Pop Culture and Politics

 Now there’s a pay-per-view event worth your hard earned money. It would most likely go something like this – In the first fight, the White House and Congress team up to take out hip-hop in the first round. While, in the main event, the presidential debates and Super Tuesday gets pummeled for ten rounds by the season finale of The Biggest Loser. 

Has the nation become so fickle that, who gets voted off of Dancing With the Stars or who can off-key croon the best on American Idol, weighs in with more importance than that of the person who will make the decisions in our lives for the next fours years? The answer to that question is an emphatic: Yes. Remember “Rock the vote” and Bill Clinton sitting in on jam sessions on the Arsenio Hall Show? How about Bob Dole on Saturday Night Live or Reagan using the fact that he was a popular actor to get elected? Even JFK himself used pop-culture to his advantage. In these instances pop-culture may have been necessary to make the candidates likable but it’s as if they don’t think anyone can tell that all they’re doing is repackaging the promises of yester-year.

With song lyrics and the portrayal of celebrities raising today’s children, it should be of no surprise when they grow up, destroy themselves, and take the country down with them.  So, as the nation whittles its choice for the next leader of the free world, plan on hearing more about change and the economy than the current pop-princess reject. But will anything actually change? Probably not, but pop-culture, like cockroaches after a nuclear blast, can withstand almost anything. No one knows what the youth of today could possibly be thinking. What we do know is that the impressions they follow are fed to them on a shiny platter by misguided adults. So who’s to blame? Pop-culture and politics tells youth we are at war but do they tell them why? Just like racism, pop-culture is learned and continues to poison the minds of many potential geniuses by presenting them with the false hopes and dreams of the current generation. How do we stop the continuous circle that has stalled our social growth? The government will only step in if it jeopardizes the American dream and big business will be of no help. Powers that be will always put aside their differences when making huge amounts of money is involved. Like laughing hyenas, it’s in their blood to prey on the impressions of youth. Advertising with an extra coat of varnish the same product they’ve repackaged since God knows when. Further proving that, the love of money truly is the root of all evil.  

Despite what “they” tell you, there are no credits at the end of life. There is no vote that decides who gets to stay on the island and there’s no mysterious banker hiding behind tinted windows. It’s time that not only big business and politicians, but everyone from adults to adolescents look deep inside and implore themselves to make a change for the better. Or at least before another model-turned-singer-turned actor, decides to run for President.