Friday, December 08, 2006

Camille Paglia Advises Britney: One Boob, No Muff

After the emergence of the now infamous crotch shots, famed cultural critic Camilla Paglia has come to believe, like everyone else, that Britney Spears has turned into a slut. But Camilla understands how Hollywood works, so she has special insight into what went wrong.

And in her view, the problem with Britney and Paris and the lot can all be traced to the decline of the old studios:

These are women who are clearly out of control because the old studio era is over. The studio system...guided and shaped the careers of the young women who it signed up. It maximized their sexual allure by dealing it out in small doses and making sure you don't have -- what has become here -- a situation of anarchy.

Good Lord! A situation of Anarchy, like there's stripping on the Boulevard! Camille sounds like my grandma!

But in any case, her point is that the whole dispensing of T&A is not supposed to proceed willy-nilly. Just a flash of boob here, a touch of ass there, can stretch a career out for years, maybe even until the girl's past thirty. It's like honey. A taste and they come running back. Throw 'em great gobs of the stuff and its value declines.

The obvious rejoinder at this point is: Madonna has spent the last two decades nekkid. How does she stay relevant? Paglia's answer, once again, appeals to the business dynamic of the star system. Madonna's years of recording success have given her the right to strip:

Madonna was able to flash her breasts and play peek-a-boo because she is an authentic, creative artist who churns out song after song, project after project.… But Britney seems like she's lost and the career track is obliterated

That is, in Madonna's case there is no need to skimp on the bare flesh in order to preserve her market viability. Paglia doesn't give a scale--for example, ten million albums = the right to expose both tits--but apparently Madonna has moved enough units that she can go the Full Monty any goddamn time she wants and nobody has cause to complain.

All of which seems a bit sexist to me. For example, Neil Young is an "authentic artist" who has sold millions of albums. And yet if he were to set up a grinding poll on stage at one of his concerts, get up there and wiggle his schlong to "Heart of Gold", he'd be locked up, even though this would be at least as entertaining as watching Madonna shake her stuff. Because at this point in her career, nudity is something Madonna inflicts on the public, not something the public demands or even wants from her. And yet when she does it there is no legal consequence.

As one final note, I ran the search terms "Camille & Paglia & Naked" through Google Images, looking for something to illustrate this post with. And I found Nada, not even a caricature or a picture of Camille's head shopped to the neck of a play-boy bunny.

Some things are just too horrible to contemplate, I guess.





















So I found a picture of Madonna instead...

On another final note, I tried, really tried once to read Paglia's Sexual Personae, but stalled out at about page 80 because I kept stumbling over her constant use of the term "Cthonian". In fact, the term refers to the worship of spiritworld gods. I, however, mistook it for "Cthulian", meaning "...associated with Cthulu, demon overlord in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.".

At the time, the notion that Emily Dickinson's poetry (for example) might have been influenced by Cthulu, an evil octopus from space, seemed implausible. If I were to read the book again, presumably my experience of it would be quite different.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jesus, what a lunatic Paglia is. She's like so many of these American public "intellectuals"...Develop a thesis to explain something and then only pay attention to the evidence that supports it.

I think part of the reason we're seeing the abandonment of any kind of modesty among celebrities (besides the fact that so many of them are complete morons) is that it's pointless. Go knicker-less one day and it's guaranteed some spy camera will catch it and plaster images of your minge all over the media the very next day.

Unless celebrities retreat from public life altogether when they're not performing (and God, I wish they would) it's pointless. One erect nipple, a flash of pubes, the outline of a trouser-snake and you might as well be doing porn.

bigcitylib said...

Ti-guy wrote:

"Go knicker-less one day and it's guaranteed some spy camera will catch it and plaster images of your minge all over the media the very next day."

...which is why I tend to cheer when someone like Sean Penn corks a paparazzi.

Anonymous said...

I would never do that. If push came to shove, I'd simply pull down my pants and take a dump right in the middle of the street.

You want images?...You got 'em.

Simon Pole said...

I would never do that. If push came to shove, I'd simply pull down my pants and take a dump right in the middle of the street.

This hasn't worked its way up to "A" list celebrities yet, but its coming soon.

(For the time being its confined to underworlders like GG Allen and Mike Patton).

Anonymous said...

"Go knicker-less one day and it's guaranteed some spy camera will catch it and plaster images of your minge all over the media the very next day."

If only foodbankguy had thought of that, he'd be el commandante now.

bigcitylib said...

Simon,

I object to you calling Mike Patton an "underworlder". He's just ahead of his time, is all, and FNM rawwwked!!!

G.G. Allen is dead, according to google.

Simon Pole said...

BCL,

Exactly my point. Mike Patton is ahead of his time, and that includes the dump he took on stage.

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Anonymous said...

Oy-lets not take Neil Young into this swamp. Neil has always cut his own path through things, but I'm quite sure that even he wouldnt boldly go where Madonna has gone so many times before....

Anonymous said...

Oy-lets not take Neil Young into this swamp. Neil has always cut his own path through things, but I'm quite sure that even he wouldnt boldly go where Madonna has gone so many times before....

Super-Amanda said...

This is very sad to read because what Camille Paglia fails to realize is that Madonna is the foreunner of raunch culture and has influenced Paris, Britney and all the other younger girls who Camille deems 'floozies."
Do you hate hardcore porn being brought to your 9 year old daughter by the media? Blame Madonna, who had nowhere to go but Skanktown and the media who made it rewardable. Ciccone has very little sheer talent-she is a poor actress and her singing voice-to say nothing of her wretchedly insincere speaking voice-is one of the weakest in the entire industry.
Madonna really made it by being the first media generated supe star; trashy, nasty to her fellow female performer (until she was too haggard and old to get away with it as often) and courting stylists, trainers and designers instead of working on her craft but most importantly the media has always seen her as a scared cow-be trashy, be vulgar and we will keep you famous,on magazine covers (has Beyonce ever had a Vanity fair cover?) loved AND respected they say. Thus her spawn followed suit.
Camille Paglia knows Madonna will never be a true glorious sex symbol, like Monroe, Ekberg or June Wilkinson and that she always cared more about money and appearance than sex but Camille still champions her because Madonna has the Catholic Church oozing out of ever pore and is an example of what the short, thick waisted, smaller breasted average Catholic woman with 'exploit my dead Mommy angst' can do. Camille sees and defends herself.
I for one like classy, talented well endowed women like Sophia Loren, Nigella Lawson, Kate Donovan, Super Amanda, and Kelly Brook who have class, mystery and vibrance and who have awesome bodies that they have not destroyed with exercise bulimia. Women like these have other stuff going on-like sex, sensuality and beauty!
Madonna: Camille's dream and Queen of the Wasted Faces and sweat shop labor HMS track suit lifestyle.