Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

i feel like these questions are separate from the discussion of coyne's and badu's bad behavior as twitter personalities. like, badu could be acting badly on twitter, and the release of the video could still be exploitative of her and her sister.

^^^ OTM

It's still kind of stunning that the Lips responses are being perceived as cynical and calculated while Badu's are kind of accepted as fact. Nothing calculated at all about publicly declaring your artistic integrity and decrying colleagues as hacks?

weird way to spin this conversation. the issue here is not really the tone of each party's tweeted responses to this situation, but rather the content and release of the video itself. often, when people take risks in front of a camera, they do so only because they trust that the person behind the camera (and the person in the editing room) will respect them and their wishes when it comes time to make the results public. unless i've missed something, coyne & co. haven't denied badu's accusation that the video was released without her approval, and they haven't denied that she was guaranteed the right to refuse. that inclines me to at least tentatively accept her accusations as valid. if what she says is true, and if she feels violated as a result of the way she was treated, then i take her side without question.

translation: horshoe's last post

also, seriously, how can you not talk about gender; it's a video of fully clothed men and a naked woman being jizzed on.

― horseshoe, Friday, June 8, 2012 10:02 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. even before i knew the full extent of the controversy over the video, i was bothered by its basic structure. not so much the erotic images of erykah and her sister, but the contrast between that material and the stupid, boring, risk-free shots of the band goofing around.

she sang "green eyes" off mama's gun while performing some crazy rhythmic gymnastics routine.

― horseshoe, Saturday, May 31, 2008 11:38 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was a high point in my life, can i just say

yeah all of horseshoe's last few posts otm

i kind of feel that whether coyne is "racist" or "sexist" is not the point, because cultural racism and sexism are not dependent on people's conscious motivations to exist, and failing to see the history of exploitation in this sort of imagery w/r/t both black female bodies and female bodies generally is the kind of unintelligent oversight that could only come from a white dude's privileged perspective.

yeah but the contrast to that is that coyne was naked (unerotically, admittedly and maybe obviously) in one of his own videos a while back. i dunno what his stance on casual nudity is, and i suspect he hasn't put much thought into the cultural distinction between male and female nudity, but it still adds a bit of a complication to the situation. (xp to contenderizer.) (also lex probably mostly otm there.)

reminds me of so many hack male artists whose entire art centres around unclothed women "because the female body is so beautiful and a work of art" zzzzzz

"because the female body is so beautiful and a work of art" jizzzzzz

i feel like these questions are separate from the discussion of coyne's and badu's bad behavior as twitter personalities. like, badu could be acting badly on twitter, and the release of the video could still be exploitative of her and her sister.

This is kind of the point I was trying to make, although obviously in a completely ineffectual way. People have been making judgments itt about who was wronged by this on a professional level without fully understanding what had happened yet. Which is fine to discuss on a flip and gossipy level. If, however, the topic turns to discussions of sexual or racial exploitation, the conversation stands the risk of becoming really ugly if the tone remains flip and gossipy. My entire concern was with trying to do my little part in preventing that from happening. I never said it shouldn't be discussed, and I never said it was a boring or worthless topic of conversation.

since the topic was pretty dead before his contributions, i'm going to posit that deric was stealth trying to turn this into a race gender thread bc a) he feels strongly about the issue or b) he feels strongly about enjoying ilx clusterfucks

― Mordy, Friday, June 8, 2012 11:51 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is that kinda "don't think about an elephant" thing

holy shit

i hadn't heard about this

i thought there was a new EB album announced or something :/

thing is with the lips, and i do love soft bulletin and embyronic a lot

but ultimately, i always got the vibe that those dudes were kinda just southern druggie dudes masquerading as artist you know? like not that they didn't do ART, but like i kinda feel like ultimately they are like way more frat dude redneck type of dudes than their little precious falsetto psych would suggest.

like i feel like they are one of those bands were some nerds would be oh i'd love to meet them and we'd talk about os mutantes until the sun came up and those dudes might just want to get wasted and get a BJ or something

not that i know em or anything but i dunno, just a vibe, so this isn't that surprising in a way

and for my fairly worthless 0.02, wayne comes off as a total fucking dick in this whole thing and i'm pretty flabbergasted than anyone who read this whole thread (as i just did) would think otherwise.

at this point the length of this argument has outpaced my interest in it but fyi:

I really think people need to sit with the whole "race and gender" aspect of this for a while. Give it a good, long think. Consider whether that's a can of worms that you really think needs to be opened in this conversation.

that's what you said. it might not have been what you meant, but give it a good, long think.

xxp

yeah i don't know if he's racist or sexist or particularly care about him at all, but it was definitely a dick move on his part, whatever else it was

I made the mistake of following badu on twitter btw, jesus

my feed is like 75% fan rxns

I joined twitter a week ago

I should've joined a long time ago, w/in the week I've gone to a few otherwise unannounced shows

All right, enough from me, clearly. Peace out, ILX.

also what is "dancing for chicken"??? it was never explained

You're a late adopter.

I'm dancing for chicken right now.

m@tt your display name is delightful

seconded.

my feed is like 75% fan rxns

u can turn off RTs by specific users

"Dancing for chicken" is a reference to the Hammer KFC commercial and is shorthand for black performers doing degrading things with racial overtones for quick buck

m@tt your display name is delightful

― horseshoe, Friday, June 8, 2012 12:32 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aw thx :)

DJP - thanks for explaining that i saw the hammer video but it sounded like an older phrase to me

it may predate the video (the concept certainly does) but the video is basically that phrase come to life and broadcast across the country in the early 90s

Between horseshoe, contendo, and m@tt p much anything I want to say on this subject has been p much covered. Al 3 completely otm. The one thing I don't get is why every1 thinks bady is acting badly on Twitter

that's mostly because everyone acts badly on Twitter

thx lex

i don't know if she is or isn't and frankly she can do whatever she wants for the rest of her life as far as i'm concerned, but i understand there are people in the world less smitten with her than i. and she does on occasion say wack things. i don't understand how other people presume to evaluate whether she truly does feel violated as a woman, i will say.

song still sucks

there's a kind of blithe permission that certain people - particularly wealthy people - grant themselves. entitlement, after all, is a fairly predictable product of wealth and celebrity, attributes that seem to affirm the superiority of those who possess them. to be rich, successful, widely known and well-loved is to be reassured at every moment: "yes, it is you. you are better. you are different. you are allowed. the things you do and say are correct. the way you feel is proper. the universe conspires to open doors and light your way."

i suspect that this atmosphere of constant positive affirmation tends to breed an attitudinal condition that i sometimes think of as "aristocratic amorality". the possessors of wealth, station, celebrity and/or power have little reason to worry about the rules that govern right and wrong, good and bad behavior in the lives of "lesser" people. the evidence of the universe seems to suggest that good things come not from doing what is generally expected or approved, but rather from the pursuit of their own "extraordinary" passions. do what thou wilt, crowley 101...

to some extent, this is a good philosophy. social rules can be stifling, and much good comes from the dedicated pursuit of one's dreams. but heedless, thoughtless entitlement does engender some rather revolting behavior.

Yeah I was looking for specific examples of how Badu was acting needlessly entitled, but thx for the philosophical treatise :)

People are saying she's acting needlessly entitled because she posted her big kiss-off after the video had already been taken down. (Although I'm having a bitch of a time finding a straightforward timeline of this whole sequence of events.)

Oic ty

But wait: then how is her hate adding to hits?

i was speculating about the sort of entitlement that possibly inclined wayne to figure that his video was self-justifying on the basis of "ART, MAN", regardless of how anybody else might feel about it - including his collaborators. not saying anything about badu.

and i was thinking aloud more than trying to make a serious point of any kind.

lol contendo, when people ask you for directions do you give them a treatise on how "north" became north?

mea culpa, i do get carried away

i often use this little "add a post" box as a thought bubble, and yeah i do that in real life too, elaborating ideas well past the point of immediate utility. it reflects a kind of entitlement, i suppose...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71P1N9M0WPL._SL500_AA300_.gif

i often use this little "add a post" box as a thought bubble, and yeah i do that in real life too, elaborating ideas well past the point of immediate utility. it reflects a kind of entitlement, i suppose...

― contenderizer, Friday, June 8, 2012 2:09 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or self parody

at least you used your forces for good itt

10000 posts on this video & no-one has flagged up how half of it is a guy waving tinfoil around

this is many xxxposts

but i just thought of this quote from "Enter Naomi: SST and All That" by Joe Carducci that kinda sums up what i was trying to say about my gut feeling about the Flaming Lips....

so I'm paraphrasing, but this is pretty close...is some guy of another big hardcore band of that era is quoted as saying, "You know, you listened to these Black Flag records and heard all this pain and despair, then their van rolls up, and all these dudes jump out, saying, 'Dude, where are the chicks? let's get this happening!'"

Nothing but LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! 4 ya, contenderizer

that's what you said. it might not have been what you meant, but give it a good, long think.

in the absence of any fav/hall of fame mechanic i would like to show my appreciation for this v elegant finisher

dancing for chicken is something I believe Ice Cube said (which is ironic, in hindsight, but evs) about Hammer on a KFC commercial. It's just my go-to 'sellout' phrase. #oldtimer