Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Worst Person In The World!

Besides this douchebag.

So I was looking up Beyonce's 'Diva,' a song with which I have a complicated love-hate relationship (hate everything about it, love how bad and forced it is), and I came upon this story:

Beyonce: I'm not a diva.

Beyonce is just a normal girl, according to the singer herself.

The Crazy In Love hitmaker doesn't think her Diva reputation is fair and says she enjoys life more when she is out of the spotlight.

Beyonce explained: "I'm not this round the clock diva looking for attention.

"I'm way more comfortable out of the spotlight and just chilling out with my family.

"I'm very quiet. I love to paint. I love to watch TV though it seems I never get to do it. I love a lot old television shows. I still love the Cosbys. I also love the Fresh Prince."

Apparently Beyonce gave this "I'm-no-diva" scoop to the Sun in efforts to defuse a Daily News item to the effect that, in a fit of diva-ness, she got the Secret Service to let her chauffeur through a closed D.C. street at the inauguration because she couldn't bear to walk four blocks. That aside, and also putting aside the question of how loving the Cosbys is in any way relevant to whether she is or is not a diva, I'm sure you see the problem here. Here's this woman insisting she's "not this round the clock diva" like the concept is new to her when the hook of her latest single goes:
I'm a, a diva, hey
I'm a, I'm a, a diva, hey I'm a, I'm a, a diva, hey I'm a, I'm a, a diva I'm a, I'm a, a diva, hey I'm a, I'm a, a diva I'm a, I'm a, a diva, hey I'm a, I'm a (diva).

Am I being too literal here? Well according to Beyonce, I am, because that was Sasha Fierce who said that. You know, Beyonce's "sensual, aggressive alter ego" who only exists on stage, and presumably in the studio when she's recording this crap. This little episode really gets at the heart of what's so disgusting about Beyonce. It isn't enough, apparently, to foist her loathsomely materialistic, whorish, gender-regressive crap on the public. It isn't enough that her idea of a love song is a list of luxury apparel items that she'll buy for her significant other so he'll look good in "them big meetings for the mills," or that her current hit is about how she's "gettin [more] money" than other r&b singers. On top of that, she wants to evade any responsibility for this crap. Rather than either going all bland balladeer on us and losing the half of her audience that gets turned on by her singing about having video phone sex with "them hustlas [who] like the way I'm walkin," or at least having the decency to own that bullshit, she decides to spin it all off as the work of this alter ego who bears no relationship to her homebody, Fresh Prince-watching self. It's like if Curtis Jackson, in an effort to broaden his branding appeal, came out and said that everything he's ever recorded is the work of this violent playboy alter ego he's got by the name of 50 Cent, whereas he himself is this mild-mannered peace-loving fellow with a spotless record who sits at home with a steady girlfriend eating Chinese takeout. And then he started performing at inaugural balls and appearing on Sesame Street. In a way this sort of thing is far more pernicious than the Officer Ross kerfuffle, or Prodigy rapping like the toughest guy in the world and constantly getting robbed. No, not in a way, it just is. At least Ross is only telling one lie, and really he isn't even telling the one; I think we all knew when he said that Noriega owed him a hundred favors that his lyrics weren't scrupulously accurate autobiography. If that type of shit bothers you, you're an idiot. What really creeps me out is this effort to have it both ways, to be as slutty on wax as you want to be and then turn around and say that's just this character you made up in an attempt to keep up your appeal with the more conservative members of your audience. It's the epitome of market-tested fakeness.

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