I Kissed a Girl

A wee bit belated, to be sure, but family matters have kept me occupied of late.

All around the blog world, folks expended much energy commenting about the display of three pop divas -- one mature, the others comparative young'uns -- at the recent MTV Video Awards. Apparently, a lot of people were grossed out, amused, and/or turned on by the sight of Madonna snogging Britney Spears and "Dirrrty" Christina Aguilera. Frankly, I found the Madge-Brit kiss pretty hot; the other liplock less so. Whatever, it was harmless -- harmless, people! A kiss is just a kiss, you know.

But a couple of thoughts:

1. Can you say "publicity stunt"? Shame on MTV for exploiting the God-given beauty and dignity of women-loving-women for filthy lucre, ratings points, and media mentions.
   
   
2. Real women don't kiss other women for the purpose of arousing men.
   
   
3. That said, I loved the stony expression on Spears' ex Justin "No comment!" Timberlake's face. Didn't he cry himself a river? Isn't he over Britney and rocking his body with movie star Cameron Diaz now? Man, was that funny.
   
   
4. Did I mention that the Madonna-Britney buss was hot?
   
   
5. Next time, I suggest JT and Nelly pucker up. Now, that would be must-see teevee.

But good old-fashioned ignorance and squeamishness motivated many of those who freaked out at the "shocking" sight of the internationally broadcast girl-on-girl smooches. Case in point: The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The Associated Press reports that the AJC is now apologizing for running a tiny photo of the Britney-Madonna buss on its front page. Sounds like a combination of right-wing sucking up and homophobe coddling to me.

The picture, not much bigger than a postage stamp, was near the top of Friday's front page. It showed Spears and Madonna in an open-mouth kiss they shared at the MTV Video Music Awards the night before.

A larger version of the picture appeared in the Living section.

The sloppy kiss picture elicited a deluge of complaints to the newspaper. In Monday's editions, managing editor Hank Klibanoff apologized and said the picture should have run, but not on the front page.

Klibanoff compared the picture to graphic images from the war in Iraq and said sometimes the significance of an important event can justify publishing a photo that may offend some readers.

But Klibanoff said the kiss photo did not meet that standard.

I agree, the MTV awards are not significant. But thumbnail photos are often used on front pages to tease feature and entertainment stories contained within the newspaper. Fact is: The MTV broadcast was news. The prime interest in the story (even for homo-haters) was the kiss (lord knows MTV shows precious few videos anymore), so teasing a much-talked about story using the story's main "grabber" makes sense. As for editor Klibanoff's comparing two women kissing and Dubya Bush's murderous invasion of Iraq in terms of gross-out quotient, well, this embarrassment to journalism and humanity must be losing his flippin' mind. I'd rather my kids see love rather than "war" any day of the week.

I wonder: Would he have made the same move had the kiss photo featured Britney and Justin or Madonna and spouse Guy Ritchie? I doubt it. So again we see a media outlet singling out same-sex-issues for separate-but-unequal treatment. Now, that's sick. Agree? Send a letter to AJC's editor.

appeared in slightly different form on all facts and opinions