I lived in beautiful Princeton, NJ, for almost exactly a quarter of a century. Except for frequently auditing classes and regularly attending lectures and concerts, I was not connected to the University, so I missed most of the politically correct angst going on on campus.
PC angst did, however, echo through the town (most of the time back then it was the Borough and the Township – later the two merged), and increasingly permeated a majority of attitudes. The University is the town’s largest landowner, employer, and subsidizer of housing. It would be a one-employer town if it weren’t located in the Boston-to-Washington, DC megalopolis. PC angst sometimes rules the day, sometimes not.
I moved to Miami in 2014, which certainly was a drastic change of scene, but I still keep in touch, since Princeton is the place where I have lived most of my life.
The latest news to come to my attention involves a sad person named Noa Wollstein, Princeton U sophomore, who urges the men’s a cappella group, ”
Dear Tigertones, please stop singing ‘Kiss The Girl’”
Even when gently crooned by an animated crab, the song “Kiss The Girl,” from the Disney hit “The Little Mermaid,” is more misogynistic and dismissive of consent than cute. By performing the song multiple times each semester, the Tigertones elevate it to an offensive and violating ritual.
No matter how “great the tradition,” this canonical Tigertones tune should be struck from their repertoire. Its lyrics raise some serious issues. The premise of the song, originally sung in the Disney film The Little Mermaid, is that the male Prince Eric, on a date with the beautiful female Ariel, should kiss her without asking for a single word to affirm her consent. Despite the fact that an evil sea-witch cursed Ariel’s voice away, making verbal consent impossible, the song is clearly problematic from the get-go.
My initial snarky reaction to such pathetic piffle is best not printed.
Here’s what Noa considers an “offensive and violating ritual,”
There you see her
Sitting there across the way
She don’t got a lot to say
But there’s something about her
And you don’t know why
But you’re dying to try
You wanna kiss girl
Yes, you want her
Look at her, you know you do
It’s possible she wants you too
There’s one way to ask her
It don’t take a word, not a single word
Go on and kiss the girl, kiss the girl
Sha la la la la la
My oh my
Looks like the boy’s too shy
Ain’t gonna kiss the girl
Sha la la la la la
Ain’t that sad
It’s such a shame, too bad
You’re gonna miss the girl
Go on and kiss the girl, kiss the girl
Now’s your moment
Floating in a blue lagoon
Boy, you better do it soon
The time will be better
She don’t say a word
And she won’t say a word
Until you kiss that girl, kiss the girl
Sha la la la la la
My oh…
Now watch the video paying close attention to Ariel’s body language,
Ignoring that Ariel puckered up and consistently gave clear body language signals, Noa has her panties in a bunch because
“The song launches a heteronormative attack on women’s right to oppose the romantic and sexual liberties taken by men, further inundating the listener with themes of toxic masculinity.”
since
The Tigertones has a tradition: At the end of each rendition of “Kiss the Girl” from “The Little Mermaid” a woman is pulled up on stage and decides whether to allow a man from the audience to kiss her, or she refuses to allow him to “kiss the girl.”
Never mind that the girl from the audience is selected ahead of time and can say no to the kiss, the University folded like a cheap lawn chair and the Tigertones kissed the song good-bye.
It angers me that a natural impulse to kiss an attractive member of the opposite sex is condemned as “toxic masculinity,” a sophomoric opinion coming from an actual sophomore who, by doing so, is engaging in toxic feminism … with the support of the University.
Most of all, I grieve over the sad barren emotional lives of the young SJW generation. Very, very few experiences in life are as great as a welcome passionate kiss from the guy, especially if it’s unexpected. Denying yourself a rich emotional experience under the guise of . . . what? . . . a neopuritanical rejection of “the romantic and sexual liberties taken by men” is not only what Rosalynd Russell must have had in mind when she said, ” Yes! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
It is downright disturbing.
An entire generation denying itself spontaneity, romance, joy.
In exchange for what?
I leave you with a kiss,
Fausta Rodríguez Wertz writes on U.S. and Latin America at Fausta’s Blog.
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Darwin was right. In 80 years, max, the non-reproducing biddies will all be dead.
The Moral Majority didn’t die away. It just changed owners.
Perhaps Noa simply hasn’t ever been involved in kissing and is unaware that there’s some obvious non-verbal language involved.
“An entire generation denying itself spontaneity, romance, joy. In exchange for what?”
Well, the brutal truth is: In exchange for not getting raped. Or so the people who genuinely believe in this paradigm shift think.
The tragedy is that they’re not even wholly wrong; our culture spent sixty years tearing down every restriction we’d built around sex, and the natural result destroyed any vestige of trust between man and woman. Create incentives, and people respond.
The Junior Anti-Sex League prevails once again. Fausta, I lived for twelve years in a suburb 20 minutes from Princeton, and I can tell you things are quite different there. Only the members of the Outer Party have to deal with this kind of shit. Among the proles (including myself) the concept of “toxic masculinity” is quite amusing. So go ahead, Princeton. The rest of us will keep producing babies while your lines head to extinction.
Men are turning away. Industrialized world especially. Women are turning away to drugs and alcohol. Women are unhappy with men and women. Unhappy with drama and unhappy without drama. Men have not changed. They are not so easily controlled by others. So they go outside this country. They find a woman, perhaps marry.Then a child in a years time. Then she leaves as she has become schooled in the woman’s ways here. A pastor was approached by women to have a woman’s bible study. Being a marriage councilor he said this is a church please do. All women in that group became divorced. So men young and old are turning away. Work environments also have become toxic. Why promote a woman when men can be attacked so easily. The world of fake news promotes conflict. No, men have not changed. They are simply turning away.