Last week, Selena Gomez shot a video for her latest single, “Love You Like a Love Song”—a video that included a couple of ponies with a decidedly pink hue to them.
Ordinarily, this is not the stuff of blog posts. But here’s where things take a strange turn.
Pop singer P!nk was none too happy about the situation when she heard about it. She tweeted, “If there are any animal activists around Malibu—at Leo Cabrillo State beach, there are horses being painted for a stupid music video.” Then she added, “Artists should be more aware and responsible for their actions.”
In P!nk’s willingness to clamber onto her own (pink?) soapbox, we arguably have a case study in moral relativism and, it turns out, hypocrisy.
Moral relativism is one of the hallmarks of postmodernism, which typically rejects any suggestion that there’s an overarching moral, spiritual or ethical code that applies to everyone. Situational ethics may apply in some cases, but even these are subjective and determined by the individual. Our ethical values, then, are something we make up according to our own whims. And we certainly see that in P!nk’s case.
Here’s an artist who has no problem at all including the f-word in the title of her latest hit, “F**kin’ Perfect.” And in my review of another of the singer’s recent singles, “Raise Your Glass,” I wrote,
P!nk salutes everyone who flaunts convention, anyone who refuses to submit to the status quo: "So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways," she commands. P!nk styles herself as a leader in this misfit rebellion, adding, "All my underdogs/We will never be anything but loud/And nitty-gritty, dirty little freaks." … In addition to drinking 'til the spigot dries up ("My glass is empty, that sucks"), we get P!nk's usual naughty words (two f-words, one s-word, one "d--n") and coy nods to casual sex ("Party crasher/Panty snatcher/Call me up if you a gangsta/ … Can't stop, coming in hot/I should be locked up right on the spot").
Drinking, casual sex, profanity, rebellion: No problem at all for P!nk. In fact, she’d be happy, it seems, if you followed her lead. These, apparently, aren’t the kinds of choices that artists need to think about being responsible for.
But don’t even think about painting a horse pink. That apparently constitutes being wrong in the wrong way.
UPDATE: As of June 3, Billboard is reporting that the final cut of Selena’s video for “Love You Like a Love Song” has edited out the controversial footage involving pink ponies.
Recent Comments