Women Without Pants: The Grammy Edition
This year's Grammys featured an abundance of amazing performances from formidable women, and I can't wait to watch it again with my son. But wait! How do I explain the lack of ... pants?
The Grammy Awards reclaimed their place on my interest list this year, mostly due to an array of formidable performances by richly talented women.
Lady Gaga flexed her vocal chops with Sir Elton John, which was utterly amazing because you got to see firsthand just how skilled a performer she is, and how much of an influence he's had on her music. Their poetic medley combining
"Speechless" and "Your Song" was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the evening.
Then Beyonce WERQUED her Sasha-Fierceness all over that ginormous stage, yanking at her figurative junk while belting out her impassioned bad-boy lament, "If I Were a Boy," which segued into a PG version of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know."
And just when I caught my breath, Pink floored me by peeling off emotional layers and drapery during a master vocal and physical Cirque du Soleil-esque performance of "Glitter in the Air," wearing only what looked like a ribbon and some sporadic glitter across her nether regions.
I recorded it, and couldn't wait to press play while snuggling on the couch with my first grader son ... until I realized none of these women were wearing pants.
I get that Gaga's bit is more about performance art, and she was somewhat subdued at the Grammys, but her "Bad Romance" video gives a near full view of Gaga's tatas amongst a swirl of floating diamantes. HAWT? Totally. For kids? Not really. Beyonce went mini, but micro, micro mini. And Pink was going for this burlesque-Cirque look, which might be rooted in practicality when suspended and spinning a quarter mile into the air, but let's break it down -- girlfriend looked NEKKID. Fierce, but WET nekkid.
Hey, the beauty of that business is that it was born of rebellion, and as such, it was not designed with children in mind. But as a parent, it's my job to act as a censor of sorts.
In short, the women were bare and the men were not. It's not like Steve Colbert cracked jokes bare a$$ in chaps, although that is a visual I'd dish out some bucks to see, but then again, his daughter was there! But she's got some years on my kid. I guess I wasn't sure I wanted my son exposed to that double standard so early in his life.
As a parent, even something as seemingly innocuous as the Grammys can open up a heaping can of questions for a 6-year-old. And I don't want to give him the impression that the human body -- or music -- is negative in any way. So I guess I'll press play and be open to a Q&A.