For Your Entertainment

Today I heard a lot of buzz about Adam Lambert's performance of "For Your Entertainment" at the American Music Awards. So I youtubed it and I think I began to understand what all the fuss was about. It was overtly sexual, simulated all kinds of sexual acts and included Lambert forcing his backup keyboardist into a lip lock.

Most folks would say, "Yes, you are a Seminarian woman from an evangelical stream and a former teacher, of course you would disapprove of the performance." I want to push against that. Yes, I was shocked by the performance and think that it has no business being on television, but not exactly from the same angles as most people would think.

If I totally separate myself from my Christian identity, I would have to say that it fit nicely into an erotica artform. I wouldn't call it beautiful, but I can agree that it was quite artistic for that genre. Without having to separate myself from my Christian identity, I can easily admit that Lambert is correct in his complaint that he is getting a lot of huffing and puffing from folks about his performance on account of being male and expressing his sexually. He argues that female performers have gotten away with this for years and that there is a double standard. It would be idiodic not to see the truth of Lambert's claim.

So as a Christian I must argue this case. Lambert is right. There is a double standard and female performers have been allowed to express themselves through their gender and sexual identity that men do not. It raises a question of why it is acceptable for women and not for men. How much of this has to do with the role of women usually being oppressed through roles of prostitute, stripper and porn star? Rarely are men found in this role. Notice the latest indications from Playgirl that most of their consumers are not women, but gay men. It seems to me that women are able to express themselves sexually not just as a freedom of speech, but because there are still deep ties to their subjugation. Even the prominent display of lesbian relationships on television make for good ratings not so much because times are changing, but because men still find even lesbian relationships (so long as both women look and act feminine) as an attractive and desirable image.

Rather than take this to the discussion of rights, free speech and discrimination as Lambert has done, I find that his keen insights force us to ask where the line should be drawn. For me, that line does not need to be expanded, but rather needs to be pulled back. It is not right for men or women, heterosexuals or homosexuals, black or white, etc. to engage in such provacative and sexually-driven performances. I'm not going to go about saying that the sexuality that we have been exposed to is necessarily bad, but it is meant to be enjoyed in the private and not the public sphere. I speak of all of the photographs I've seen from the AMA's, I don't want to see Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Lopez OR Lady Gaga in their bedroom linginere simulating bedroom business, but I want to hear them sing.

My other complaint about why this is not ok... 1) If I had a kid who wanted to stay up late (just this one time) to see Adam Lambert as a former American Idol have his first performance outside of that show (and did not have a Tivo) I think I would allow that. 2) This show took the place of a popular family broadcast, Extreme Makeover Home Edition--if my family had our usual gathering time and the kids wanting to get their tv time in as a usual family activity on a Sunday night, I would want to allow that. Overall, I'm pretty horrified that this was what was available on television on that night.