I Miss My MTV: Xtina: chaps, children, and plumbing problems
Questions I have after watching Christina Aguilera (featuring Redman)’s “Dirrty” video
Did someone on Christina’s team tell her she had to sex up her image or did she decide this on her own? Did she ever read Laura Mulvey’s “Cinematic Gaze” and this is her answer?
Did they have to blur out labia? I’m not asking facetiously. The spread eagle is not uncommon in music videos. But I remember it may have been the first to be done so dangerously close to exposure.
Why did Robin ever try to have two-tone hair like this?
What is the narrative here? She’s dirty, she’s an underground boxer in this post-apocalyptic world where she has custom chaps?
Did she know there is a child in the tunnel that Redman lives in?
Is she…in a bathroom? With urinals? With water all over the floor?...that came from URINALS?
I love nothing more than when a “clean” pop star decides they need to grow up and make their image edgier. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s quite awkward. I think I appreciate her effort, but the aesthetic is bad, but if she is trying to explore the idea of the female grotesque, then she nails it.
What is this? A semi-regular newsletter about culture and academia and academic culture with occasional creative essays.
Regular features: Showgirls: The Novelization, I Miss My MTV; Tales of Tenure Terror