(Note to the Headmistress: please cover the smaller children's eyes for this post)
This video clip could be the start of a great musical. And since Wahhabis don't do music, why...they'll never see it, will they?
Like Mark Steyn, I'm a sucker for good lyrics. For example, in the song, "Cry Me a River," Julie London carries this one off beautifully:
Remember, I remember all that you said
Told me love was too plebeian
Told me you were through with me and
Now you say you love me...
Ella Fitzgerald's version is mighty fine, too, but with London you always imagine she's really pitching it to Jack Webb, the old "Dragnet" robo-man.
My favorite rhyme in this one occurs right at the end. Who would have thought to pair up that word with "Saudi Arabia"?
Yea, I know this dates back to last October, but I only saw it today at Infidels are Cool
You go, girl.
[the fun ends here. We return your to our regular programming]
12 comments:
Eh. Not bad, but like so much "humor" today, it's more about pushing boundaries than you know, being funny. At least to me.
But I agree about Julie London's version of the song. Nice.
And my sister always liked Paul Simon's use of "misconstrued" in '50 ways to leave your lover'. I agree.
g.t. whacko--
I've been reading and studying and writing about the Saudi treatment of women for almost three years, and as far as I'm concerned, this little video doesn't push the boundaries nearly far enough. Espeically when you compare it to the savagery of SA toward its women and its slaves. You didn't happen to see the picture of the woman -- Indonesian, I believe -- who lost her fingers to gangrene, did you? Did you see her face? I've dealt with thousands of battered women and she had The Look. The one that says she'll never recover. And once it was public, the Saudis wanted to punish *her.*
Do you know that many Saudis in this country bring in their own slaves? Colorado caught one of these monsters not too long ago and he's going away for a long, long time. State and federal sentences. I don't think he ever really *got* that what he did was wrong. After all, he wasn't raping an infidel, he was raping his Muslim maid. No offense against Allah there.
So as far as I'm concerned, this video is tasteful compared to the mores of the corrupt and degraded Sauds.
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As far as good lyrics go, I think Johnny Mercer was the best all-around...even more so than Cole Porter. His output was prodigous.
Here's my favorite rhyme. It's not so moving on paper -- you have to hear the Lionel Hampton music that Mercer wrote these words for...while he was riding along in his car, listening to the radio:
Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice,
warmer than the summer night.
The clouds were like an alabaster palace
rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight:
I could see the Midnight Sun.
No one will ever top that "chalice/palace/borealis" rhyme.
I did an interview with a local musical playwright and he brought up the genius of that song. I was surprised not only that he knew it, but that he also felt it was electric and unsurpassable.
I'd love to know what Lionel Hampton thought of it. He wrote the music years before and Mercer just gave him the lyrics...
Dymphna, I agree about the song as a social statement, I guess. I just don't think that as a piece of "humor" it works.
A friend of mine worked as an English teacher in Kuwait a year after GW I. He said the locals were despicable- brought in S. Asian women as maids, and turned them into slaves, providing free labor and of course, sex. Brought in their menfolk to be menials- build roads and the like- and would often work them to death. Supposedly one Kuwaiti woman complained that when the Iraqis invaded, her servants all ran off, and left her to fend for herself, the ingrates.
That talk with him almost made me leave the Army, as I couldn't stand the thought of fighting to defend a country like that. But then I remembered that I didn't sign up for a particular type of war, but to serve my country.
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I actually prefer my lyrics to make a nice story... poetry/rhyme isn't so much my thing.
A great song, in my opinion is "The Eagle and the Hawk", by John Denver. Great imagery, and the arrangement of the strings adds to it. It climbs, swoops, and soars. Just like a song with that title should.
Wish I could like john denver. I want to, but...as you imply "de gustibus, etc."
Jazz and old standards for me. And Texas swing. Tin Pan Alley.
As for Kuwait, I am hoping to get an interviw with a foreign professional from Europe who works there and says things are getting worse. She may have backed off out of fear, though, so the post might not happen. Too bad...
Good long-range decision there...I hear many of my fellow worshippers say the same thing about the church. Some of the stuff that happens isn't what they signed up for, but there they are...to serve, no matter what.
Dymphna, you are absolutely right. MEMRI has a video up showing a Saudi newscaster explaining this very thing. I'm working on a post about it for tomorrow.
That cartoon is too good to pass up, thanks for reminding me about it! :)
SistaInfidel
www.infidelsarecool.com
This cartoon actually had the opposite of its intended effect on me. I ended up being far more embarrassed for Western culture than outraged at Islamic misogyny by this video.
Somehow I don't think I'll be using the argument 'Women have a right to be slutty'.
They may have that right, but it's certainly nothing to celebrate, promote, or respect.
5 stars for bad taste.
Magnificent!
roy--
If you somehow interpreted this video as having the message "women have the right to be slutty" then you missed the point by a country mile.
The video is a good example of a well-applied satirical reductio ad absurdum to the Wahabbists' evil view of women.
You call their behavior
"misogyny"?? Are you joking? That's the term you choose for the reality of total degradation under which these women live?
I say use any weapon handy, including tasteless satire. No matter how far we push the envelope on this subject, we still can't begin to match the hideous reality for Saudi women, not to mention their slaves.
As I said, de gustibus...I stand by my choice.
Jeez, now we have to be "tasteful" re the head-chopping, honor-killing lunatics.
So five stars backatcha, roy, for callousness.
Me, I'd rather be considered tasteless.
Roy, its about the right to be whatever we want. Good, bad or ugly, freedom is better than the slaves they turn their women into. You would really prefer women to be forced to be "tasteful" (according to who's standards?) than allow them the freedom to be whomever they want?
SistaInfidel
www.InfidelsAreCool.com
Well I thought it was funny. I guess I'm just vulgar. :)
Western Civ is fighting a war on multiple fronts. There is the external enemy that you focus on here. And then there is the internal enemy of moral relativist induced cultural rot. Theodore Dalrymple has addressed it very well in his book 'Our Culture - What's left of it'.
The argument 'that bad behavior can be legitimized by worse behavior' doesn't work with me. Not is this a binary set of options. That we do not stone people to death for adultery does not necessarily mean that adultery is a virtue. Western Civ has is own , very different - issues with the objectification of women. Women do have the right to appear in Girls gone Wild' videos, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
I may have stumbled into the wrong camp here. In addressing Islam as it regards gender, I think I'm more closely aligned with Myrna Blyth, Phyllis Chesler, Michelle Malkin, and Laura Ingraham - all
effective fighters who emphasize 'class' over 'crass'.
Freedom is a good thing. Freedom AND respect is even better.
Well, freedom is the first front, Roy. We'll get to the respect later. You see, if you can't be disreptful, you're *not* free.
To paraphrase the song, "what's respect got to do with it?" That line is so pc/multiculti it has mold on it.
I think Phyllis Chesler would laugh at it, myself, and she survived that whole wifely-honor/shame bit.
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