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Butt becoming America's preference (NY Times)
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<blockquote data-quote="Days of Broken Arrows" data-source="post: 573181" data-attributes="member: 4258"><p>I'm old enough to remember when Sir Mix-A-Lot hit with "Baby's Got Back" in the spring of 1992.</p><p></p><p>I agree hip hop culture has influenced all of this. But there is a major difference between then and now.</p><p></p><p>Back then, "Baby's Got Back" was considered a quirky song about outliers. It was almost a novelty. And by "outliers," I mean the few women who had huge butts and the men who liked them. It was mostly "a black thing" -- as the old saying went -- but not even representative of the entire black community. The hottest black women back then -- like Vanessa Williams and Lisa Bonet -- weren't flaunting their butts.</p><p></p><p>Today, it's women singing or rapping about themselves with songs like Jennifer Lopez's "Booty" and Mindy what's-her-name's "All About That Bass" -- not men admiring those women. So it's morphed into a first-person form of self-love, especially since the songs are built around videos designed to go viral.*</p><p></p><p>Women can't really do this with breasts, because they're too sexual, or with legs, because that's too subtle. But butts give them the perfect excuse to celebrate themselves without shame. Not a good thing, IMO. And now we have the the New York Times calling it the new normal.</p><p></p><p>So, the big butt trend has gone from being a quirky thing we could smile at to being women justifying their own narcissism and (let's admit it) obesity. And recasting that as sexy. I like some of it too, but a little goes a long way.</p><p></p><p>And while that's not necessarily bad, what comes next will be what happened when gay culture went mainstream or when trans culture moved itself to the center. First came the calls for acceptance, then it became "accept it or else."</p><p></p><p>We've already got the fat acceptance movement and women whining trying to make themselves immune to criticism by crying "body shaming!" constantly. This is more ammo for them.</p><p></p><p>Choosing to like big butts is one thing, but the way American trends go we're not going to be allowed to have a choice pretty soon.</p><p></p><p>* As far as I can tell, this kind of self-absorption has no precedent in pop music. The Beatles had long hair, but didn't sing about it. Elvis shook his hips, but his songs weren't about that. Hell, even Madonna, queen of narcissism, sang songs directed at others, not herself.</p><p></p><p>A society in which women sing songs of self-love, IMO, is in a dire place and is going to create little monsters of its girls. As Roissy once wrote, the problem with women is too much self-esteem. Thank God I came of age in an earlier era. I can't believe I ever complained about Mariah or Alanis.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Days of Broken Arrows, post: 573181, member: 4258"] I'm old enough to remember when Sir Mix-A-Lot hit with "Baby's Got Back" in the spring of 1992. I agree hip hop culture has influenced all of this. But there is a major difference between then and now. Back then, "Baby's Got Back" was considered a quirky song about outliers. It was almost a novelty. And by "outliers," I mean the few women who had huge butts and the men who liked them. It was mostly "a black thing" -- as the old saying went -- but not even representative of the entire black community. The hottest black women back then -- like Vanessa Williams and Lisa Bonet -- weren't flaunting their butts. Today, it's women singing or rapping about themselves with songs like Jennifer Lopez's "Booty" and Mindy what's-her-name's "All About That Bass" -- not men admiring those women. So it's morphed into a first-person form of self-love, especially since the songs are built around videos designed to go viral.* Women can't really do this with breasts, because they're too sexual, or with legs, because that's too subtle. But butts give them the perfect excuse to celebrate themselves without shame. Not a good thing, IMO. And now we have the the New York Times calling it the new normal. So, the big butt trend has gone from being a quirky thing we could smile at to being women justifying their own narcissism and (let's admit it) obesity. And recasting that as sexy. I like some of it too, but a little goes a long way. And while that's not necessarily bad, what comes next will be what happened when gay culture went mainstream or when trans culture moved itself to the center. First came the calls for acceptance, then it became "accept it or else." We've already got the fat acceptance movement and women whining trying to make themselves immune to criticism by crying "body shaming!" constantly. This is more ammo for them. Choosing to like big butts is one thing, but the way American trends go we're not going to be allowed to have a choice pretty soon. * As far as I can tell, this kind of self-absorption has no precedent in pop music. The Beatles had long hair, but didn't sing about it. Elvis shook his hips, but his songs weren't about that. Hell, even Madonna, queen of narcissism, sang songs directed at others, not herself. A society in which women sing songs of self-love, IMO, is in a dire place and is going to create little monsters of its girls. As Roissy once wrote, the problem with women is too much self-esteem. Thank God I came of age in an earlier era. I can't believe I ever complained about Mariah or Alanis. [/QUOTE]
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