Question Celebrity

In more innocent times, outraged parents and moral guardians would rail against song lyrics that they feared would incite young listeners to criminal acts or demonic worship or, horrors, s-e-x. Lately, not so much. We're too distracted by role models for today's youth acting out all of the above for real. Those now iconic paparazzi photos of baldheaded Britney Spears attacking a car with an umbrella (outside of Kevin Federline's house) illustrate the unhinged personal behavior that musicians used to describe only in song. Celebrities have become their own tragic lyrics, right before our eyes.

Some still sing, rather than act on, such things, as does country star Carrie Underwood, whose most recent hit single, "Before He Cheats," fantasizes about what one could and should do to a philandering BF: "I dug my key into the side of his pretty, little souped-up four-wheel drive / Carved my name into his leather seats / I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights / Slashed a hole in all four tires / Maybe next time, he'll think before he cheats . . . " This seems to me the perfect song to play before a congressional subcommittee, making the case that we have in our nation a catastrophic vengeful-diva crisis, and something needs to be done, starting with the songs that our innocent young Americans are listening to in their pickup trucks.

Look, if we gave Marilyn Manson such a hard time (for what, I don't rightly recall; he turned out to be such a pleasant, thoughtful man), shouldn't we at least call into question Underwood's underlying message? Here you have a woman who a year or so ago was singing "Jesus, Take the Wheel," about a gal who hits a patch of ice on Christmas Eve and rededicates her life to Christ when the car safely stops spinning. Now she's telling women to bash in someone's headlights -- it's the only proper thing to do! Underwood's defense would be no different than that of the headbangers who had to face down Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center in the 1980s: Do as I say, not as I sing. (Better yet, the ultimate celebrity defense: Don't do as I say, either. In fact, stop looking to me as a role model or inspiration. In fact, look away entirely, except when I am selling you something.)

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