OK, I get what Bill Maher’s saying here, but regardless of how humorously he’s trying to poke at our funny boner, it’s the pot calling the kettle black in my eyes. Maher’s put across enough of a confirmed bachelorhood so he can enjoy big-boob Hefnerhood that he’s slicking up the slippery slope’s precipice himself.
Really, it’s not just MTV teaching hoocie-ism to teen girls. There’s also Hefner’s horndogging teaching young men that it’s still cool to be a player. Hell, the cynic in me hopes that the more today’s young men play, the less likely young women will be to give it away for free. After all, you can’t tell girls to use the sanctity of marriage for economic leverage — and, yes, I get that’s as much a blast at het marital success (lack thereof) than anything else — when you’re also telling young men they should aim to become the next Drew Carey, Fred Durst, and even Maher himself, all mansion aficionados.
The slippery slope isn’t just one of the old double standard in new clothes, but more precariously, that of our relationship with our own popular culture. Maher’s almost coming across as a infringed-upon middle ager, griping about teen sex the way our great grandparents griped about those fifteen miles uphill both ways in the snow to school. After all, he is being displaced by a younger, hipper generation, but we are all — big deal. Complaining about MTV and the whoring of our daughters brings us closer to what the fundie right’s been saying all along. And that’s the slope I have a real problem with Maher slicking.
Yes, I get he’s satirizing white priviledge, but that said, we’re still looking at the junction where porn celebrity meets the consumerism. Look, teen girls in Japan have been selling their dirty panties for years now; should we really be surprised that American teen girls are looking for fast and plentiful money when they’ve been pushed to accummulate from their cribs? Really, consider the fact that the first thing they most likely saw when looking beyond their mothers’ teats was merchandise in baby mode.
As long as rock-n-roll porn celebrity exists within a consumer society replete with American freedoms, we’re going to have pockets of excess. But I have to take issue with Maher on one last point: White priviledge teaches our girls about the economics of sex as much as MTV does. As long as Heidi Fleiss can fluently discuss the value of prostitution (for legal beagles, no less!) and we have no redress that works on an economic level, what can we do? We can’t fight that glamor — especially since she seems more caring as a madam than most employers are of their workers in the traditional workforce.
Seems to me young women are protecting their interests as best they can in a microcosm where young men don’t care. I can’t say I blame them. It’s the demi-monde at the mall.
But Maher, do me a favor? Take yourself out of the player’s game. Then you can kick suburbia in the teeth over any sex issue you want with impunity. And I promise to laugh from the audience.
