Hail to the Chimp?

I'm sure there aren't many of you (if anyone reads this anymore) who haven't heard about this latest hiccup from the New York Post. The comic, created by Post cartoonist Sean Delonas, was published yesterday, and according the editor-in-chief Col Allan, was intended to parody both the chimpanzee killed in Connecticut and the fiscal stimulus bill. He says, quote;

“The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."

First off, it bothers me when people say "clear" in this way, I find it condescending. It's a one-scene cartoon, with one line of dialogue, so there is very little that is "clear" about it. When something is as ambiguous as this, it is open to interpretation, as are many satirical cartoons. It isn't as clear as 2 + 2 = 4, it's art, and as art goes, everyone has their own interpretation of it. Picasso's "Guernica" will mean one thing to me, and something else to the next person. Col Allan would have to have made an extreme oversight to not predict this kind of backlash from a drawing, given A) Obama being heavily associated with the bill, B) The comparison of Black people to monkeys and/or apes as a racist insult, and C) The tense relationship between NYPD (who is also offended) and the Black population of New York City. I mean, seriously, I find it hard to believe that Allan didn't consider any of these things at all when making a final decision. In my opinion, they wanted to be as edgy as they could, possibly competing with the terrorist fist jab cartoon the New Yorker had a while back.

What do I think? At first I immediately saw the racial subtext; partially because the first time I saw the drawing Al Sharpton had already said what he had to say. Looking at it again, to me it's more about how "stupid" the stimulus bill was (saying it could have been written by a chimp). After all, Obama signed the bill, it was written by Nancy Pelosi. Allan is right for calling Sharpton out as an opportunist; however he brought it on himself, by not foreseeing any of these things. If you don't like Al Sharpton jumping at any and every chance at publicity, don't have a potentially racist cartoon published in your newspaper. As I mentioned before, a cartoon like this is open to interpretation, and the Col Allan/Sean Delonas tandem gave Sharpton and his loyalists more than enough room to interpret it as racist. Part of an editor's job is to ensure that whatever message the paper as a whole gets translated properly, and if the New York Post's sales suffer as a result of it he only has himself to blame.

The Chrihanna Crisis

I initially wanted to resist posting about this topic until more facts were made available, but it turns out that the lack of concrete information is the reason I'm writing this. I knew something was amiss when I was watching the Grammys... I didn't watch the entire thing, but I did see that TI didn't perform "Live Your Life", which is probably the biggest hit from Paper Trail. At any rate, after some digging I found out all about the arrest of Chris Brown, etc. on Sunday night. Today, I'm reading more, and found out that Chris Brown's music is being pulled from radio stations, notably 103.9FM in southern Florida. I think that it's a little unfair, and very hypocritical, for radio stations to pull Chris Brown's music from the radio four days after whatever transpired between he and Rihanna. After all, R. Kelly enjoyed probably the most successful part of his career while facing accusations that he had sex with an 8th grader, urinated on her, and filmed the whole thing. I remember everyone discussing that tape (it was definitely him on the tape) in my Technology Foundations class in 2002. So, people want Chris Brown's music pulled a few days later, but R. Kelly made more money than ever while facing child molestation charges.* A double standard, if you ask me. Halle Berry is deaf in one ear, due to the abuse she faced at the hands of one of her ex-boyfriends. She didn't explicitly state who it was, but it is widely believed that Wesley Snipes is the one responsible. Even after she made this revelation, he didn't exactly have a shortage of work (his tax evasion did that). Jason Kidd, the All-Star point guard, was arrested for domestic abuse after he attacked his wife, and he's WAY bigger than Chris Brown. People weren't exactly outraged at that either; he was still selected to represent the US in international play the following year. I think people just requested that their radio stations take the same route as Wrigley's, and cut him off. Just one thing; Wrigley's has a reputation to uphold, radio does not. It's hard to imagine listening to a rap station and hearing a song, on which no one involved has been arrested for serious criminal activity, from drug charges to assault and murder. Check this video out of Gucci Mane...now he's not exactly seen in a positive light for other reasons, but why shouldn't he be held to the same standard as Chris Brown? For those of you who have seen the video and think, "Well she kind of deserved it; she shouldn't have thrown the glass at him," who is to say that a similar situation didn't happen between Chris and Rihanna? Rick James kidnapped and tortured women on two different occasions, but while he was in prison he still released a greatest hits album, and even now he gets quoted well after that skit was played out. I just feel that, whoever is passing judgment, should probably take a second look at all the facts before lumping Chris Brown into the same group as Drew Peterson.

*For more information about the R. Kelly case, hit the archives for "R. Kelly Speaks" from September.

Etta James vs. Beyonce

With the abundance of nonsensical beefs in music brought to you by your favorite hip hop blogs, you've probably thought you've seen it all. (The alleged Ne-Yo vs. Chris Brown was the worst of the worst). This one has to top them all, as I've yet to see a beef between a blues singer, a contemporary artist, and a politician. Seemingly for no reason at all, Jamesetta Dawkins called out both Beyonce AND President Obama for the former's performance of "At Last" at the Inauguration Ball. She went on the tirade during her concert in Seattle, which is linked here. The audio is kind of low, but if you can't hear she says, "You guys know your president, right? The one with the big ears? He ain't my president." She then goes on to threaten Beyonce; "...that woman he had singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her ass whipped...I can't stand Beyonce, she had no business up there...singing a song that I've been singing forever."

A few issues I have with this... I'm not sure why Obama was dragged into this; I know it was his idea, but I think you need a better reason than that to defect from the Union. I know the main reason for this is that she was offended that she wasn't asked to perform "her" song, but this crosses the line into the realm of absurdity. It almost seems like one of the (many) last ditch efforts by a rapper with a dying career to get back into the limelight, by throwing shots at whoever is currently on top, especially since only a few months ago Etta James was in love with Beyonce even before her role in the film Cadillac Records. Last but not least, the song isn't even hers... I could understand someone feeling so strongly about something that they created, but the song was actually written in the 1940s for a movie called Orchestra Wives, performed by The Glenn Miller Orchestra, and sung by Ray Eberle and Patricia Friday. One might argue that Etta James is the one who popularized it, however Miller's version reached a higher position on the Billboard Pop Charts than Etta's.

All that being said she does have some legitimate points, namely that Beyonce had no business being up there singing that song. Although that particular statement is rather harsh, I agree that just because you play Etta James in a movie means doesn't necessarily mean that you can just perform "At Last" all willy-nilly. I can see how she would be insulted. For the sake of this statement, imagine that Ray Charles were still alive, but Jamie Foxx received top billing to perform "Georgia on My Mind," keeping in mind that Charles didn't write/perform THAT song first, either. The real issue here, however, has less to do with respect and more to do with James's fear of being forgotten. To a diva like herself, I assume it feels like a slap in the face for someone else to perform her song while she's still alive and able to sing well. Personally, I think it would have been hot if they performed together; maybe Beyonce sings the first verse, then Etta James comes out of nowhere to sing the second. It would have been just as good, and everyone would (presumably) be happy; it's just unfortunate that she lashed out this way at someone who actually idolizes her. I wish Etta James would have realized that there are much, MUCH worse people who could have been performing the song; Beyonce is one of the few contemporary artists that can do it justice. And at the end of the day, just be happy it didn't get sampled by Hurricane Chris...yet.