morrigirl | Cherry Pie

So I'm sitting here watching VH1's top forty countdown of the most disgraceful metal songs of all time or some such nonsense, and what turns up at number 2 but Cherry Pie by Warrant. (Number 1 went to Final Countdown by Europe, a song that VH1 goes to great lengths to remind its viewership, totally sucks.) And as I was watching clips from the video, I realized that Cherry Pie is the song that taught me about female objectification.

The year is 1990, I'm 11, and every night at 8:00 PM I retire to my bedroom to watch Primetime with Martha Quinn on MTV. This was pre-Real World, back in the stone age when Empty V still played music videos. For three hours every night they'd air all the most popular videos of the day. It wasn't like the top twenty countdown, or Total Request Live, there was no pecking order it was just music videos on the tube for the sake of being watched. (A novel idea, I know.) I'd watch Wilson Phillips, George Michael, Paula Abdul and all the pre-Nirvana fair which included Warrant.

I hated the Cherry Pie video on sight. At an age when I was supposed to eat up everything the music indistry fed me, I knew this was just plain horse shit. (I'd had the same reaction to New Kids on the Block, MC Hammer, and Vanilla Ice but that's a tale for another time.) There was this impossibly buxom blond shaking her ass while a bunch of sleazy long haired dicks on sticks sang about how much they wanted her pussy. Blech! It made my eleven year old skin crawl. Whenever it came on I'd change ths channel because just watching it made me feel dirty. I'm totally serious. And looking back on it it makes total sense. I'd just hit puberty and was only beginning to understand that people judge others on appearence. The kids at school had just started making fun of the way I dressed, whereas the kids in elementary school had never cared. My mom started hassling me about my weight, and my hair, and asking when I was gonna get a boyfriend. She became really hung up on how I appeared to the outside world, a hang up I wouldn't acquire for another five years or so. But it was apparent that my mom, my classmates, they all wanted me to start looking and acting a particular way, and with the heavy emphasis put on dating it didn't take me long to realize they way they wanted me to look was "desirable to the male sex." (A great irony since boys don't hit puberty till 14 and are nowhere near mature enough to "date" at 11.)

So, I knew everyone wanted me to look good so I could land a boyfriend. But after watching a video like Cherry Pie it was hard to want that for myself. The girl in the video obviously looked the way a girl was supposed to look because...well the guys in the video wanted her but....that was all! They just wanted her body. All she did was grin and lick her fingers and grab her tits. She didn't talk or display any talent apart from fucking the band members silly. I didn't want to be like that. It was demeaning. Not that I ever could be like that, I was a chubby girl even then, even so I knew that kind of attention was bad. It was a sort of attention that gave guys all the power. It wasn't equal. That's what made the video so yucky to me.

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I've been stuck on this one chapter of "Drawing Blood" for a couple days now. I can't bring myself to plow through it because it's turning into a fucking love story. Our two emotionally stunted heroes have made a "connection" and are now kissing, and fucking, and having "moments" and it's all just *retch*! I didn't sign up for this. I wanted a murder mystery, I wanted gory death scenes, I wanted mindless violence, not A Walk in the Clouds! I really can't stand love stories. They piss me off. Why? Because love is never that fucking simple! Love is dirty, and messy, and rarely transcendent. It's hard, and murky, and smells fishy! Death, now that's what I like in my fiction! And not from natural causes, no no no, no interesting story ever revolved around a natural death. It's gotta be murder. Better yet, it's gotta be a murder that occurs withtin the first couple pages! YES! Now those are the sort of stories I want to read. If you know of any PLEASE float em by me.

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Today was a good day. Spent the night at Andrew's. We got up at 2 PM and watched the last half hour of AMC's countdown of the scariest film moments of all time. After that I got him to drop me at Angelo and Joe's where I picked up breakfast. Hoofed it back to my place, played a good round of Sims 2, ate a couple hot pockets, and caught a shower. I was getting ready to head back to Mom's when Mike called. Asked if I wanted to go see The Aviator with him. Several months back I told him I'd only go see that film if someone else paid for it. (You see, I HATE Leonardo Dicaprio and refuse to waste my momey on any of his pictures.) I asked Mike if he had enough money to treat me, he said yeah, so at 6PM I threw on my bookbag and hauled my ass down to Mike's apartment in Harlem.

I'd never been to his apartment before. It's okay. It's way too narrow and there's more hallway then bedroom in the place but, ya know, it's an apartment, and he's paying less rent than I am so who am I to judge. From there we went down to Times Square. The movie was surprisingly good. Leo aside I actually enjoyed it. Beautifully shot, acting was great, big ole thumbs up.

And now I'm here :-) Back at mom's, killing time till the Henry Rollins show tomorrow night.