[Trigger warning]
So a ‘cultural theorist’ walks into Trader Joe’s:
As I was standing in line, I heard the jaunty marimba of the Rolling Stones’ 1966 smash hit, “Under My Thumb.” We’ve all heard the song 1,000 times — it’s a very catchy tune, from a talented, superstar band. But it also features lyrics that are not exactly friendly toward women. As I listened, I thought about how the song plays in the wake of Elliot Rodger’s killing spree, fueled, as the killer explained in a lengthy manifesto, by his rage against women and desire to control them.
The author is a senior editor at Alternet — a site most famous for listicles about how the right-wing wants to starve your children — and holds a PhD from NYU in English and cultural studies.
One imagines a moment in this kind of doctoral program, somewhere near the end of your coursework, in which you’re brought into a room and given the OT III (you know, the level in Scientology where you find out about Xenu and the volcano) of cultural studies, the powerful hex-like phrase “in the wake of,” which is used twice in this piece to connect two totally unrelated events; an allegedly misogynistic song, and a spree killer with four male victims and two female ones.
She continues:
What kinds of messages do we think are OK today in 2014? Why should I have to hear about a guy comparing his girlfriend to a dog while I’m buying vegetables?
I decided to ask Trader Joe’s this question. Just so they would know I wasn’t making things up, I printed out the lyrics to “Under My Thumb” and brought them into the store with me. I was directed to a young man named Kyle Morrison at the manager’s station, to whom I explained in friendly terms that I was a frequent shopper and that I had heard a song playing over the sound system which, in the wake of the Elliot Rodger killing spree, made me feel uncomfortable. I told him the name of the song, and offered him the paper with the lyrics.
The story is amusing on so many levels, from the befuddled staff, to Dr. Parramore explaining the feminist conceit that her disliking a song makes it “offensive to women,” to the young employee referring her to the company that actually put together the playlist, because what chain grocer of sound management would trust its workers not to offend cultural studies doctorates?
