A place for musings on popular culture in its various
forms
Created: February 11, 2007 The N Word
The use of the N word in American culture is a highly contested and potentially
explosive territory. In a country where racial divisions have been
a defining characteristic for over four hundred years, where domestic slavery
was widespread a hundred and sixty years ago, and where as recently as forty
years ago, major civil rights legislation had to be agitated for, the use
of a word that was historically disparaging and used primarily by the dominant
White culture can stir very strong emotions. There are those who believe
no one should use this word; there are those who believe that only Black
people can legitimately use this word; there are those who believe that the
word can only be used in specific contexts. So, the use of this word
in a popular prime-time drama-comedy series on major network television could
be expected to raise quite an outcry. Only it hasn't, and I find this
quite interesting, particularly since this event not only evoked the word
but also brought in a context that is racially complex and raises serious
questions of authorship and performance. more...
Created: December 4, 2005 Have a Nice Day?
So, my morning routine involves watching MTV. Okay, actually VH-1
Classic, that's how old I am, but I'll occasionally cruise through the other
music video channels when there's nothing I'm interested in watching. Generally,
this makes me grumpy, since they'll play the same damn crappy videos on
four of the five channels I tend to cycle between, and the only thing worse
than seeing a crappy video is to see the same crappy video being pushed
all over the place. Which brings me to Bon Jovi. more...