Man, I love American culture. I'm watching this Christina Aguilera video on VH1, and they put something over her hands when she gives the camera the finger. Writhing around in latex and masks and gags and everything else? Fine. Straddling various men and women? Fine. No nips showing, so it must be OK. Middle finger up? VULGAR!!!
The one I can't understand is the Gaga/Beyonce song "Telephone". Ok, the song I understand, it's a pretty uncomplicated message. But in the (extended) video, there's the odd spot of swearing. For isntance, on separate occasions, both Gaga and Beyonce say "motherf**ker". Our music channels, most of the time, give it the bleep treatment. (They also fuzz out the rat poison recipe, which makes no sense to me, but it's at least mildly heartening that they seem to be more concerned about violence than sex.)
That's the common state of affairs, but there are times (late at night?) when they play the video without the censorship. On these occasions we get to hear Gaga's 'mofo' (it has a not unpleasant drawl, like she's savouring it). But even on these occasions, when the rest of the video is uncensored (including the rat poison recipe), they still bleep out Beyonce. This I find utterly baffling. Why censor one of them and not the other?
Watching Telephone also calls to mind those days - it seems an age ago - when Poker Face had recently been released and I thought Lady Gaga's outfits in the video were a bit outrageous. Paparazzi, Bad Romance and Telephone later, it's touching to realise that at the age of forty, I still have innocence left to lose.