Kelly found a story about a controversial new George Michael video. controversy, you ask? what has the naughty sexy bad boy done now? well, he's produced a bit of politcal satire. and good for him.
she also mentions a segment she watched on MSNBC, where concern was expressed over questioning our government during wartime, and this is where i started to get upset about things. there are pundits pondering the inappropriateness of a music video which pokes fun at our leaders?
we're being told that we're either with the government, or for the terrorists. this makes George Michael a dangerous terrorist sympathizer because he is expressing his objections to the way we've handled this undeclared 'war' against a concept, how we rather arbitrarily picked a place we felt harbors terrorists, and bombed the shit out of it. he's also concerned that PM Blair is under dubya's influence. and yes, he's just a pop star, and this is just a video and what the *hell* are people worried about?
i'm not a George Michael fan, per se, but i certainly support his right to make his opinions known, and truth be told, the things he said in the BBC interview were fairly close to my own thoughts on the subject. which makes me a terrorist sympathizer too, as it seems i'm supporting his (and my own) right to free speech in the matter. i am terribly concerned that this freedom of expression is fast becoming a thing of the past. or, as Ashcroft is quoted as saying, “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists.”
and the bottom line is, it's just a pop song.
I confess: I'm a terrorist sympathizer too.
The right to free speech? The right to question our government and to despise the very hole that the current Admin. is putting us into? What the hell kind of "Patriots" are we, KD????
the way the administration is acting isn't all that disturbing -- they are people in power, and it's kind of the way powerful people tend to act -- "don't question us, we know better than you" and all.
what disturbs me is that a music video could generate discussion on a newscast as to the "appropriateness" of the political message. a music video! go figure that!
Actually, what disturbed me more was the apparent sentiment over at Kelly's place that he oughtta shut up and make music. Has half the population of this country decided to agree with "Let the Eagle Soar" Ashcroft? That's frightening. I'll disagree loudly and often until they throw me in jail, then I'll start looking for lawyers willing to do pro bono work defending the First Amendment.
Muhammad Ali made a crack about having no quarrel with the Viet Cong once; I feel the same way about the Iraqis. I have quite a quarrel with al-Qaeda and anyone else who wants to murder innocent people, but not with a population which has no links to the terrorists that even this "any excuse to finish Dad's job" Administration has so far found.
I do find it odd that MSNBC would apparently spend any time on a music video, when there's an accidental killing of a bunch of Afghan people and a mid-air collision of two big airplanes to yammer about.
it's just a pop song - and not a good one...
George Michael is one of my favorite artists, and I like his new video. Everyone knows that Tony's been under the influence of his Bushyness, and they're very much alike what with both of them being crap leaders (we only voted for Blair again because there was no real opposition, plenty of people would have voted him out otherwise).
There's nothing wrong with what George is saying in his video, for one thing it's what everyone's saying, and everyone is entitled to free speech, British or American.
Aw, who cares... it's George Michael. He's one of my idols, and I'll love him no matter what.
*walks out humming "I Want Your Sex"*
Um, since when have we based our foreign policy on what pop stars have to say? Geldof and Bono have done some wonderful things - but I'm not gonna listen to them tell me who to vote for or what to think. Actually I don't listen to what politicians tell me about that - I make my own decisions.
And since when have we turned to MTV for our politics? Oh yeah sure, Sean Lennon (Yoko's boy) did his anti war song - that was for the Gulf War, remember? I'm sure it really effected all of you - right? Does anyone remember that at all? Ok, how bout Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Two Tribes? That was political. Or the Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic, that was political. Videos made for all of them. Anything earth shattering go down? I picked old ones so we could have a little history to look at.
Musicians and movie stars can say and make videos of whatever they want - and it's our right to call it as we see it. But please, don't make the medium any more powerful. It's a music video. We're not talking propaganda on the level of Triumph of the Will.
What has made this video more than just another music video - the attention it's getting. That attention - and WHY it's getting it - is far more important than the actual content of the video.
It's more about the reaction its getting than the subject matter. Otherwise it'd be just another piece of MTV history.
I might add that the last time a George Michael video generated steam - and I'm not going to count the one with the police that re-enacted his public restroom arrest, that was a video reaction as opposed to a video that caused a reaction - was I Want Your Sex. Huge buncha hooha on that - "what was this video saying to our young people" - blah blah blah on talk shows and such.
Meanwhile every time any video or cd generates ANY media controversy it's considered free advertising by the record label. Makes em happy.
Not counting Milli Vanilli of course.
well, it's a rousing success from a PR standpoint, that's for sure.
Maybe I should not make a comment here as I'm not an American, or British for that matter, however we now live in a 'global' world. So here goes. I had stopped following the news on CNN re. Afghanistan simply because I had thought that this had all blown over. I had no idea that the US was still there looking for Bin Laden? I was so taken aback to hear the news about the many people killed and injured at the wedding there recently.
What happened on Sept. 11 was an attack on the US and the FREE WORLD as we know it, and is not to be excused. However, if George Michael wants to make a controversial song, then he's free to do it and prepare himself for any potential consequences. Simply agreeing with some of the sentiments expressed in the song does not make you a terrorist, or do you subscribe to Mr. Bush's comment that stated either you are with us or you are against us? Hopefully the World can put an end to this business of war and hatred someday soon, it is perhaps one of the most efficient ways of destroying the lives of valuable young men and women in combat! War is totally unproductive and a waste of human and economic resources!
agreed -- and the things being done in the name of this war to our freedoms, as a country and really all over the world, is something that concerns me greatly.
Yes, I did say he should shut up and make music over at Kelly's, but not because I think he isn't entitled to free speech. There's nothing about his video that upsets me in the least, even though I hold a vastly different opinion on the war and our President than most of the people here. What forced me to suggest that he just "shut up" were his idiotic, ill thought out statements that were just ludicrous. The President should ASK us what we think every time he has to make decisions? Come on...
... that should have said, "statements to the press", to distinguish from the statements he's making in the video.
"it's what everyone's saying, and everyone is entitled to free speech, British or American."
It's sure as hell what they should be saying, Mike, but I've noticed (ever since 9-11) this scary scary wave of patriotic zealousness sweeping the country. Blindly supporting our government is a mistake--but I know so many people who agree with Ashcroft. Intelligent people. People who should know better. sigh.
His video doesn't bother me in the least, either. What concerns me is the fact that some people don't want to play or air the song because of its views. That's just ridiculous. People have forgotten that they have full control over what they listen to and watch on t.v. Don't like the video? Find it offensive? Turn the channel. But don't censor a video simply because it doesn't portray the president in a very, errr, presidential manner.
George Michael has generated a lot of interest in this song out of this contraversy. I have to wonder if his real goal was to make a political statement -- or simply to pull off a big PR stunt.
kd, Ms. Dowd appears two or three times a week in the NYT; you can subscribe to a free daily e-mail with your own selected headlines from the paper.
If you think that whole George Michael thing is ridiculous, go here for a story about a border collie Percy who is running for a Florida House seat against Kathryn harris, of the Florida Presidential election fiasco. The dog has raised over a million dollars for it's campaign already.
I hope this HTML works. if it doesn't I will post the URL in another comment.
Stacey, I LOVE the link! Ha! Thanks... I've always thought some animals were far better candidates than humans! :)
oh, great link! And no sex scandals, "thanks, he says, to his timely neutering."
oh, and Kelly? i think you're right. no matter what else it is, it's certainly getting a lot of press and attention, so it does qualify as a good bit of PR work.
I guess my socialist, leftist, communistic politics make me a terrorist sympathizer. Funny, I always thought that my views (and the freedom to express them) were what made me an American.
Tess, you said "idiotic, ill-thought out statements that were just ludicrous" and then clarified "...to the press"
See, I support the right to make a complete fool of oneself talking to the press, too. Moreover, I support the right of the press to ridicule those statements. Even in the mass media (I exclude the niche players like Salon, Slate, the Onion etc.), the only person I can think of who regularly ridicules some of the more loony ideas Ashcroft and Rumsfeld put forward is Maureen Dowd. Letterman and Leno have their fun, but they are apparently allowed to do so without criticism.
whoa - Linkmeister, that is an awesome article. she's funny as hell, something i am going to read more often. is there a newsletter? i'm going to go see.
kd, I just wandered over here from Kitty's blog, too lazy to go to my own place and link to you. But I think I will, later, anyway. I have an article from a British reporter that someone sent me. Nothing to do with the 1st Amendment, but a great opinion piece about the un-elected dolt.
With the world twirling out of control, someone has time to worry about a music video? I have been accused of too much vitriolic "bush-bashing" on my ISP forums. I tell 'em you ain't heard nothing yet. I can say whatever I please about this dipstick. And so can Michaels. So there.
Me again. I love Percy, he appeared in our newspaper, too. But then, what else can you expect from Flori-duh?
We are fortunate to have Maureen Dowd as a guest op-ed columnist in our paper, too. She's good. That's it......now I am getting stirred up and going to work on my "For Liberals Only" page tomorrow. Got tons of wonderfully derogatory stuff about The Shrub.
i won't comment on the george michael video directly as i haven't seen it and am not a huge george (michael or bush) fan. but i did want to say two things. first, in her original post, kd says, "how we rather arbitrarily picked a place we felt harbors terrorists". afghanistan, i would say, was not chosen arbitrarily. rather than listening to what the bush administration says ("war on terrorism") look at what it actually accomplished: afghanistan now has a government that will allow US oil companies to build a long-desired pipeline (which the Taliban refused) through the country, and 2) roughly $20 billion was transferred from the US government surplus bush inherited to the american defense industry. am i wrong or are the oil and defense industry big bush clients?
ok, the second thing i wanted to say was, batgrl says george michael's video is not propaganda on the order of "triumph of the will". well, it's not, but all mass media is propaganda, each bit working incrementally to mold our worldview, and in more than one way. while gm's video may "criticize" tony blaire, it is in the end entertainment and contributes to a entertainment-consuming mindset, which is in the interests of modern western quasi-totalitarian regimes.
referring to miguel:
part one: okay. i don't get it.
part two: YOU ARE CORRECT SIR!
This is not really a comment about this post. I just want to wish kd and the rest of you US bloggers Happy 4th of July, I completely forgot that today is a BIG holiday there. I really could use one myself!
wait. miguel? entertainment is bad? oh, ok, maybe this entertainment is (i never said it was a *good* pop song). you're saying MTV is contributing to Bush's totalitarian regigme?
i totally agree about the bombing of afghanistan, and stand behind my usage of 'arbitrarily' which doesn't mean, at random. i know they had strong economic motivations. in fact arbitrarily was the perfect word:
arbitrary: a : not restrained or limited in the exercise of power : ruling by absolute authority b : marked by or resulting from the unrestrained and often tyrannical exercise of power
3 a : based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something
Just thought I'd let you know what the tabloid press is saying in the uk about this.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002302006,00.html
It is The Sun which doesn't really count as a newspaper.
oh good heavens. it's just a pop song! and george michael is entitled to his opinion! what the hell?