Michael Jackson spotted in Bahrain in robe and veil:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Bahrain-Michael-Jackson.html?_r=1
Wow, it makes so much sense when you stop to think about it. But it’s still kind of shocking.
That’s poor Michael Jackson’s cross to bear – he’s our avatar of a new kind of human being. The Mediated Man.
And at some point, what the Mediated Man wants more than anything, after a lifetime of exposure and media burn, is privacy.
And at this moment, the modern world converges with the ancient.
I was having sex with my girlfriend this morning, and it was so wonderful and so private and so hidden from the world of…Out There; The Public; The World; History; News: Time. And the thought occured to me that veils are a natural response to the feminine – because the feminine is so intensely private.
This is an odd thought for a Westerner, I realized that as I was laying there in our afterglow. We have this knee jerk idea that things should be exposed, revealed, transparent. But the world of the feminine, at least in its depths, is infinitely intimate and private. It is infinitely nurturing and empathic and limitless – but it needs darkness. And in this sense, a veil on a woman makes infinite sense.
Look at all the poor female souls out there right now with their plastic surgery and their zillion dollar wardrobes, trying to fit some impossible image of femininity – that actually is the opposite of feminine, which is aggressive, and bears no resemblence to what being a woman is truly about. Well, it is about the seductiveness, but it masks the true sensuality that women offer to their loved ones in private. Privacy is key. One must be invited into this world. It is not for every Tom, Dick and Harry wandering the streets. Perhaps we need a better understanding of privacy in this country – especially now, as our privacy disappears inside the Surveillance State.
But I digress.
Michael Jackson has decided that he feels comfortable wearing a veil. This child of the media wants his privacy. Perhaps he identifies with femininity because of his experience in the spotlight, in the glare of that competitive, mean, hard, masculine world.
Obviously he’s made some bad choices – a plastic face is not going to wear well, no matter how good your doctors are. But he was a little kid when he was formed in the hot light of celebrity. He was vulnerable. He made childish, immature, peculiarly American decisions. But he’s still here, melting face and all. And he wants to feel safe and protected and free, just like we all do. Only everywhere he goes, everything he does, he feels intruded upon. How natural for him to embrace a culture that understands a person’s need for privacy and comfort. Sure, Michael Jackson is bizarre and funny and easy to ridicule. But we all have our feminine sides, male and female alike. And this media world we live in is harsh harsh harsh on our fragile human psychologies. Men carry around some very soft objects, too – if you don’t think men want protection for their private parts, you haven’t studied history very well.
And so, perhaps, as the 21st century starts, we are about to see a generation of American women embrace the veil. A natural response to Western values gone mad; an oasis in a mediated world, a refuge from the Open Market.
The veil comes to America – and Michael Jackson leads the way.
How weird.
How perfect.
well, that certainly is a unique perspective you have on things.
Thanks, Booman.
What do you think?
i think that I wish I could remember what I think about during sex, but to the best of my recollection, Michael Jackson has never been one of those things.
Hey, I didn’t say I was thinking about the King of Pop during sex!
I don’t doubt that Michael Jackson needs a little privacy right now but he is likely not fashion forward in his choices.
The feminine needs darkness, privacy, shelter? Sorry, not buying that line of macho crap. That is what the extremists want one to believe. Women/the feminine needs to be hidden, cloaked, veiled. That takes us back to the middle ages now doesn’t it?
Perhaps you need to open your mind a bit and stop sticking to the prescribed ideology. This unwillingness to acknowledge the privacy that intimacy requires is party-line politics and serves no one in the long run. Do you deny all the softness and vulnerabitlity that femininity encompasses? These are not negative things, to be ashamed of. Your knee jerk reaction doesn’t allow for discussion, or thoughtfulness. Your brand of feminism, which posits only a masculine equality for women, is something we have grown beyond.
Umm, Mr.Moose, it would seem that you are the one sticking to the prescribed ideology. Softness? Vulnerability? Check your calendar, it’s not 1954 anymore! (Or pick the dark age of your choice.)
Somehow I think it will be difficult for anyone who reads this diary to think, “boy, that guy sure sticks to the prescribed ideology.” Whatever you might think, certainly my perspective comes from no orthodxy.
Knee jerk feminists many times feel they have to argue agaisnt their own nature. A mature discussion will readily acknowledge that masculinity and femininity are different – and not tied to solely to one gender or the other.
Sweetheart, I am far from what you call a “knee jerk feminist”. I am so in touch with myself that I honor both my feminine and masculine sides. Because I do not subscribe to what I perceive as backwards notions of feminine behavior doesn’t mean I am any less feminine. I am a true believer of being who I really am, not hiding behind a veil, a mask or a man.
American culture, in its objectification of women, has robbed them of so much, sometimes in the name of “liberating” them.
In my view, it is about choices. Women, as standalone human beings, have the right to make their own choices, about whether and when to be a mother, whether, if married, to work outside the home, and it seems like if it is not the govermment trying to take choices away from them, it is the culture.
Not that American culture is the only one guilty of this, but what is unique about the American methods of oppressing women is that they are so insidious, so deceptive.
The decision whether to display her beauty to the public should not be the choice of either clerics, politicians, or fashion magazines, but the woman herself. And she has the right to choose one way one day and another the next.
Reclaiming her right to privacy is not “a return to the middle ages,” on the contrary, it is an emergence from them, into an age where she and only she owns her body and makes decisions about it, including how to dress it. 🙂
Have I told you lately? No? I really love you!
I have squeaked! And consider yourself hugged! 😀
I guess I’d want to wear a veil, too. Otherwise, um, no!
And so, perhaps, as the 21st century starts, we are about to see a generation of American women embrace the veil.
Yeah, I can see it, all the rage. Britney Spears with her boobs hanging out so far the nips peek over the edge of her halter, a jewel in her belly button, her jeans so low, well, you know, and a veil over the lower part of her face. You can still see her lips, however, because they are jewel encrusted and wink and blink thru the gauze. Madonna would jump right on that action.
Instead of veils, could we start with “popular” celebrities putting on some more clothes? I mean, a woman’s face is the doorway to her soul, her intellect, her character. Why shouldn’t she wear that out front. The intimate parts are what need to be mysterious.
<sjct mutters to herself> What a weird diary…