Day: June 27, 2016

Kanye West’s new video, Famous, is about the idea of famous people all, quite literally being in bed together. An image of the last-supper-like Orgy (posted below) reveals the sum of the video. Unfortunately the video itself merely offers closeups of the affected individuals.

The image follows Vincent Desiderio’s ‘Sleep’ right down to the poses, which begs the question: Is Kanye a lot deeper than any of us really want to admit? See for yourself:

So what is the real message here, who are these people, and does it matter if it is actually them? The message is clear and rather simple: Fame and sex are intertwined and we as a culture show our prudeness through our inability to separate the two. I’m not in lock step with the argument, because I believe there are several different forms of fame that go with different social groups. I will agree that we do sexualize fame in a really blatant way and that in a patriarchy the responsibility is on the female more than the male to stay attractive. Kanye details this specifically by his use of males and females in the narrative.

Who are they, you ask? George W. Bush, Anna Wintour,Donald Trump, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift, Kanye himself, Kim Kardashian, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner, and Bill Cosby. Now we can debate why these groupings are here and what commentary is being made on fame based on who is there but is it really worth the effort?

As I blog I am watching the recent interview featuring Stephen King and George R.R. Martin, two of my biggest literary influences. The interview is fantastic and really speaks to the character of these two giants. It also inspires me deeply. Now, that isn’t the point of this article. In fact, the point of this article is about how the TV show Game of Thrones concluded and represents a sharp departure from the canonical work of Martin and wraps up a number of smaller plotlines and answers many questions about what is to come of the game. Now I don’t think the book is even going to follow the show in any way. I do believe that Winds of Winter will come out one day and will reintroduce Jon Snow, but there are so many more layers to that series than we have time to unravel in a TV Show.

This blog is short and took a while to write, which says a lot about writing while vaguely distracted by the heavyweights of popular fiction. Young writers, don’t try this at home.