Saturday, May 30, 2009

get your personal bullshit off my lawn: an op-ed

Over the past couple of months a girl named Sasha Grey has been doing a number of interviews to promote a new movie she is starring in called "The Girlfriend Experience". Though Ms. Greys interviews have all been somewhat hostile or uneasy and that is no doubt due to her day job as a porn star. No matter who the interviewer or host or "journalist" is, they all feel the need to pester her about what she does for a living and why she does it. Everyone from AOTS to Tyra Banks to the Insider who even had an on-air "intervention" with a tv plastic surgeon. (wtf?) It almost seems that each one is sent a memo of predisposed notions they should have when interviewing her, including,

"shes a whore"

"shes just doing it for money"

"all porn stars do it out of desperation or as a stepping stone into something else"

"automatically assume her parents and/or family are ashamed."

"shes a role model and should act like it"

Two of these we will address now. First, the money. IF her pursuit was just monetary then thats the way it is. Though Sasha Grey has stated many times that she loves what she does. She feels sex is as natural as child birth so why be ashamed of it. WHY that should affect or bother anyone else is quizzical because across every walk of life someone is just doing a job for money. There are thousands of college kids who when asked say, "I gotta go to school to get a good job so I can make lots of money." They don't even know what that job is half the time AFTER they've already graduated and they dont much care so long as it pays well. Or you have people in jobs currently who when asked state, "Man I gotta work hard (or) kiss my bosses ass so I can get a promotion so I can make more money." So which of the two are the worse person, the one who hates his "normal" job but does it anyway in the hopes of more money, OR the girl who gets paid to do something she legitimately loves?

Next is the worst one, the role model. Now its no question that our nation was founded by puritans, yet despite that we are the most free nation in the world, though we still have the horrible habit of trying to empart our personal beliefs and hang-ups on other people. One of the most common and tired ways of doing this is the role model argument. Which is to guilt trip someone into thinking they should be ashamed because they are a role model and some little kid somewhere will look up to them and follow in their footsteps.

The real question is, WHY would Sasha Grey be a role model? Furthermore, why is every woman above the age of 17 with any publicity AUTOMATICALLY a role model for every little girl in the world? How dumb does a little girl have to be where she, out of ALL the women in her life or the women she sees on TV, picks an adult entertainment star as a role model? Now if the little girl does decide that, thats OK, thats not a problem, the problem lies in people assuming that to make sure those little girls don't do things or take jobs they themselves don't like, they should just do away with all the possible role models who are doing said things and jobs.

Little Susie Smith has a homemaker mom so why cant she be susie's role model? Janice Cline has an aunt who's a doctor so why can't the aunt be Janice's? Becky Billings sadly has no women in her family but her pediatrician and her teacher are women AND she watches alot of Rachel Ray. Soo why is it that Sasha Grey has to do something else with her life because any of these girls might try to do what she does.

People might take an interest in something because someone they like does it, but everyone, EVERYONE actually does something because they like it themselves. I'd be hard pressed to believe any doctor, or lawyer or professional wrestler or porn star got into their job hating it from day one but stuck with it because some celebrity did it before them. And if you happen to find someone who did well then you just found a really, really, really stupid person who is incapable of making their own life choices and were doomed from the start.

The same goes for guys. A wise man once said, "the world needs ditch-diggers too." Now is the ditch-digger a bad person because his lowly job isn't something anyone else should aspire to be? Furthermore is the ditch-digger responsible for every kid he meets who may one day become a ditch-digger too? A parent runs up to the ditch-digger yelling, "Goddamnit my son met you once and you made him laugh and told him how you love your job and love to be outside and now he's a ditch-digger! He should've gone to college and gotten a degree so he could make lots of MONEY."

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