Obama: Nobel Prizes & Noble Gestures

Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize! Wow!

Looks like the world's love affair with one of the most articulate  and inspiring orators and diplomats of our time is not yet over, contrary to one CNN report.

It hasn't been a year yet since Obama took office, but his charisma, thoughtful rhetoric and distinctive equanimity (some might add good looks) captured the world's attention years before the election. The amazing thing about the  celebration around Obama is that people are taken with his character and approach, rather than his politics. Indeed, the strong suggestion is that the former dictates the latter.

However, one is tempted to think that this was a rather last minute decision. His official advocacy of nuclear disarmament was a relatively recent affair. Well, everything he has said or done is relatively recent. Perhaps the other candidates were more deserving? Maybe Obama could have copped next year's award?

Then again the issue isn't time so much as the dearth of precedent associated with the Obama persona. Apart from  his race, when was the last time a US President - or premier of any nuclear nation for that matter - proposed a reduction in atomic weaponry? One may be tempted to believe that Obama is actually an advocate of peace!

Of course the implications are somewhat worrisome. Obama is threatening a multi-billion dollar industry. War makes money. The Iraq War has been  a very public and practical illustration thereof, so what kind of corporate opposition will he face? Then again, peace is also about action, and no reduction in nuclear arms has taken place yet - only the proposition of such (not to mention two on-going wars).

A debate regarding Obama's worthiness of (and indeed the motives/agenda behind) receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is likely to follow closely behind this announcement (indeed this discourse is part of it), and perhaps it should do. I am certainly in Obama's camp, but wish him to keep his cool head and determined posture, after all, titles and awards have been known to steal substance and action. The reward in this case is not a peace prize - but peace itself, and that is still far from mission accomplished.

Kanye & The VMA - Publicity Stunt!

Many have probably seen the footage of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for best female music video at this year's MTV VMA's.  He, now infamously, declared that Beyonce deserved the Moon Man but has since offered a rambling though emotional apology.

So why a publicity stunt? Well, it's been done before, probably more times than we know but I'll cite two examples both involving the same accomplice: Marshall Mathers a.k.a Eminem. We all know about his collaboration with Sacha Baron Cohen to promote the  Bruno movie. Cohen was lowered from the ceiling, bare butted, onto a disgusted Eminem. The sad part is, many thought it was spontaneous. How do you spontaneously get lowered from the ceiling at a massive awards show...onto Eminem? John Mayer, maybe. Oh, where did this take place? The MTV Movie Awards. Are we seeing a common denominator here?

Next up was the so-called triangular feud between Eminem, Mariah Carey and her toy boy husband, Nick Cannon. What was the product? Carey's new single at the time, Obsessed, which really could have been about any old freak. If Obsessed is about Eminem, then Vision of Love is about Kermit the Frog. Now the beef allegedly continues and new beef-related tunes and lyrics from Eminem are out there. But we just don't care anymore. At any rate the point was to sell, sell, sell. 

Now, back to Kanye. Firstly, why was West allowed to storm the stage? Why did no one try to escort him off? Do they not have stage hands, protocol, backstage managers? Further, the camera was so situated as to catch Beyonce's shock at the very moment his spontaneous announcement was made. How did the cameraman know he should be beside Beyonce just then? Like much of today's Hollywood publicity, the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred. Fiction and reality apparently make more money than fiction alone. Just look at the Iraq War. But this is what the US economy is all about - disaster capitalism. Sell a product without letting anyone know what they are buying, or even that they are buying anything at all.

As long as the ratings go up and the Benjamin's flow. Everybody wins. Kanye is not losing money because of this incident. I wouldn't be surprised if he releases a new tune about the whole harrowing affair. I wager it'll be called Man in the Moon or Swift Me Off My Feet - uh, uh, uh. Remember, you heard it here first! 

So, what was the product this time? Well, it just so happened that the fresh-out-the-oven Jay Leno Show premiered in time to feature who? Kanye West. Coincidence? I think not. What better way to garner viewership and ratings than to have the loony who's been grabbing YouTube by the eyes for the past 24 hrs. This is where Kanye made his  blubbering apology. After the mad rush to YouTube the video disappears and the only place to go to see it again is back to the source. More money is made.

The casting was perfect. Kanye has a decorated history of TV meltdowns, none more famous than his 'George Bush hates black people' post-Katrina declaration. Classic. The goal of course, to kickstart Leno's new NBC show. We know that any PR, no matter how disgusting, only brings notoriety and more money. Hilton's 'leaked' sex video, Tommy Lee had one too as did a slew of other celebrities once they realized it could bring in some cash. 

Conspiracy theory? Well frankly yes. But it's not a secret. Corporations have openly conspired to get your money - as much of it as you will give them (and some you don't want to) and they spend millions on advertising, PR and this new integration of reality and PR in order to get billions. Smart. New. Old.  But it got our attention. We will forget about it in 2 1/2 days. In fact, you're probably wondering what the heck I'm yammering about.

You get my point. Keep an eye out for the next shenanigan.

Transformers 2 Post Mortem: Entertaining Crap With a Neo-Con Agenda!

On its face Transformers 2 was exactly what it was supposed to be: entertainment, action, pointless shots of cool dudes walking in slo mo, everybody running from explosions in slo mo, scantily clad anorexic white girls & badly formulated premises moving a shaky plot-line forward with the help of dopey slapstick characters.

It was a badly edited string of action clichés in CGI. Awesome! Total guy movie.

Now what was Transformers really about? It was about 1 thing: Advertising. What were they advertising you ask?

3 things:

1. The American Military Industrial Complex

2. General Motors

3. The Republic Capitalist Agenda

No I'm not nuts and no I'm not reading into things too much. Trust me, I'm not paranoid they are really after you! ;O).

Ok seriously. America's military is comprehensively paraded throughout the film: satellite technology, nuclear subs, aircraft carriers, attack drones (which, by the way, routinely kill mourners and their families in Pakistan), tanks, aircraft, response time and more, all conveniently in the Middle East - or a place that looks just like it (Egypt really but who's counting?). The advancement of tech was even illustrated in the geriatric Blackbird, JetFire. They made being a soldier look very cool and dying for your country a very action-packed career option! So kids, join the army - now!

General Motors gets some great mileage out the film too. Primarily through the twins and Sideswipe. The twins are the Chevrolet Trax (Mudflap - the red one) and the Chevrolet Beat (Skids - the green one) and Sideswipe is a concept car (according to this site). The compact cars are no arbitrary choice. With the market wanting more fuel efficient cars and not the massive gas guzzlers GM usually turns out of the assembly line - Skids and Mudflaps are the hope of GM - even if they are the most embarrassing black stereotypes since JJ in Goodtimes.

Now the fact that these two commercial entities (yes the military is commercial) are getting massive airtime is no accident. They both need and make lots of money. And that brings us to the Republican Agenda.

The philosophy embedded in Transformers (that you, the weak in mind have been thoroughly programmed to accept and that I, with my superior paranoia, can detect from miles away) is anti-diplomacy, kick-butting military might at all costs whenever and where ever we want. Kinda like what happened with Iraq.

The movie even took shots at Obama, having him hid in a bunker and his emphasis on diplomacy trashed obliquely by Optimus Prime and squarely by Sergeant Lennox. The Main message via the Suit, eventually sent parachuting into the desert, was that diplomacy sucks and military force rules! Why? Cause war makes money. That's right Transformers is all about selling cars and making war. Or as the neo-cons would put it - business as usual.

Yes people, after Transformers 1 and 2 you will happily accept that war is life and America (and one British soldier) is the saviour of the world. Just give it time. Now if you don't sell out completely you will at least have developed marginal sympathy for the American Commercial cause. Trust me, right after the movie I had an inexplicable urge to enlist with marines and buy a Chevrolet. How do you explain that?!