In his 1999 special "Never Scared," Chris Rock claimed that "if your daughter is a stripper," you've failed as a parent, that his "only job in life is to keep [his daughter] off the pole."
Rock's own method of entertainment, however, relies on edgy material to gain and stimulate an audience, just as strippers do.
He might allege that his type of entertainment is acceptable because it has intellectual content and offers messages. But not all comics do that, let alone all workers. Work is essentially the satisfying of wants and demands, and especially in the entertainment field it can bring happiness to many. There are far worse values and ends that people could come to.
In the same special Rock also said, "I'm not getting down on strippers. Somebody's got to do it. Somebody has to do the job that they do - entertaining married men. You're wife will do you, but she won't entertain you".
So the customers' motivations are OK, therefore the profession as a whole is fine, just not the individual workers? Because if you consider the father a failure and end result to be such a terrible failure, then you also look down on the particular workers.
Rock's contradictory attitudes seem to come from having contempt for males' desires (which he only accepts as he thinks they're also inevitable), or a belief that his child is different from all the other ones. This sort of bias can lead to having unrealistic expectations for the child or teaching him or her a version of morality that you don't actually agree with. Regardless, bias and hypocrisy do lead to arrogance, believing that you and your circle are superior and everyone else does not deserve full respect or consideration.
Of course, Rock could have been speaking primarily in jest. His attitude still reflects and spreads contempt for people who work to please a demand.
Another man who takes serious issues and devalues them for his betterment is Stephen Colbert. He recently spoofed the outrage over bonus payments to AIG executives (real news sources have also focused on Charles Grassley's remark as a way to discredit the angry sentiment). Some things deserve anger. My father said that Colbert and Jon Stewart are just comedy, but when they mock, criticize and devalue passion without having any alternatives of their own, they hurt democracy, sending the message that we should just do what the leaders say, or at least leave the decision-making to other people behind closed doors (trying to engage the citizenry, now that's terrible!); sadly, some people don't look beyond those shows.
An article on Stewart's impact
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201474.html
In 2004 Stewart criticized Crossfire as partisan; this accusation is usually issued because the speaker wants his goals (which he or she thinks are the right, sensible ones) to pass without troublesome opposition.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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