Sunday, May 20, 2012

"3-6-9"...the misappropriation of a culture continues for money - and so we can be on TV {smdh}

On a somewhat lighter note - I love Volkswagens. I've had one ever since 11 years ago, the safety of that wonderful German craftsmanship saved my and the husband's asses as we drove to our home near the National Key Deer Refuge, after a night of hanging out in Key West.

As I lay reclined, sleeping in the front passenger seat (one too many chocolate martinis), my designated driver swerved to avoid hitting a Key Deer (they're about the size of my youngest son's almost 2 year-old pit bull).  Ended up hitting a white concrete pole holding up electrical wires instead.  I woke up  to the jolt saying, "Why didn't you hit the damned deer!"  He answered dryly, "Endangered Deborah, big-assed fine."

The pole cracked in half and fell on the hood of the car - live wires spitting everywhere.  We, on the other hand, were  totally unscathed inside the passenger compartment, snug as bugs in a rug.  The insurance company totalled my car.  Yeah, I know, that in itself, is advertising for their ass, but it's the truth.

My nit-pick with Volkswagen is their commercial that uses Shirley Ellis's, "The Clapping Song:





White girls jumpin' around in the video notwithstanding (it was 1965, no Soul Train yet), I'm more than a little territorial here seeing as - I grew up with that damned song!

It gets on my nerves how they've appropriated it (for not enough cash, I'm sure) to promote their brand.  When I first heard it on TV I started singing it, and my sons asked me, "Where'd you get that from?" I told them, "That's how the damned song goes!"

What made them change it - the monkey gettin' choked??  Or is that how they "made it their own?"   Kinda like that E-trade Baby singing, "Nobody Knows..." - talkin' about some damned 'solitary'. {smdh}  There's something morally crude and reprehensible to me, about this little alabaster baby, mouthing the beginnings of a song, made necessary by the absolute horrors that his alabaster ancestors visited upon Black folk - for money (and don' get me started on Pizza Hut, bitin' Malcolm's, "By any means neccessary" to sell tomato sauce-covered dough!).  But that's just me.

Thanks to TV (and that demon, capitalism), we can check off one more piece of our cultural upbringing that little Black kids won't ever know!  Hegemony can kiss my behind!

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