2010-02-10

And this is where I'll stay

Today’s question: Is irony just a way of getting away with being stupid? And do ironic representations in popular culture do good or bad? Black Eyed Peas’ music video for Meet Me Halfway is today’s object of analysis. Watch it:



With a title like Meet Me Halfway, one would think that they should put an equally large effort in getting to each other. But no.

To start with, throughout the video, the Man is depicted as several indivduals. The Man is as versatile as he is active. He conquers nature in what feels like countless ways; he rides an elephant (domestication of animals!), he reads maps (literacy!), he goes to space and he uses various tracking devices (modern science and gold-digging!). Clearly, he’s a Man with a plan and he has the know-how and the determination to get where he wants.

Meanwhile, the Woman, one body, one individual, placed in Nature, doesn’t seem to make any effort whatsoever of getting her halfway to the Man. Her job is to lie passive on a tree trunk, surrounded by flowers and magical mist, gently carressing her body while keeping her legs together (she’s holding out!). And when she claims that “I can’t go any further than this” she has successfully managed to crawl on the ground a distance of… nowhere. She is not only placed in nature, she IS nature, wating to be conquered. All he needs is a location, and to get there first. All she needs is to wait.

In conclusion, and since no one else seems to hang around this blog, I guess I should answer my own questions. But I won't. I don't know if I should laugh with them, at them or cry because of the unoriginal/ironic depictions of Man/Woman. No. Instead I shall watch it again and now focus on why the elephant is wearing black and how that is possibly related to chocolate. Hej.

2010-02-05

Even cowboys

It's Friday evening and the kitchen is currently hosted by a band of brothers, a gang of boys. They're peeling potatoes, and trying to make sense of something I would probably refer to as the matter of homosexuality and hegemonic masculinity:

- That is so gay. One is so obviously gay, looking like that.
- No, there’s no such thing as 'looking gay'. You can never tell! Have you not seen Brokeback Mountain!?

2010-02-02

I'm an animal.

Since no one seems to be particularly alive I hereby allow myself to ponder freely upon whatever I feel like. For example, inspired by my dad and Ape’s family: The immorality of mixing meat from different animals in one sole dish.

You should know, that for the Ape family it is something of a challenge to put as many different animal meats in the same dish, and get away with it (something which they don’t always manage). As for my dad, he brought me disgust and inspiration when telling me of an extravagant dish consisting of a large turkey, in which there was a goose, in which there was a chicken, in which there was dove, in which there was a quail. And in the quail layeth an egg. Yeah, an egg in a bird, in a bird, in a bird… Or something along those lines. This is something that the old Romans used to eat. According to my dad.

Like the Janssons, I love food-related challenges. And like some of the more spoilt Romans, I adore gluttony. But there is something absolutely unethical in putting meat from different animals in the same dish.* I say we lose a portion of our humanity for every bacon-enfolded chicken breast we cut into.

Let’s say I was killed for food. I died for you. Then at least make me the star of your meal. I gave my life for your fucking jambalaya, don’t throw in a damn chicken next to me! Or a pork sausage. Or something else dead with a potential soul that isn’t mine. And don’t you dare eat me on weekdays. At least not my good parts. You're just shoving me right into your mouth without really tasting. Have my intestines for a hasty Tuesday tv-dinner, but damn you if you consume my fine buttocks in front of Days of our Lives! See me, see my value! Invite your friends to indulge me. Or better, have them watch you indulge in me. Make a sauce béarnaise to go with my inner thighs or smoke my cheeks with juniper berries. I don’t care exactly how you prepare me, as long as you do it with love and devotion. Think of me, who laid down my life to satisfy you.

One dish, one meat, one life, one soul, one love.

*Some of you out there might consider it absolutely unethical eating animals in the first place. And let’s not forget, we do have a former vegan in our midst (however, these days she’s *only* militant). I too, find it a somewhat weird and questionable custom, killing for food. But it is how I was brought up. The problem is that meat and the animals who bring it to us are way underrated. Cherish the meat, cherish the animals.