In this instance, I happen to be talking about the people's power to mock, ogle, citicize, rib and obsess over pop culture, and more recently, the political process.
To be still more specific, my newest obsession of the minute is Taryn Southern's very fabulous and spoofy Hott 4 Hill! video that is making the pop culture rounds. My love for this video knows no bounds: for its queerness, for its satire, for its brass. I just love it. The Obama Girl vid may have started it, but Taryn Southern has taken it to a whole new level.
Here's the vid. Be sure and scroll down to check out her introduction to the video, aptly titled A Letter To My Fellow Americans, which is also found on her website hott4hill.blogspot.com (where the vid can also be seen, if it's loading too slow here.)
A letter to my fellow Americans:
On June 13, 2007, the face of the 2008 presidential campaign was forever changed with the release of a provocative video known as "Obama-Girl."
It was all there - a passionate statement of love and partisan politics - thoughtfully packaged into a catchy pop song.
In less than a week, the Obama-Girl tribute to Democratic candidate Barrack Obama earned several million online hits and played on primetime news stations across the country.
Now let me preface my announcement by saying that I am no stranger to politics. I ran for Student Council President in the 7th grade. I attended the 2004 presidential debates in Miami. I even met Bob Dole this year in the Las Vegas airport.
Following the release of the Obama-Girl video, I felt that it was my social responsibility to provide America with a fair and balanced view of the 2008 Democratic campaign by showing my love and support for my own favorite candidate - Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Another meme, this one I thought particularly thought provoking, that's making the rounds...
10 Things I Would Tell My 16 Year Old Self:
1. You won't always be so powerless. One day, you will have your own apartment, and your own money, and your own life, and you can finally stop being careful and guarded and live on your own terms.
2. Those feelings you have? Those sex feelings? TOTALLY normal. Stop worrying, being queer won't seem so world ending in 10 years.
3. You don't need anyone's approval, particularly your famliy's, which you're never going to get in the way you want. Get an earlier start on doing what you love without apology.
4. Relax. RELAX. The world is bigger than Ashland, KY, and your life will take you wonderful places. You're right to love diversity and intellect, and you don't have to live here forever. You're going to make it just fine in New York.
5. Respect money. It doesn't always just come to you when you want it, and you haven't learned to manage it well yet. Be cautious with the check writing and the bill paying, or you'll make things really hard for yourself later. Your credit score DOES matter in the long run.
6. If you ask for what you need, someone will give it to you. IF YOU ASK FOR WHAT YOU NEED, SOMEONE WILL GIVE IT TO YOU. People love you but they can't read your mind, and you're going to keep being disappointed until you learn to tell people how to meet your needs and then give them the opportunity.
7. All of those things... those bad things that are happening to you and those bad things you're being told and those ways you're being hurt? You don't deserve them. Any of them. You're wonderful, it isn't your fault, and by the time you're 18 all of it will stop.
8. You're going to want to be an English Major in college... don't. It isn't practical, and that career you think you're headed for in journalism is going to suck. Take theatre, take screenwriting and filmmaking, and don't worry about being practical. You're never going to have trouble getting a job, so do the things you've always wanted and thought were frivolous.
9. Pursue other options for funding that independent liberal arts education. You don't really get it yet, but $60,000 is a LOT of money, and you're not going to be able to get out from that kind of debt for a long time. Don't do those student loans unless you absolutely have to.
10. Your straight girlfriends will never love you like that. Stop looking for what you need in the wrong places. Straight girls in general are not going to work out, so when you hit that fall in love with straight girls phase... skip it. It doesn't matter how good together you are, they're never going to settle down with you.
¶ 3:50 AM0 comments
The basics... I'm 34, a feminist, lesbian, vegetarian, cat owning aspiring writer/director. After 27 years of fucking around telling myself my dreams weren't practical, seven years ago in a story that has now become legend in my life, I packed everything I owned and moved to Brooklyn to pursue life as a writer and theatre director. It's a very Madonna-esque tale ($800 cash to my name, nowhere to live, roaches, starvation and a crazy Turkish roommate) that I'm sure I'll be telling, but not now. For now, suffice it to say that this story, still in progress, has a happy ending. Or a happy middle, seeing as how I'm nowhere near being finished with anything. Life in Brooklyn is funny, scary, occasionally really hard, and everyday testing me as a person and a survivor. I think I'm passing. At least I wake up smiling every morning. The city is my lover, and like all truly great relationships, I love who I am when I am in it.