News takes no holiday
-
- May
- 8
The body may take a vacation, but the mind can’t, not when the tube is 24/7.
I happened to have a week off during a busy news cycle — the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tirade, the Miley Cyrus/Vanity Fair flap, the death of Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby, the return of Mick as a sexy vamp on CBS’ “Moonlight.” (OK, maybe the last wasn’t so newsy.) But you get the idea. It was quite the week.
I don’t know why I turned on the Kentucky Derby. I’ve always hated animal acts, zoos and even nature shows. I can’t help but feel that animals belong in the natural word, even though the natural world is no less cruel than our own.
The tragedy of Eight Belles reinforced everything I hate about animal entertainment. In a sense, it was foreshadowed by an incident moments earlier when another horse was spooked by the crowd’s applause and threw its jockey. As an arts critic, I recognized this for what it was: Some have the temperament for performance. Some don’t. However, it’s one thing to note this about a ballplayer, an opera singer or a politician. It’s quite another to say it about a Barbaro, who did not choose to run even if he seemed born to do so.
Unlike the Derby, Miley-gate wasn’t tragic. But it left me with a creepy sense of déjà vu.
Recently, I bought a copy of Paula Uruburu’s new “American Eve,” about Evelyn Nesbit, the turn-of-the-20th-century It Girl whose marriage to the insanely jealous millionaire Harry Thaw and love affair with louche architect Stanford White was the catalyst for White’s murder in Whartonian New York. Her story has been told before in E.L. Doctorow’s seminal novel “Ragtime” and the ‘50 B-movie “The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing.”
If you look at the publicity photos of the 16-year-old Nesbit in the book, you’ll see an eerie similarity to Annie Leibovitz’s controversial picture. Nothing has changed. We still worship youthful beauty, especially if it’s female.
But we are more than our hormones and reptilian brains. The Miley photograph, while beautifully composed, was inappropriate given the youth of its subject. Of course, we’re all about what’s cool, hot and edgy, aren’t we? Think how much more daring it would’ve been if the female in the portrait were, say, 70.
As the controversy played out over several days, I realized that art history got it right. Up until the middle of the 19th century, men — not women — were the primary sex symbols in painting and sculpture.
Since men continue to retain the lion’s share of the power in our society, turning them into sex objects is no big deal. They can take it.
Whereas the Miley snafu demonstrates once more that objectifying females underscores their very real vulnerability.
Finally, how sad was the Rev. Wright near-sabotage of Barack Obama? Regardless of what you think of the two men, you have to wonder if Wright’s barrage was less about race and politics and more about psychology and ego. Wright came across like Darth Vader, out to destroy the son who had transcended the poisonousness of an embittered mind.
Obama, cast in the Luke Skywalker role, had to distance himself from his surrogate father — that’s part of every fairy tale about growing up. Still, he had offered an olive branch in his speech on race when he disowned Wright’s venom but not the man. Wright then took that olive branch and stabbed Obama in the back.
In “Return of the Jedi,” Vader, transformed by Luke’s compassion, attains grace by sacrificing himself for his son. But as a week’s worth of news on the tube reminds us, life isn’t art.
Eight Belles photo by Garry Jones / Associated Press; Miley Cyrus photo by Evan Agostini / Associated Press
This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 5:08 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
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