I don't know if you are doing it on purpose because it's acceptable or if you are making fun of others who do it and that is a critique. If it is a critique it's not a very well thought out critique since most people who pay attention to you don't get it. Even the more thoughtful people who pay attention to you do not get the critique angle and say that you are doing it on purpose. That doesn't mean you believe it. But it does mean that you know it's acceptable and the less thoughtful people who pay attention to you will not even know they should be upset about it. Maybe some of them are glad that it is still acceptable because they wouldn't know what to say or how to be otherwise. And if they think it's not acceptable in this newer more progressive and thoughtful moment then they will be chastised for not going along with what is just "entertainment" just "music" just "fun and it sounds good" and you know you can do it because pop culture has no power music does not influence not every kid who listens to heavy metal goes out and eats bats and breaks things and beats people up. Of course not. Everyone who pays attention to you is not going to belittle or control or rape or hate women but women are not bats and heavy metal music is about expressing personal pain instead of directing hate out at half of the population. I say that but I have no idea. I don't listen to Marilyn Manson but I am going to look up some lyrics to find out. The critique is that there is no critique. People who pay attention to you just think it sounds good. And you do make a good sound. Lots of things sound good, work well, seem to move along just nicely on the backs of women... or because women have been put on their backs. Exploiting the acceptance of rape and disengaged sexualization of women or just their bodies for marketing purposes, for audiences, because you can, to perpetuate a totally uninteresting trend that is not a trend but a persistent historical and continuously contemporary thing. You are so popular you don't have to be thoughtful or progressive or better than the cliche. It's boring. You are boring. I thought you would be willing to use your smarts in more innovative ways. Instead it is the same old crap.

...and PS Kanye pop culture does have power.

Social panic or random acts of kindness what is on trial here is our very sense of ourselves the integration of social into fabric the intelligent cooperation between one and another. A kind of solitary confinement I admit does little to progress a sense of companionable intelligence, intimate or otherwise. We have lost our humanities our fields of study in regard to insight and philosophical growth our notions toward any value driven future. The economics of non-humanism do little to encourage our survival. Earn money now ignore the collateral damage that lingers into later. Oil profits poison food exploited low paid workers industrial production tax breaks. I do not want to eat arsenic in my chicken petroleum products in my bread chemicals on apples petroleum everything environmental damage is cheaper than regulation real workers cannot afford to eat organic I still do not have any health insurance. Too many degrees and not enough business savvy. Sell develop expand buy more crap. There is not enough money in the world to live a decent life one cannot get all the stuff accumulate grow want need and ignore. Don't sell the art let the children starve close the schools abandon literacy education the chance to develop skills. Take out the walking paths dismantle the neighborhoods build your highways for the wealthy to pass through the masses without vision. There is no where else to go. Every place is here this global economic situation the catastrophic experience that is this defining moment. We can talk about local relationships individuals doing good compassion present tense moments of organizing building parks and planting gardens puling weeds feeding hungry kids tutoring and mentoring developing community groups and doing grassroots good. These are all true. We can fix our own neighborhoods maybe our cities and world. Or maybe grass roots are contained by glass ceilings and walls given space but not too much space given encouragement that can only reach simple distances into capital into the future. I can shop local live in a hut talk to my dog tutor kids plant flowers teach people how to write sentences and read paragraphs. But I can't escape the feeling that something has been planted in my brain sparking shocking the tissue pressing down tightening with subtle pressure every time I dream of revolt.

Video Essays

video essay introduction: http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v9n1/gallery/ve-bresland_j/ve-origin_page.shtml

http://bresland.com/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montaigne/

http://claudiarankine.com/

plus: mullen vimeo: http://vimeo.com/18552888