Naomi Wolf still flapping her gums about Katy Perry

Earlier this month, I wrote about Naomi Wolf’s idiot complaint that Katy Perry’s latest video (at the link above) “Part of Me” glorified military service. The video does nothing of the sort. It shows how tough training for the military is and would scare away most of the kids today who think that the military is all fun and games.

Daniel sends us a link to Naomi’s latest complaint that Fox News picked on her and asks why Katy won’t divulge whether or not the Marines paid her to make the video at Camp Pendleton;

The creepy parts of the video, in my mind, are many: girl power is represented as what Perry accomplishes in the rigors of basic training. Feminine impulses toward romantic revenge are depicted as rightly channeled into getting armed and being shipped to some mystery Afghanistan-like set overseas, locked and loaded. Trade in your bad boyfriend for a hot AK-47!

For one thing, you ditz, there are no AK47s in the video. Katy is carrying an M4, our enemies carry AK47s like all of our enemies have for fifty years. If you want to sound like you have a valid, informed opinion, learn the nomenclatures. And it seems to me that a feminist would revel in the fact that Katy depicts a woman who immerses herself in a traditionally male world and emerges as an equal to men. But, no, because Naomi doesn’t approve of the military and the job they do;

The whole videography of the scenes at Camp Pendleton – in which Perry crawls through an imaginary minefield, trains underwater, learns she can do the impossible, etc – is straight out of Leni Riefenstahl: the same angled, heroizing upward shots, the same fetishization of physical power, of gleaming armaments, and of the rigor and mechanism of human beings cohering into living militarized units.

Yeah, because the Marines are Nazis, or at least make her feel like she’s watching Nazi propaganda, or something. I guess the shots of a woman keeping up with men during the most grueling part of their preparation for defending their country is somehow frightening to the woman who defended Bill Clinton daily from accusations that he objectified young, impressionable women.

There is something else about the video: it feels … like an ad; specifically, a focus-grouped, consumer-tested ad to attract more women to join the Marines.

Yeah, because every woman who saw the video wants to do log PT in the surf, crawl through mud and climb log walls, get yelled at by Marine sergeant who has spent most of her adult life perfecting that craft, roadmarch in the California sun laden with full gear…and what teenage girl doesn’t want to slather on some camouflage face paint?

So I wrote that I felt that this was a piece of “war propaganda” and that, if Perry had received money or message guidance directly from the military to make the video, she should disclose that information. […] Now, to be fair, while journalists are expected to disclose any such conflicts, I have absolutely no evidence of any such transaction, and artists are subject to no such expectation.

Then why even bring it up, you ditz?

A more realistic portrayal of military life might note that no one threw them a parade after the end of the Iraq war, and no one bothered to thank them for their service. It might show how the military machine chews up patriotic young men and women and spits them out. What men and women in the army and navy today tell me directly is that they know they are fighting for corporate interests, not their country’s true defense. They say they tell themselves, “I am fighting for my colleagues” – because they know they can’t say that they are truly fighting for their country.

You boneheaded, silly moron. The military doesn’t chew us up and spit us out. The members of this forum are representative of that. We’re all out here in the real world, most of have finished our military service and we’re better people for having served – in contrast to you. We say we’re fighting for our buddies, because of the relationships that are forged in the military, the relationships that carry on after the rifles are silent. Our experiences bind us together with people we’ve never met like those of us on this forum. And our relationships exclude idiots like you who do your damned best to tear us apart. That’s probably why you despise us and our culture, because you’ll never understand it…and you’ll never be a part of our culture.

You know, Naomi, you sound like those white liberals who tell us that they know about black culture because they have a black friend. Don’t patronize us with stories about your imaginary veteran friends. It’s obvious from your idiot observations in this piece alone that you don’t like us, that you don’t appreciate what we’ve done for you and you wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on one of us if we were on fire.

A glossy, seductive “war is fun when you can’t get a date” pop video is over in three minutes. The truth about the darker side of military experience – trauma, injury, and the loss of loved ones – endures for ever.

I know it’s hard for a Yale grad and Rhodes scholar to understand, Naomi, but it’s called a sacrifice for something greater than oneself. And the military experience has been good to me and my family. Maybe you’re the one who needs to be exposed to the truth about military service instead of wallowing in your outdated and worn cliches.

Category: Shitbags