|
||
|
||
Who needs talent when you don't have morals?Art By Monica Meza Just what does it say about the performing talent of someone when the only way they can get their name in the headlines is to strip, sleep around or push the envelope of decency just a bit farther? More so, what does it say about our society when we endorse these talentless hacks whose only shot at stardom is to be just that much more shocking than the next? The most obvious example is Britney Spears, who is appearing at the Save Mart Center this weekend. The girl who got her start on The Mickey Mouse Club now looks more at home on the street corner selling her body to tweaked-out truck drivers. Time was when two singers wanted to one-up each other, they had to improve their abilities and rely on talent. Now, the only way to get ahead is to become one degree more of what the public wants you to be. In the case of Spears—the image of the adolescent boys’ sex-crazed loose woman whose promiscuity outweighs her need for talent. So what happened to the good-girl singer with potential, who made it big entertaining pre-teens? She found the paying public doesn’t want someone to look up to—they want someone who shows the world that she is of no higher character than the street-corner whore. She stripped herself of decency, discarded her gifts as a performer and descended to what is normally the last resort for performers—the striptease. People don’t want to look up to someone. We flock to see the fallen hero who makes us feel higher and mightier because we have higher standards than her. Maybe she doesn’t take her clothes off at all her concerts, but she sells tickets solely on sensationalism. It seems that when the limelight begins to fade, her only resort is to flip off the cameras, kiss Madonna or marry some yokel for one day. The public eats it up. The public loves a clown. Just like the Romans, in their quest for entertainment grew so debase as to watch people kill each other (pro-wrestling?), in a world where so much is cheap and disposable, nothing holds our attention long unless it involves some kind of low-class lascivious behavior. Britney Spears an artist? Hardly. An artist is someone who can take their abilities to create something new, and is respected by the public for their contributions. They are looked up to and respected. Not many good, upstanding parents who genuinely hope for their children’s future will suggest their child grow up to make out with Madonna or be seen in sexually explicit poses with dozens of men in music videos. So what happened to the good-girl singer with potential, who made it big entertaining pre-teens? She found out the big bucks are made when one tells their respectability and individuality to go to hell and do whatever it takes to win the dollar popularity brings. It’s her own choice and that’s fine for her. But Spears’ example of how to get somewhere on more breasts than morals teaches little girls that their earned and developed abilities are sub-par to the image society wants to give them. When they see that all one has to do to get ahead is sell their flesh, the much more difficult road of using their own true abilities loses value. Performers like Spears are the enemy of every woman who ever wanted to be considered something more than a piece of meat, of any hope that the America’s entertainment will ever value talent again, of every young singer who might have made it big on talent—not looks—and of everyone who would like to see upstanding moral characters as role models for today’s youth. — This columnist can be reached at collegian@csufresno.edu |
