PETA, why must thou suck so much?

I guess the question is really: am I really surprised? PETA, possibly the lamest “activist” group in the activist world, has come through again with these super lame ads that don’t really have anything to do with animal rights, but a lot to do with women-as-sexual-vessels.

I have to say, though, that the Alicia Silverstone ad is lamer than the Dita Von Teese one…maybe because I sort of like/have a fascination with Dita Von Teese. She wrote a book that talks about the history of Burlesque and was married to Marilyn Manson, for God’s sake. Her ad is sort of kitchy and cute, too. Well–almost. Look, it’s better than the what-the-hell ad that pseudo-activist Alicia Silverstone is doing. Hey, I appreciate Alicia Silverstone stands for something, ANYTHING, really, which is sadly an anomally in the young hollywood circuit, but does she even know what she’s talking about? Does she know any of the issues? AT ALL? Her ad doesn’t make me really angry, actually, it’s just that the ad is so stupid, so it naturally annoys me to no end. Hearing her talk about vegetarianism in print interviews, she seems to match up well, I suppose, with PETA’s puppies-are-cute-so-don’t-eat-beef elementary school ideology, and apparently skipped the part in her life to bother reading/skimming the book jacket of Carol J. Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat.

Since becoming obsessed with reading about food activist issues, I’ve decided in recent times that most vegan/vegetarian lifestyles are counter-productive in helping the world (See my anti-vegan rant on my urban gardening blog. Or read the great Barbara Kingsolver, or read Jessica Prentice’s Blood Moon chapter in Full Moon Feast). But I WAS a vegetarian for quite some time before I made this decision, and, starting in high school, feminist issues were part of my vegetarian crusade. A lot had to do with factory farming, those oppressed animals being equated with oppressed women, and sexual politics. Things that PETA apparently has never thought about.

However, many people have heard me bitch about PETA and their idiocy, and these ads, right on the heels of their deplorable “milk gone wild” ads, are pretty characteristic. Micheal Pollen bitches about them, too. In Omnivore’s Dilemma he talks about how counter-active their protests are concerning the hunting of non-native boars for food in one region of California. Though the invasive boars are literally destroying the natural habitat for many native plants and animals, making it virtually impossible for them to survive, and though people are hunting these boars for food, they oppose the hunting, with no regard or thought for any sort of ecological systems in place.

PETA is like the dumb, sheltered trust fund kid born in affluent, white suburbia who has never left, except for occasional cruises to the Carribean or shopping trips in Italy. However, he/she still feels for something, although doesn’t really think about any deep-rooted issues AROUND that one thing, because, like, he/she’s never really thought THAT hard about it.

Oh, lord, I could go on for days. I just wish that an activist group that apparently has a lot of money and a prominent voice really did do good things, because they DO have the pull and the power. In fact, PETA2 was voted “favorite activist group” among Venus Zine’s readers not too long ago. I think this has much to do with celebrity-driven ads making them so high-profiled. I just wish that instead of just “be vegetarian”, they could at least mention supporting small-scale farms or growing your own food. Because supporting Phillip Morris’ Boca Burgers or Kellogg’s Morning Star Farms veggie corn dogs not only supports destroying woodland animals’ natural habitats with their enormous, corporate fields, but also supports the polluting of surrounding habitats for other animals, and killing many of them with the huge farm machinery of plows and tractors. Supporting them is supporting monsterous corporations, making their careless, money-driven actions virtually unstoppable.

See? Days, I say.

Southwest: you should be banned from the friendly skies.

With no issue of apology, two twin incidents have happened on Southwest Airline flights where flight attendants have told women that they were wearing inappropriate clothing and to “cover up”.

I have been thinking a lot about these cases. Really in terms of the bigger picture, mind you. What does this really mean? A feminist commentator (who they gave, like, three seconds to speak) on CNN asked if this would have happened to a man. Well, it would most likely never happen to a man–but is there a deeper, more frightening aspect about what these incidents are saying?

I fear there’s a much scarier underlying message. Both of the women asked to cover up were thin and busty. They wore regular tank tops and had an above-the-knee skirt. Their outfits were fine. They were normally-dressed for hot weather outside. What SW saw as obscene were not their clothes, but their bodies. And when you start labeling women’s bodies as obscene, you are trekking on dangerous territory.

Hell, I’m surprised that SW hasn’t started handing out burkas to all women boarding the plane.

This post is about nothing green, it’s about Justin Timberlake.

My crush on Justin Timberlake is fading.

Fast.

He was so cute in his first solo vid, dancing MJ style. There was no creepy shaved head-with-goatee combo. He sang part of the song in falsetto, kind of like Prince. And the dancing! Did I mention he could dance?

Then, things got…not so cute. The first big downfall being the famed Superbowl event, in which JT ended his performance duet by ripping off Janet Jackson’s metallic-looking push-up bra, revealing a naked boob. Instead of the masses being horrified at the violent nature that this act seemed to be done in (aggressively, without permission, very sexual assault-like), people were more offended at the idea of seeing an uncovered baby-feeder. (My God, the superbowl is a FAMILY SHOW! That thing is supposed to be greased-up and in a string bikini top, not NAKED!). The football-watching, cheetoes-eating public flew off the handle, mostly at Miss J for owning a pair of breasts, leaving sweet JT virtually unscathed.

And now? Oh, Justin. How you have forsaken me. For starters, while I enjoy dancing to a little “Sexyback” now and then, his album is littered with lyrics that honestly gross me out. The beginning track, “Future Sex/LoveSong”, is a prime example; while I’m into the beat and all, I literally squirm as he cooes: “Come here closer to me, little girl; Daddy’s on a mission to please.” Seriously, I am fine with the you-call-me-mommy, I’ll-call-you-daddy thing that seemed to take off in pop songs for a while, but “little girl”? Is this the new trend? Is Dateline’s To Catch a Predator no longer about committing a crime, or even a taboo, but just like, a hip thing now?

Justin, what in God’s name has gotton into you?? And that’s not where it ends, folks! No sir, the eww train doesn’t stop here! What’s the next stop? Let’s let the new JT/50 Cent video “AYO technology” be the final destination. This video I will not even bother fully describing. I’m unsure about what the storyboards of this video must have looked like, but it’s something to do with some sort of manipulative technology that both 50 and JT use to “control” women (ooo, edgy!), seemingly in a consensual way. Justin exceeds his creepy quota physically, his head never looking more shaved and his goatee never looking more painted on. The video is aggressive, semi-violent, and supposedly, I guess, “sexy”. “Creepy is the new sexy” is what I’m gathering, and if you decide to youtube it, you will see countless idiotic comments supporting this turpitude and screwed up version of an trend.

One day (and this was the last day I’ll ever do it, I swear) I decided to hate the world and read many of these comments. Gems like “Damn wish I could get wit thos girls” and “i wana fuk them too like 50″ are some things I found from what I’m guessing are quotes from boys under the age of sixteen. And the comments by girls weren’t much better. According to the female youtubers, they wish Justin could control THEM.

Reading all of these comments, I couldn’t take it anymore, and actually signed on to youtube, fake name and all, and posted. My post said the video was creepy, not sexy or hot, and so on. And guess what. My comment was marked maybe 10 minutes later as freakin’ SPAM! I was furious, to which point I commented AGAIN, this time chiding my youtube children, hopefully making a few cry. “You people are all ROBOTS, unable to think critically about anything, or think for yourselves at all, really!” was the basic gist of my scolding.

I haven’t checked, but I’m sure that comment was spammed as well. Or else I was replied to with the usual youtube adroitness of name-calling.

But what this shows is that even with JT’s growing creepy factor, crushes will remain intact all over the country. And world, I guess. I don’t see people turning on him anytime soon, but with the direction he is going, some discretion should be happening.  Call me an idealist, but I’d like to see an against-the-grain youtube comment every now and then.