Man, I feel like a woman (who wants to go stab things)

So I don’t know if you watched the Juno Awards on Sunday night?  But if you missed it, let me tell you it was pretty rad.  I have a new respect for Drake – acutally let me change that.  I have respect for Drake because up until last Sunday I had no damn idea who he was.  I knew he was a Canadian artist, but I had no other information.  But he did a great job hosting and seemed pretty classy, so props Drake.  Nice job.

Anyway, as I settled in to watch the show, I had my computer with me, checking email, Twitter, etc. as you do.  And I was really excited to see that venerable Canadian music smart guy Alan Cross was going to live-tweet the show – bonus!  I figured it would be entertaining to catch some of his tidbits of trivia (that he always has because he knows all when it comes to music), laugh at some of his comments and enjoy the ride.  And it started out fine.  And then, after the Shania Twain retrospective, where they showed a several-minutes long video of her career, and made mention of the fact that she holds the record for highest-grossing country album ever, not to mention the fact that she was being inducted in to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame that very night we got this little tidbit from Mr. Cross:

Random survey: Shania Twain = MILF?

And I lost my shit.  Seriously?  I even actually called him out on Twitter, which is something I normally wouldn’t do but come ON.  Oh sure, let’s just knock that woman right back where she belongs, amirite?  Never mind the awards she’s won or the contribution she’s made to both country and pop music, the really important thing is:  is she fuckable, would you do her?  Shit like this really, really bothers me.  And it makes me angry.  Where is the respect for a successful artist?  Oh wait, right.  I forgot.  She’s a woman, so therefore the only thing that matters is whether or not she’s fuckable.

In a later tweet, Cross poses this question (which I would like to think was in response to my calling him out, but I’m not that vain)

Equal time question: Is Jim Cuddy the best-looking dude in [Canadian] music?

I’m sorry, what?  That is not even close to being an “equal time” question.  If the previous tweet about Shania had been “Shania Twain is the most gorgeous woman in country music, yes or no?” THEN that would be an equal time question.  However, referring to her as a MILF (and please let it be known that I hate that motherfucking acronym and wish it would go away) reduces her to an object, demeans everything about her and focuses not on her accomplishments as a musician, but on whether or not she is appealing to men – what’s her fuckability, basically.

And want to know something else?  I’m really not much of a Shania fan.  I don’t listen to her music, never really “got” the whole obsession, but goddamnit I really hate to see a successful and talented woman be reduced to a four-letter sexual insult.  Because, newsflash guys?  MILF is NOT a compliment.

So needless to say I do not follow Alan Cross on Twitter anymore.  I’m sure he doesn’t notice.  Or care.  Actually no, I take that back.  I’d like to think that if he did notice, he would care.  I don’t think he’s a horrible person, I think he made a bad choice.  But words mean things, and stupid fucking acronyms mean things, and using a term like MILF indicates that you have no respect for the person to whom you are referring.  End of story.

It’s interesting because I was fired up to do this post Monday morning, but the week got away from me and I’m just getting to it now.  I almost didn’t bother because I didn’t think I was quite as angry as I was Sunday night, but it turns out I’m still pretty pissed about it, because writing this post has made be stabby yet again.  Hopefully the rage made for some good writing.