La, la, la,
It’s over folks.

We lost it all

Rachael &  Keith
please, just shut-up
or talk about badu

or a mosque

I’m not from Dallas proper, but I did grow up in the general area, and lived and worked there throughout the 1970’s, working mostly in security patrol in coordination with the Dallas police

And this incident embarrasses me for the police. Surely to high heavens they had better things to do than to hassle Badu just because some old foggies were shocked.

Now, if Badu & Co. did something disruptive—\with the ordinary flow of traffic in the streets, for example—then okay, maybe there’s something there minimally worth pursuing (which a police officer would essentially have to do if a citizen pushed it, even if the disruption was only very minor). As far as permits go, I’ve long felt that notification (and following any attendant rules) should be enough. Maybe charge a buck for the paper a permit is printed on and for a clerk’s few seconds’ time to issue it.

It’s not as if Badu set up a “Ben Hur” or “The Ten Commandments” movie set, for pete’s sake. THAT would have been disruptive, big time, and a whole lot more worth following up than this video.

Hm . . . maybe the cops took her in . . . NEKKID!!!

Dylan and The Band….They could sing and play..great !!!

NOW I’m ROFLMAO!

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Anarcissie, April 14 at 8:25 pm #

Well, she must have something.  Can’t see it myself, but….
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Oh, I can see it, but it’s hard to focus on it unless you turn down the volume on the TV!  All that nasty crap that comes out of her mouth spoils it!

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By Leefeller, April 14 at 5:54 pm #

My irrational tendencies would say. Mr. Rogers was a great singer because he had vast audiences or my conventional wisdom says. Palin is a great speaker because because Palin has tea bag audiences.
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Ouch! LF homers again!

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By Anarcissie, April 14 at 5:45 pm #

ITW—My problem is that I’m rational rather than conventional. 
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Yup. Sure.  Right.

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Probably it’s my extraterrestrial origin.
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I’m usually cynical but just this once I’ll put that aside…..

***********************************************
Although he did make Andrew Lloyd Webber’s thankfully-forgotten Requiem almost sound good.  That was quite an accomplishment.
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Now THAT is so funny I almost did a spit-take! I’m with you on THAT one, A!

Well, she must have something.  Can’t see it myself, but….

My irrational tendencies would say. Mr. Rogers was a great singer because he had vast audiences or my conventional wisdom says. Palin is a great speaker because because Palin has tea bag audiences.

ITW—My problem is that I’m rational rather than conventional.  Probably it’s my extraterrestrial origin.  Anyway I think Dylan “sang well” because he had a significant effect on his audiences by producing whatever kinds of sounds he produced.  I agree, he didn’t sound like Placido Domingo, but he wasn’t trying to.  I really don’t know if Placido’s magnificent voice would have been the right vehicle for ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’.

Although he did make Andrew Lloyd Webber’s thankfully-forgotten Requiem almost sound good.  That was quite an accomplishment.

“Sing”—where you open your mouth and musical tones come out—preferably on-key.  Lots of great musicians cannot sing, and many are song-writers, too. I don’t knock Dylan—the man wrote some of the most iconic songs of my life.  But I always thought other people sang ‘em better—whether it was Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, or the Byrds. Or Hendrix.

I have NO idea what you mean by “sing”.  Sometimes, you are just weird.

ITW—I guess you’re using the word sing in some funny way where the effect of the performance on the audience doesn’t matter.

Sorry, Anarcissie: When Dylan stopped yelling and started singing (my first knowledge of it was John Wesley Harding followed by Nashville Skyline) he PROVED he couldn’t sing for shit! That doesn’t mean “All Along the Watchtower” and “Lay Lady, Lay” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” aren’t GREAT songs from great albums—even as he did them, it just means he can’t sing for shit.

Actually, Dylan could sing, but the whole point of his act was to sound like a croaker from the hinterland fresh off a boxcar.  It was quite an act and it went over very well.  If you’re Woodie Guthrie crossed with Big Mama Thornton you’re not supposed to do bel canto.

A lot of social evolutionist types think women select men not for their physical attributes but their wealth, repute, or prospects.  Baez (whose act was as carefully crafted as Dylan’s) recognized genius when she saw it and used her own considerable position to push Bobby through the very narrow window that existed for avant-folkie talent at the brief moment it was open.  I suppose the other part of the deal was that he was supposed to pull her after him when he floated up to celebrity heaven, but he turned out to be one o’ them lonesome cowboys.  It’s an old story.

Leefeller, April 11 at 6:02 pm #

No, ITW; it means we are lucky he left his clothes on!

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There is that, LF,  but a very young Joanie Baez thought he was hot enough to sleep with—and she was famous at least 3 years before Dylan was.

Now Dave Van Ronk: There was a guy who couldn’t sing and you REALLY didn’t want to see him streaking.  Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great musician, which he was.

No, ITW; it means we are lucky he left his clothes on!

Dylan could never sing for shit.  Does that make him a no-talent too?

In the fawning over her video here, overlooked is her apparent lack of singing talent.  No vocal range, words slurred together, tuneless music.  If she hadn’t taken her clothes off, nobody would have ever seen it.  In that sense, it’s not art, it’s publicity.

I don’t think the two videos are at all the same.  The one in NYC is merely two people stripping in mid-winter while heading towards Times Square and then the woman randomly gets hit by a bus.  There’s no real statement there other than if you don’t watch out, you can randomly be hit by a bus.

In the Dallas video, Badu IS making a statement heading toward Dealy Plaza and while totally exposed and vulnerable, getting “shot” at exactly the spot JFK was shot and killed.  One can make interpretations about the Civil Rights implications since she’s a Black woman, but JFK is not nearly the Civil Rights icon RFK or MLK were.  Still, as a Dallas denizen I presume there’s no more emotional spot in the city than that.

I think the discussion of the relative pulchritude of the women in the two videos is real high school UNLESS you can connect it to the attempted message of either video, which I haven’t seen done.

i stand corrupted.

We use to call it streaking.

Ah, reynolds: thank you for the clarification questions.
I hope the “what mold” question is a rhetorical one, for how many mainstream artists produce low-budget, politically-charged music video nowadays?  I sure wish more did. 
Nevertheless, I think Badu brilliantly employs the intersectionality of her unique subjectivity (the socially-constructed hyper-sexual black female body) and American politics to raise a very important point here. 
I specifically call into question the comments of people who do not understand (or maybe refuse to understand) that the black female body has—over the span of three centuries—been socially constructed into a position of hyper-exploitation.  If you read Cheney-Lippold’s piece, you can clearly see the legacy and evolution of this particular subjectivity in American society (I also recommend that you read the work of Patricia Collins, Dwight McBride and Mark Neal to further develop your understanding if necessary). 
In a moment of sheer brilliance, Badu re-visits the precise location of JFK’s highly political assassination and experiences her own assassination.  Her assassination (with all that her naked black female body entails)  is ultimately just as politically-charged as the assassination of JFK. 
Going all the way back to the slave women who were regularly raped by their white slave masters to the hyper-sexual ‘Hottentot Venus’ to the present concept of the ‘Welfare Queen,’ the body of black women have been assassinated and socially re-constructed to mean new things time and time again. 
And I call into serious question every Tom, Dick and Joe who sincerely dismisses such an analysis by claiming that the “race card” is being used here.  That term in and of itself is highly problematic, and I fear the ignorance of all and any who cling to this notion that we live in a post-racial society.

capless hapitalist; though you self identify as
hapless, i have to ask; what mould and what insight?
what is progressive and who are you calling “you
people”?

Some of you people are unbelievable in your comments.  Every once in a blue moon we get a mainstream artist in this country who actually breaks mold and does something insightful.  And here you all are, a bunch of lousy self-proclaimed progressives, decrying Badu’s exhibitionism and this article’s use of the so-called race card.  If you are really going to try and claim that American race and gender politics have nothing to do with the treatment of Badu’s artistic expression in this video, then you are straight fools.

Patrick Henry stated;

“Get use to it.

Soon it will be the only way to get on an airplane.”

Good point Patrick Henry, you know this may be a good idea but it seems they could improve on it by making all airports clothes free zones, then the airlines would probably complain because people would not need to be carrying any luggage, at least in the summer time? 

Airlines could save a few bucks on anything that had to do with baggage handling, and those fancy X-ray machines would be null and void, only thing necessary would be anal probes and the necessary fretting and worry over sword swallower s, though I don’t know if anal probes can catch those terrorist sword swallower s?

The reason Badu created a hubbub is because of her celebrity (and it really wasn’t
much of one, anyway).  People “know” her and so people feel they can judge her -
cuz that’s what people do with celebrities. 

I believe Alanis caused quite a stir 10 years ago with her naked video.  I’m sure if
she did another one today, it would go unnoticed.  Nobody knows the band
you’ve used as a comparison - except their fans - that’s why there was no uproar.

Plus, there’s an obvious difference between shooting a naked bit of bizness in
NEW YORK CITY, versus Dallas, that doesn’t need pointing out.

ps; what vee said

kristy; the nature of the public space (or forum) is
that it is shared by everyone except those who would
co opt it for their own purposes. co opting is not
sharing but hijacking. this has nothing to do with
nakedness but with exhibitionism of which nakedness
is the least inspired version.
robert puglia managed quite possibly to speak of
this without reference to woman. in point of fact,
he spoke of it in terms of an automobile.
you are the only one who can control your attention.
if what you read displeases you, perhaps you might
want to read something else.
“should” implies is a value judgement which is like,
so totally closed minded. lighten up, get naked in
public.

Get use to it.

Soon it will be the only way to get on an airplane.

Two problems the first video doesn’t work and the second one has been censored for human content. i.e. the human body is a debased, obscene thing in our perverted culture.

Children around naked adults? Naked children? Naked grand parents? You can find all of them at a naturist camp where clothes are not wanted. Are you anti-human censors reading? I am a naturist but since I am single most of those places wouldn’t allow me in. Their policy.

These days, as in many days before, the naked human body here was considered a very bad thing. Remember Adam & Eve? The Fall from Grace still holds no matter what you or I think of it. A nasty meme that still circulates and poisons minds everywhere for centuries to come. “The flesh is evil only the spirit is clean and pure.” So we are in a theocracy now? The Europeans are more mature about it, probably because so many of them don’t have the Bible as their guide to the law. All those nude beaches etc.

Nudity is illegal and as long as you are human they will give you tickets if not arrest you for indecency and maybe give you the scarlet letter of a sex offender because of it. So be careful. She got off lightly.

Yes.  Let’s over-analyze yet another “artistic” happening.  So what’s new ?

Having been a visitor to Dallas and experiencing its downtown at night, I suggest reactions could be merely based on the time of day.  Other than an occasional white homeless type, there aren’t that many white folk around at night to have been scandalized by a naked ANYbody. 

Seeing that the US is supposedly christian or some judeo version thereof, and having heard how conservative most black adults are supposed to be, but having seen lots of other far more sensual videos and having read that more than half the new births in the US come to unmarried women, it’s really pretty darned hypocritical to decry this carefully choreographed display. 

The other “musicians” are about as appealing as those gaunt bony waif-like models that did Calvin Kelin commercials on TV a while back - the ones criticized as encouraging kiddy porn.

No matter how fundamental the event, someone can come along and deconstruct it to death with multi-syllabic gibberish passing for intelligent discourse. This is one of those.

Badu has great booty. Her reasons for making this video aside (my bet is publicity and controversy, choose the order), she had guts just deciding to do it, and she spoke about that process. She is a Dallas native, and let’s face it, it’s a Red-State culture and atmosphere down there, compared to the anything-goes environment and traditions of NYC.

If JLo had done this (not likely), given her world-class booty, it would have dwarfed even Badu’s impact. It’s about magnificent, voluptuous booty, not race. How about Monica Bellucci, or Jessica Biel, or Megan Fox, or Kate Winslet? 

Badu happens to be the one who, in addition to possessing that luscious behind, is a provocative singer and activist willing to engage in this kind of “guerilla” action to draw attention to herself, and her purported artistic opposition to “groupthink”. She effectively used her lovely body, which the camera consciously shot from behind, to make the splash she sought. She succeeded in dropping a media bomb with a time-released explosion.

The NY video/incident was asexual, unless you’re a pedophile.  The woman in that shoot has the body of a skinny, pre-pubescent girl; egad, she was even wearing boy’s briefs (unlike Badu’s very sexy panties). Except for her hair, she looked like the naked guy standing next to her. Race had nothing to do with it. It had the net effect of a Cialis commercial…fantasy factor zero. With Badu, even for a few moments, the fantasy factor was off the charts. Had the woman in NY been built like Marilyn Monroe or Virginia Mayo (unlikely, since most females who become indie-rock singers tend to look malnourished). we’d be seeing a far different response to that video.

Yeah, I’m writing from the POV of a straight male, but then again, isn’t that POV what makes this story more than an esoteric blip in the music world?  I think so. It’s all about the nude booty, and that doesn’t require deconstruction or intellectual sophistry.

‘Scrawny’ seems a little uncharitable! 

What you’ve got here is a social science thesis that
does not meet basic scientific standards of proof. 
The white nudity incident didn’t provoke the same
outcry as the black nudity incident - it doesn’t
necessarily follow that this is mainly or exclusively
due to the racial difference or indeed that it would
always happen this way if the same real-life
‘experiment’ were played out 1,000 times.  Maybe
intangible or overlooked factors were the true cause.

Nevertheless, my INSTINCT is that the thesis is
plausible and PROBABLY applicable in this case; I
only object to the total certainty expressed by the
author. 

I also object to the recommendation to ‘continually
think of’ racial issues.  That sounds like mental
illness to me. 

I am very happy for Erykah Badu to strip in public as
often and as entirely as she likes.

I don’t have ANY fuss with her body !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In “The Trial of Oz”, (the dramatization of the obscenity trial of Oz Magazine in the UK in the late 60’s/early 70’s)  the judge instructs the jury:
“if, at the beach, a woman disrobes, that would be indecent.  If she then proceeds to masturbate herself, that would be obscene.”

Generally, despite all claims, most nudity in movies is for cheap sexual thrills.  Yet when an artist makes a statement like this, which is non-sexual, political, and sexual all at the same time, the pundits and leaders are “Shocked! Shocked, I say!”

countee cullen, from memory;

i doubt not god is good, well meaning, kind
and did he stoop to quibble could tell why
the little buried mole continues blind
why flesh that mirrors him must someday die
make plain the reason tortured tantalus
is baited by the fickle fruit
declare
if merely brute caprice dooms sisyphus
to struggle up a never ending stair
inscrutable his ways are and immune
to catechism from a mind too strewn
with petty cares
to slightly understand
what awful brain compels his awful hand
yet do i marvel at this curious thing;
to make a poet black
and bid him sing.

that, my children, is art. and he kept his clothes
on because he had something to say. bang.

”... our interest in the video ....”

I found it sort of boring, actually.  I am not sure what it was supposed to do or prove.  Possibly the idea was to kick up a fuss, in which case it was quite productive.  It doesn’t seem related to race to me; I think a White celebrity could have gotten the same result by doing a similar thing in a similar place.  A couple of people running through Times Square nude in midwinter is quite different; here in New York City we expect people from out of town to act crazy.

Maybe Texas will take art out of their school books
along with Thomas Jefferson, hell even a Texan may
know a two-for when they see one?

Publicity stunts like this happen all the time. Now
if she had donned a Burka that would have been an
interesting statement, especially if she announced
with composure to everyone she was naked under the
Burka and leave it to the intelligence and
imagination of the people, in the Great State of
Texas.

My only problem with nudity, is like religion, I
prefer some people would keep it to themselves.

I watched the dim (nicest word I can think of) anchors of CBS’s morning show go on and on about this. It used to be that the populace took their cue from the media, but I think now the media takes their cue from the populace. They know that many women, sitting at home watching CBS’s tabloid news show, will be indignant at Badu’s video, so they get there first and lead the indignation. All righteous and fluffed up, as they preen themselves on their own decency and morality. Meanwhile, no coverage of the actual obscenities taking place in the world, such as bombing women and children on a regular basis.

And if you think race didn’t have anything to do with all that righteous indignation, you need to get out of the house more.

Thank you for writing this.

And why blur out the images? Don’t we all see more degrading images of females in grocery lines?

White sexual perversion cultures of West like to outlaw healthy expressions of nude bodies, while plastering everyone, from birth to death, with the unnatural.

The reason she got a ticket is because she is female. It would have happened to white female also. Its ok to smear female bodies in most dispicable manners in pornography but by-golly you can’t use a female body for expressive art that actually has some quality to it. Keep it derogatory and its fine.