I'm bothered by the usage of "whore of babylon". I feel like that sort of language doesn't belong in a review like this.
There are ambiguities, of course. Perhaps the "shock" value of female sexuality is a good thing and is helping us all to get out of outmoded views about female purity. Perhaps the presentation of female sexuality as being about raunch and nudity is catering to male fantasies and is thus bad. Perhaps the problem lies with the excessively "pure" image that teenage female entertainers need to maintain in order to be deemed "family-friendly".
Personally, I interpreted the comment in the article as being one about the exaggerated nature of the image change that stars like Miley Cyrus go through once they hit the age of consent. She's neither the whore of Babylon nor Hannah Montana, but it suited advertisers to portray her as both at different times.
Is this a suitable topic for a joke or a metaphor? I didn't interpret it negatively, so for me it was fine. I can appreciate why other people would disagree, but I thought adding some context might be useful[3].
[1] Actually this is mostly an American thing, so I'm not entirely entitled to use "we" here
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex
[3] Who am I kidding? I'm just giving my 2c on an internet forum like everyone else who has nothing better to do right now
1) commodifying women is not ok.
2) comparing women as an object/product to a piece of tech is again problematic.
3) half your potential audience for your review is women. Do they want to read about other women being talked about like this?
4) using language like this makes it easier to accept it's reasonable and inoffensive. It's not inoffensive.
just saying oh well this is advertising and marketing is not enough. Questioning it's validity is worthwhile. Questioning whether we want to see this kind of exclusionary and sexist language in professional copy is worthwhile.
I hate this attitude that makes people watch their words. It may be true of public and influential personalities, but who cares your choice of words as long as you convey the message? I believe that everything and everyone can be laughed at.
Sure, you may feel offended inside. But you should at least understand that it makes no sense and refrain from sharing your "I'm offended" feelings. Same thing goes for the other end of the spectrum by the way: you can be sexist but as long as you don't act on it, I don't see a problem. That's what freedom is about.
I'm a man, I can walk down the street without being wolf whistled, leered at or otherwise feeling threatened.
Every single woman I know has been hassled in public by men with sexist, threatening language like this. walking down the street they will get an unwanted comments about their appearance, if they ignore them or complain, they get called the kind of things you call "simple words".
Because this kind of language is in the everyday lexicon of of some men, it's used to hurt, threaten and intimidate women.
but y'know, please don't get upset by my simple words yeah.
Some women have criticized Ms. Cyrus's image-transition as cynical and self-destructive – see for example Sinead O'Connor's "open letter" [1]. Those women might appreciate, rather than take offense at, a sly nod to the accelerated, commercial nature of Cyrus's sex-it-up-for-a-buck makeover. The review's throwaway line, to the extent it expresses any viewpoint at all, can equally be seen as embracing one particular feminist critique of sexualized-marketing.
So if some people find a word choice "offensive" based on a simple checklist of dos-and-don'ts, but others find the same phrasing a usefully vivid and possibly even progressive turn-of-phrase, which side should have its preference respected in future writing? Do we take a majority vote? Does one iota of declared offense, from the most easily-offended, always win, ensuring gray committee-vetted prose from here to eternity?
[1] http://gawker.com/everyone-needs-to-read-sinead-o-connors-op... – One of O'Connor's points is: "The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. "
If you're complaining about obscenity, you should know that that was a reference to the Bible, of all things.
EDIT: As an aside, I've been refreshing the page frequently and the dynamics of which comments are rapidly going gray and back to black are very interesting. Not to mention the order of comments on this page. Clearly there's some strong opinions here. I feel like an analysis of post voting frequency and vote type could be performed and would be very insightful.
[0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=whore count the women depicted, count the men depicted.
It's pertinent to the topic, in any of the above cases, as they all make you wonder if you can thus trust the rest of his review/opinion.
I disagree. And so do a lot of other people. Look up the word in the dictionary. It's an accurate definition.
I'm more bothered by the fact that as soon as I read that sentence in the review, I knew someone who loves to be offended by everything would have already commented about it on HN.
(That said, I have no clue what Hanna Montana was. But Miley Cyrus is hardly extreme, even for mainstream music.
[Edit: And if copying black music culture should be condemned, I don't know how much will remain? :-) Not only in the US. I guess the jokes are about the contrast with Montana? Sure women often gets the short stick in criticism, but don't throw the baby out with the water. Enough discussion, please. ]
)
Let's google "whore definition" :
> noun, derogatory, a prostitute.
She's not a prostitute (you can google that definition too), so it's not an accurate definition. And, as you're keen on definitions, it's defined as derogatory, so that really does indicate at least meanness of spirit in the writer, yourself, and "a lot of other people".
> I knew someone who loves to be offended by everything...
Personally, I'm not offended by "everything", and when I am offended, I don't enjoy it. His statement simply was offensive.
> as soon as I read that sentence in the review...
You clearly show a level of awareness of what is potentially offensive. Perhaps you could try using a little empathy towards others when you come across something that triggers that awareness, and you might find yourself enlightened.