Camille Paglia on... it's not my word.... "crotchgate."

Hey, it's mainstream media! It's Us Magazine. If it offends you, don't read on. I haven't been talking about "crotchgate," though I've noticed it, and I've thought you might want to talk about it, but it hasn't made it to the blog yet for any number of reasons. But now, Camille Paglia wants to talk about it, so... what the hell?... it feels sort of compulsory:

On how [crotchgate is] affecting feminism:

"These girls are lowering themselves to the level of backstreet floozies. It angers me because I fought a bitter fight to get feminism back on track and be pro-sex at the same time. This is degrading the entire pro-sex wing of feminism."

I love the way she thinks: 1. that she caused the whole trend, and 2. that she could start a trend and then keep it right in the ideal zone where it would benefit but not hurt women.

On how it’s affecting their reputation:

"I am completely appalled by what these young women are doing because I think that they are cheapening their own image and obliterating all sexual mystery and glamour, which are the heart of the star system."

The great stars need to maintain their grandeur. Nevertheless, there's another route, and you can get somewhere that way too. How else would Paris Hilton be anything?

On how Hollywood’s changed:

"These are women who are clearly out of control because the old studio era is over. The studio system...guided and shaped the careers of the young women who it signed up. It maximized their sexual allure by dealing it out in small doses and making sure you don’t have -- what has become here -- a situation of anarchy."

Anarchy! It's so easy. Just don't wear underpants.

On Madonna:

"Madonna was able to flash her breasts and play peek-a-boo because she is an authentic, creative artist who churns out song after song, project after project… but Britney seems like she’s lost and the career track is obliterated."

Madonna gets special privileges. She's an artist. You can tell by all the churning. Really, it's not the workaholism that makes Madonna an artist. It's the genuine creative touch (tainted as is it with untold foolishness).

As to the young celebs caught up in crotchgate.... They've grabbed your attention. They are the fixation of the whole world right now. That's something. It doesn't matter at all, really. But it's an impressive feat, however pointless.

ADDED: More here -- discussing the crotch-webtraffic connection and the "junctions of two parts or members" that is the "crotch," a term I reject, even without the "-gate."

YET MORE: Camille Paglia has been linking herself to Madonna for 16 years. I remember seeing this NYT op-ed back in 1990 (TimesSelect link). I remember talking about it then and wish I could have blogged about it at the time! So look at what Paglia said about Madonna and feminism and think about how well her "pro-sex feminism" connects to the crotchgate floozyism she now decries:

Madonna is the true feminist. She exposes the puritanism and suffocating ideology of American feminism, which is stuck in an adolescent whining mode. Madonna has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives. She shows girls how to be attractive, sensual, energetic, ambitious, aggressive and funny -- all at the same time....

Contemporary American feminism, which began by rejecting Freud because of his alleged sexism, has shut itself off from his ideas of ambiguity, contradiction, conflict, ambivalence. Its simplistic psychology is illustrated by the new cliche of the date-rape furor:" 'No' always means 'no'. " Will we ever graduate from the Girl Scouts? "No" has always been, and always will be, part of the dangerous, alluring courtship ritual of sex and seduction, observable even in the animal kingdom.

Madonna has a far profounder vision of sex than do the feminists. She sees both the animality and the artifice. Changing her costume style and hair color virtually every month, Madonna embodies the eternal values of beauty and pleasure. Feminism says, "No more masks." Madonna says we are nothing but masks.

Through her enormous impact on young women around the world, Madonna is the future of feminism.