More Silliness

I’ve updated the photos I posted yesterday to include more images of the things I loved the most about my year in Ottawa: my beloved inversion table and my beloved ex-girlfriend.

Occasionally, in the name of being “progressive”, people do the stupidest things. A few years ago the band The Barenaked Ladies was banned from performing at Toronto’s City Hall because their name was deemed sexist. The pickle-up-the-ass crowd was too square to realize that the name was an innocent reference to a laddish predilection.

Well, they did it again. This past week, Toronto superbabe Natalie Glebova was denied permission to attend the opening of a festival at City Hall because her title of Miss Universe evoked concerns over sexual stereotyping. Aieee.

You know, being beautiful, as subjective an appraisal as that might be, is as valid a demarking characteristic as any other. It’s also a characteristic that every single human society –and every single human individual– has valued since the dawn of time. The only thing that has changed is how we define beautiful.

The tired line is always, “what message are we sending our young women by celebrating a woman just for her physical beauty?” Note that I don’t argue for a second that the title of Miss Universe is conferred for any reason other than physical beauty.

If Natalie had won a gold medal for running fast or jumping high or floating in sync with another twit, she’d be feted royally. Well, of what value are those athletic skills, really? What message do we send our young people by celebrating the efforts of people over-indulging in physical activities of little societal value? Why do these obsessively over-conditioned people not evoke any of the same cries of poor body image projection?

When the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series, they were given the key to the city. Yep, a bunch of hired American millionaires were celebrated by a Canadian city for their ability to play a silly game most Canadians care little about. Yet one of our own is declared the most beautiful woman in the Universe (which, I know, is innately silly) and she isn’t allowed to open a bloody festival in her home town.

I don’t watch beauty pageants. I think they’re silly. But they’re no more silly than any other arbitrary contest. The fact remains that Natalie Glebova is the world champion of this particular silly activity. And if we’re going to allow our champion athletes, etc, to revel in their achievement, then I say we extend the same courtesy to Natalie. Besides, she’s hot.

I leave you with this. Don’t ask me why.

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