Shelley Segal seems to be having a very good time in Morocco in her latest video.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Shelley Segal seems to be having a very good time in Morocco in her latest video.
She brings a smile to my face. Youthful energy and joy in life.
I have never heard her before. Love the music!
Fantastic song!
Honestly, this song rubbed me the wrong way.
The marijuana-growing region in the north of morocco is a major draw of drug-tourism. That’s all well and good. When I visited, in certain cities it felt like every other person was offering us hashish! (I don’t smoke though). You can see fields of marijuana growing in the mountains.
But the song feels like it’s espousing an oblivious, privileged attitude I thought I detected in some of the other tourists I met there – white self-described ‘rastas’. She’s too lighthearted singing about the 8 year old boy who she wonders “if he’ll live to 16”, to which her response sounds a lot like “whatever, let’s get high!”. While many in morocco are well off, extreme poverty exists in Morocco and is often very visible. Also, if this is her summary of “morocco” (the song’s title), it’s a very one dimensional summary. There is much more to Morocco than getting high and seeing poor people.
The whole ‘drug tourism in impoverished countries’ does seem a bit creepy to me, admittedly.
I don’t know who Shelley Segal is and this isn’t meant as a personal critique, just my feelings upon hearing the song.
The comments under her video are full of angry misogynists mocking her looks.
ealoc,
Loretta Lynn wrote upbeat songs about being poor, kept pregnant and isolated, etc. That doesn’t mean she thought those things were great. Shelley is writing about her own experiences in Morocco. You really cannot complain that she isn’t writing about other people’s experiences that you find more acceptable or that show Morocco in a better light.
The title of this post is “The unabashed hedonism of those atheists” and the video is about smoking pot in Morocco. Okay, I am going to assume that the singer happens to be a known atheist. But isn’t the title to video a bit of a stretch? I mean that the singer might be an atheist seems utterly incidental to the video itself. Or am I wrong? (And, um, as this comes *imediately* after a post about headings emphasizing transgender when it wasn’t relevant, this seems a little weird to me. Am I missing something?)
Isn’t Rasta a religious thing?
Wait, what part of it is ‘about smoking pot in Morocco’? Being offered pot in Morocco, yes. I definitely remember that part.
@4 ealloc, I get the same uncomfortable vibe you do.
Also, “An Open Letter to White People With Dreadlocks”
@6
After an arduous ten seconds of googling, I discovered that she has an album called An Atheist Album, which is quite anti-religious and political in nature. So I’d say that her atheism is more than just implicit, but is a part of her public identity.
From said letter:
Um, I’m socially coded as “white” except for airport security who are prone to perceive me as “arab” and making my hair into an afro consists of not cutting it (though brushing it helps). I suspect my hair has many of the traits that according to the article “allow” it to form dreadlocks in an acceptable fashion. What am I supposed to about that?
This whole thing just seems wrong to me. It doesn’t fit with the other social-justice stuff…it’s almost got this “separate but equal” kind of flavor to it. I certainly understand why treating actual cultural symbols of other people as the equivalent of a Mickey Mouse Ear hat is offensive, but the rest? I thought we were against limiting what people are allowed to do based on accidents of birth. :/
Don’t know about the pot – not in favor of it, personally, but then I don’t drink or smoke, either. Not that I’m saintly, or anything, I just don’t want to. Period.
But as far as the music goes…
Very nice. There’s just two things I’d wish she had.
(1) the ability to play the guitar, or any instrument, for that matter.
(2) the ability to sing. Or even hum.