them out of the public square without much civil unrest that has affected or even bothered Joe and Jill Sixpack. These have-nots did not start to invade people's houses...yet.

And they won't. This is where your predictions of doom will go awry, El. Every Jack and Jill Sixpack out there sees we are heading for a cliff. We saw evidence of this shift away from the cliff in November of 2010. We saw evidence of this in the gubenatorial elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida and Ohio. Tea Parties are still vigilant in wanting our drunken sailor spending cut. And drastically. Wisconsin throttled their out of control public unions.

We are not blindly heading towards that cliff anymore, El. We are slowly but surely turning the huge rudder to the right: the elections of 2012 will turn that rudder on our ship of state even harder to the right, as the people who provide these mooochers with their 46" flatscreens have had enough of it.

I think we have already lived through (and continue to live through) our prolonged, crushing existential crisis. People did not like seeing their savings diluted by 40% as the housing market took our stock market down the tubes in 2008 after the have-nots refused to pay their mortgages for years. We have been living with that crushing crisis since then. People don't like seeing our government shove a public health bill down our throat. We are doing something about it.

Have faith. We are getting ourselves back on track, surely you can see this. Barney Frank just quit because he can't be the chair of the nations banking and finance committee anymore, need I say more? We are not going to put up with 5 more years of this foolishness, not even one more year of it, El.

Time will tell, you will see that I am right.

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

Time will tell, you will see that I am right.

Fredd, I would be delighted to be dead wrong. I would sing to your superior prescience.

If there is no Second Financial Meltdown, there's always the Yellowstone Caldera to worry about.

Fredd said...

EL:

Yeah, there's that caldera bubbling away that is sure to be the death of us all, El.

Me, I'm sitting on the northern edge of the New Madras fault line, site of the largest earthquake ever (approx 8.5 on the Richter), in 1812 that was so powerful it changed the course of the Mississippi River.

In 1812, only a few farmers and Indians noticed it, though. Today, it would kill millions with another of that magnitude, including yours truly.