The first thing you have to look at when comparing what happened to the Dixie Chicks, Kanye West and P!nk is the genre of their music. Dixie Chicks are country, Kanye West is hip-hop/rap and P!nk is rock/pop. The fact that Dixie Chicks are country makes it a lot harder for them to say something controversial about the American war and not have it be dealt with in the harshest terms. After Natalie said “ We are ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas” turned their country fans against them.
What doesn’t make sense is when P!nk wrote a song calle
d “Dear Mr. President” that was extremely controversial against the president she got praised from her fans. P!nk has made her career all about standing out and saying what’s on her mind, even if it does go against our society. In songs such as “Stupid Girls” you can clearly see in the video that she is negatively portraying female celebrities such as Mary Kate Olsen, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. Her songs usually do have a meaningful message behind them and that’s what makes her fans and parts of society not care about her choice of songs, which is why I think she got away with the song.
Another incident that caused minimal controversy was the outburst from Kanye West during NBC's Hurricane Katrina fundraiser when he said, “George Bush does not care about black people”. Shortly after it happened, Kanye’s statement was quic
kly forgotten. I personally think that what Kanye had to say was much worse then what Dixie Chicks and even P!nk said. If you look at the difference between the statements, Kanye West made a public claim (that wasn’t true) against George Bush’s reputation, while Natalie Maines made a personal opinion about how she feels about George Bush. Since when does personal opinions get taken far more seriously then public slander? I think it was an unfair move against the Dixie Chicks, when P!nk and Kanye deserved just as much ridicule as they did.
I think the one thing that made these three incidents different was the timing. Dixie Chicks made the claim on March 10, 2003 in London, England, which was a few days before the war started on March 20, 2003. I think that was a main reason they got so much flack, just because the war really hadn’t escalated and people were just getting into supporting their country. They hadn’t seen the outcomes of the war yet and they were still focused on being patriotic. With P!nk, her song came out on April 5, 2006, which gave the country three years to see the effects of the war. In the year 2006 Americans were now stating that George Bush had mislead Americans and that 59% of them said the Iraq war was a mistake. People were now more acceptant to personal opinions about George Bush, good or bad. Lastly, Kanye West made his claim about Bush on September 2, 2005. This also gave Americans time to observe how the war was turning out. The thing that saved Kanye was the fact that he was making so much profit for his label that publicly boycotting his music would have been career suicide.
d “Dear Mr. President” that was extremely controversial against the president she got praised from her fans. P!nk has made her career all about standing out and saying what’s on her mind, even if it does go against our society. In songs such as “Stupid Girls” you can clearly see in the video that she is negatively portraying female celebrities such as Mary Kate Olsen, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. Her songs usually do have a meaningful message behind them and that’s what makes her fans and parts of society not care about her choice of songs, which is why I think she got away with the song.Another incident that caused minimal controversy was the outburst from Kanye West during NBC's Hurricane Katrina fundraiser when he said, “George Bush does not care about black people”. Shortly after it happened, Kanye’s statement was quic
kly forgotten. I personally think that what Kanye had to say was much worse then what Dixie Chicks and even P!nk said. If you look at the difference between the statements, Kanye West made a public claim (that wasn’t true) against George Bush’s reputation, while Natalie Maines made a personal opinion about how she feels about George Bush. Since when does personal opinions get taken far more seriously then public slander? I think it was an unfair move against the Dixie Chicks, when P!nk and Kanye deserved just as much ridicule as they did.I think the one thing that made these three incidents different was the timing. Dixie Chicks made the claim on March 10, 2003 in London, England, which was a few days before the war started on March 20, 2003. I think that was a main reason they got so much flack, just because the war really hadn’t escalated and people were just getting into supporting their country. They hadn’t seen the outcomes of the war yet and they were still focused on being patriotic. With P!nk, her song came out on April 5, 2006, which gave the country three years to see the effects of the war. In the year 2006 Americans were now stating that George Bush had mislead Americans and that 59% of them said the Iraq war was a mistake. People were now more acceptant to personal opinions about George Bush, good or bad. Lastly, Kanye West made his claim about Bush on September 2, 2005. This also gave Americans time to observe how the war was turning out. The thing that saved Kanye was the fact that he was making so much profit for his label that publicly boycotting his music would have been career suicide.
I personally think that if Natalie Maines was to make that statement now, that her along with Emily Robison and Martie Maguire would not have been so hated. I think that the Americans were just too caught up in “being the perfect, patriotic American” that they failed to see the humour in the situation.
Kanye West and Mike Myers on NBC's Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser
Pink - Dear Mr. President
Dixie Chicks 2006 Tour
--------------------------------------------------------
"Stupid Girls." Wikipedia. 31 Dec 2007. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 16 Jan 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_Girls.
Shut Up and Sing. Dir. Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck. Perf. Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie Maguire. DVD. The Weinstein Company, 2006.
"Dixie Chicks Watch: Film Documentary - “Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing” Picked Up for Worldwide Distribution ." FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog . 22 Aug 2006. WordPress. 16 Jan 2008 http://static.flickr.com/82/222252173_29f798cc12_o.jpg.
"PINK ''I'm Not Dead Tour''." Munchen Tickets. 2007. München Ticket GmbH . 16 Jan 2008 http://www.muenchenticket.de/merchandisingpic.jsp?file=112823.jpg.
"Kanye West feat Young Jeezy - Can’t Tell Me Nothing Remix (NEW LYRICS)." Ali's Basement. 31 July 2007. WordPress. 16 Jan 2008 http://alisbasement.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/kanyeremix.jpg.
No comments:
Post a Comment