Pie fight!

Ok, I know the pie fight talk has been around for a week already, but…

Yeah, I’m slow, but I eventually get there.

For reading, go to Shakespeare’s Sister who has the links.

As for the crowd that dares not shave its legs, I don’t get why this is an iusult because I haven’t shaved my legs since I was 19. Or under my arms. I forget that some individuals might find this distasteful. Like I care. I expect others, if they notice, to behave like civil human beings and pretend not to.

There is a place in society for sex clowns. Clowns, by exaggeration , can drag potentially community-disrupting problems to the surface and help defuse them. When the pendulum swings too far to the left or right, the function of clowns is to restore balance.

It ain’t always pretty.

The Gilligan’s Island show of the 60s was a pile-up of clowns. I was eight years of age and the erotic tensions spoofed were screamingly clear, which means I was right about the right age for the target audience. (I can’t believe I”m doing a web analysis of Gilligan’s Island.) Order was only maintained on the island by the the Skipper and Gilligan being taboo through their stupidity, the Professor presented as intellectually captive and physically unconscious, and Thurston Howell soaked through with green-fingered greed. Which we could see, because the program was in color! (A huge selling point and the reason I went over to Nancy Raymond’s house, next door, to watch the first show.) The women were sexual, the men were not, the primary attraction of the show was less the Laurel and Hardy relationship of Gilligan and the Skipper than the weekly inability of Ginger and Maryann to rouse any action. In the 60s this was all very coy but coy wears after four decades. The TBS ad acknowledged what the show was really about with Ginger and Maryann exploding and going full body tactile on each other with lick ’em up creamy pies. Finally, Maryann and Ginger were getting some forbidden action.

Clowns spoofing clowns.

Clowns, however, need appropriate context and tailoring for the context and culture.

Like when you’re a hard-core porn star member of parliament in Italy popping open the booby hatches in order to appropriate political capital for yourself and your concerns. (Something like that.)

Had the TBS commercial been on Mad TV it would have been perceived as a comment on the show.

On Daily KOS, this was instead a commercial that sat in a sidebar with Maryann’s perky Kansan rear cheek thrust prominently up in the air, greeting all viewers. There was complaint. Response was bitingly negative. And so the commercial brought to the forefront concerns about and examples of swarming sexism within the community and associated Lord of the Flies behavior that can take over the comment areas. (Note: The Lord of the Flies comparison was on another blog that I lost the link to. Will put it back in if I relocate. Was right on target. 2nd Note: Poetic Leanings is identified as the blog that made the Lord of the Rings comment. You can read Scott’s post here, “The women are the least of Democrat’s problems”.)

Shit got stirred up because shit was there.

Because our society is really serioiusly confused about sex and power and power and sex.


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9 responses to “Pie fight!”

  1. Shakespeare's Sister Avatar

    Fantastic post (as always). It’s just too bad you’re so unfunny. Tragic, really.

  2. Nancy Goldstein Avatar

    Thanks for your great post. Yup, at a conference last week, I heard the (Southeast Asian and female) senior editor of AlterNet, Lashmi Chaudry, say that the bloggosphere of today looks pretty much like a traditional newsroom from the 1950s. And she’s right. And far too many of the boys respond to our pointing this out with all the hostility and petulance of Dubya actually being forced to answer a hard question at one of his acolytes-only “town hall meetings.”

    Please allow me to declare my undying love and admiration for you.

  3. STP Avatar

    I can’t be certain I was the source of your “Lord of the Flies” sighting, but I used it here if you want the link. I was writing a defense of Mrs. Shakes and all you other “unfunny, over-reacting, party-splitting” women.

  4. Arvin Hill Avatar

    Feminism – like labor rights, civil rights and human rights – is so 1970s.

    It’s almost enough to make me nostalgic.

    As a blogger, the idea of having no control over the ads appearing on my site is one I find very troubling… almost as troubling as the casual It’s out of my hands response.

    Didn’t see the Gilligan ad at Kos (I find megablogs a drag even though they serve a noble purpose), but I’ve certainly seen my share of rightwing ads on liberal blogs… and my reaction was visceral. Same old tired story: Some people – a lot of ’em – will do anything for money.

  5. eRobin Avatar

    Shit got stirred up because shit was there.

    Brilliant – and exactly what Kos doesn’t understand.

  6. site admin Avatar

    Nancy–It seems like a month rather then a couple of weeks ago that I read the opening paragraphs to your 6/2 “Grow Your Own” story and felt you’d been in our apartment. Speaking of which, I’m in GA and don’t I feel lucky to have Ralph Reed climbing the hill here, flag waving, bible in hand, his armor of god clanking lordly with every step.

    Scott–Yours was indeed the blog. I added a note and link in my post.

  7. Elayne Riggs Avatar

    Brilliant! The only thing better than this PI fight would be if Nancy Goldstein’s weekly column got an RSS feed… 😉

  8. Jenny K Avatar
    Jenny K

    great post! – and another bookmark added

  9. Steve Avatar

    You know I love your posts, and I am glad other people has insightful, serious things to write. As for me, when people surf for porn, is it a “three hour tour?”

    Keep the good stuff coming….

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