Today, I'm working on other projects that need to get done, so I offer regular readers this column from 2011. -R
We’re all doomed to become old fogies. I became one on March 26 at
10:03 p.m. I was in bed reading while the TV played the over-the-air
music video channel when Lady Gaga came on with her latest hit, “Born
This Way.”
I was completely baffled. I didn’t “get it.” I don’t
understand her popularity. I don’t understand why people — kids —
would pay for that.
At first, I was a little scared. I’m part of a generation who were
latchkey kids and slackers. Music videos, and video games, were
invented for me and my peers. I’ve gone to concerts with 100,000
other people my age. I’ve grown my hair long, stayed up all night
listening to music in a girl’s basement apartment just in hopes of
getting a kiss. I married a woman who when I first met her had green
hair.
I’ve experimented, for crying out loud! I wasn’t supposed to
become a fogy.
And yet, all I could think as I watched Lady Gaga dressed in only her
underwear go through the poses of the Kama Sutra was that this must
be some sort of joke.
And then I felt sorry for my kids; and I especially felt sorry for
anyone who has daughters. I felt sorry for my sons because this, and
Britney Spears, and the Black Eyed Peas, and Miley Cyrus, and
Beyoncé, and all of them is what they have for popular music.
There’s no Elvis there. No Beatles. No Duran Duran. No REM, U2,
Blondie, Nirvana or AC/DC. All they have is a veneer of pop culture
that is completely contrived and interchangeable. This isn’t to say
that pop stars haven’t always had an eye toward fashion, or the
popular things I liked as a kid weren’t contrived by some record
company executive to sell more records. But there were also stars who
rebelled against the facade — that’s what made rock ’n’ roll
so appealing.
I feel for anyone with a daughter, because their pop stars are
creating an image that no one can live up to. And of course if you
don’t try, peer pressure will assure you are cast as an outsider.
This also gives our young men and boys a measure of beauty and morals
that no one could or should aspire to.
I was raised during a time of feminism, when women were striving to
be treated as something more than objects. And while I don’t
consider myself a feminist, I grew up thinking that someone was
fighting for the right for women to be taken seriously for their
brains instead of their breasts. Now we have young girls who believe
the only way to become popular is to sexualize and objectify
themselves.
How does a parent fight against that? How do you instill a work ethic
in your children when their pop stars are discovered more through
chance than talent?
I find my hope for the future, though, in my own children. My oldest
son, Connor, is 13 years old and plays the drums, the guitar, the
bass and sometimes he fiddles around with an accordion his uncle gave
him.
He hates current popular music. A mention of the Jonas Brothers or
Fall Out Boy elicits a look and sound of disgust. If anyone can save
rock ’n’ roll, it will be him and the kids who listen to
so-called “classic” rock that is popular on video games like
“Guitar Hero.”
In the meantime, I have to quell my fogyness lest Connor look for
something to use in a rebellion against me.
Lady Gaga would do the trick.
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