The great pastoral underwear recall
Here's the gist of the story; a pastor sees men's underwear at Wal-Mart and complains the packaging on said undergarment is obscene. Wal-Mart removes brand from shelves.
Is this how morality works or is it a shame the men cannot wear underwear on packaging anymore? I'd like to know what exactly was on the package, because most packaged underwear is tame. Maybe the new package will have a stick man with underwear drawn on. Laughable or reasonable objection?
Here is the story: http://www.cullmantimes.com/local/x1037665242/Underwear-packaging-reportedly-recalled-from-Walmart-after-Cullman-pastor-s-complaint
Ok. End of story, right?
I forward this one onto our pop culture correspondent and karoke superstar and she goes ballistic. Here below is her response which also includes a diatribe on 7-year old girls doing some provocative dancing ( names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.)
Oh my goodness. Do not get me started.
It ANGERS me entirely that women are allowed to [be] objectified in all kinds of advertising, to the point where we're pretty much considered less than human, but put the shoe on the other foot and they throw the product right out of Wal Mart. O M G.
If a woman complained about this sort of thing even the very Wal Mart clerk would laugh in her face.
Now, for what it's worth I wouldn't be so livid about this if it weren't for what happened to me in my OFFICE yesterday.
My student, who is MC of the rap team at Random State University, was having lunch with her DJ in our office. They were listening to music that was so loud I could hear it through my office door so I came out to see what they were up to. They were watching dance videos on You Tube. The particular video was of a group of 7 year old girls in bikinis doing a very sexualized dance to a Beyonce tune. I was horrified. HORRIFIED.
Hence began a discussion where my conclusion was, "I feel these girls are being exploited because they don't understand the sexual nature of this dance or the song," and their conclusion was "You don't understand dance culture. These girls are too innocent to understand what those dance moves mean, so it's fine that they're dancing like that."
I was horr-i-fied. To make matters worse, the video linked to another video--a news article that criticized the exploitation of the girls--featuring the parents defending these dance moves! One of the featured parents was a father who said that he's happy his daughter wears/dances this stuff because she "loves what she does."
A thank you to our correspondent who made this brief commentary into something with much broader implications. In fact it was more of a social commentary.
My final take- the pastor just cut down the weeds. The roots still exist and they are far more extensive than a package of underwear. Kind of reminds me of this parable- http://www.esvstudybible.org/search?q=Matt+13%3A24-30.
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