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CBS Tries to Make Grammy Show Hip with Trans Woman; Critic Lobbies Against White Boys
Newsbusters ^ | 2/11/17 | Tim Graham

Posted on 02/11/2017 5:18:30 PM PST by markomalley

Culture critics have long hammered the Grammy Awards as tragically unhip. So CBS knew there was one way to get hip quickly: Sunday night’s awards ceremonies will be their first show with a male trophy presenters and….a trans woman presenter.

Actor Derek Marrocco and transgender model Martina Robledo will hand out awards alongside the typical blonde – model/actress Hollin Haley. AP’s Lynn Elber hailed the nod as breaking with hoary male-chauvinist tradition. “Changing up the Grammy trophy presenters isn’t window-dressing.”

Robledo, who’s from San Diego, said she was honored to join Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox and other transgender people in the more-inclusive media spotlight. But she expects viewer reaction to her presence will be mixed.

“I know it’s going to make some people uncomfortable and make others weep for joy,” she said.

“I’m just going to step out there and strut and make sure I deliver my best, because there’s people out there looking up to me.”

That may include transgender boys and girls or other minorities, she said, calling them “the people I want to speak for … to let them know that there is a better world out there for us.”

Washington Post music critic Chris Richards is one of those Grammy grumps, as he proved with a Sunday Arts piece headlined: “A Grammys Pity Party: Kudos to the Recording Academy for honoring youthful voices, but why so many songs drip with white-boy melancholy and ego?” The online headline is harsher: “No Grammys for old men! And don’t let these millennials win, either.”

Richards argued himself into a pretzel, that somehow, "The deeper the Grammys sink into meaninglessness, the more meaningful our shouts become." The Grammy judges are giving the top awards to young whites, and not black "social justice" musicians:

Last February, Grammy voters chose Taylor Swift’s “1989” as its album of the year over Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly,” and on Sunday, they’ll be making a similar choice — between soothing, white radio-pop and imaginative, black agitprop — when Adele’s “25” competes with Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” for the evening’s most coveted prize.

Inside the paper, the headline was "Grammys Wallow in Millennial Misery." Richards gave a bit of credit that the awards aren't all thrown at artists past their prime, but....

Still, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this year’s voters are listening to young music through old ears. That’s because four songs nominated for the night’s biggest trophies — Lukas Graham’s “7 Years,” Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill in Ibiza,” Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out,” and Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself” — each seem to reinforce some of the most tedious stereotypes about millennials. These songs feel self-absorbed, superficial, entitled, whiny. Do older listeners hear that as authenticity? Let us discuss them now and never again....

Individually, these songs are little more than pesky melodic irritants, but together, they seem to be burnishing a new aesthetic of millennial white-boy melancholy — a sound that has clearly resonated with the membership of the Recording Academy.

He's not wrong that a more seasoned critic can easily dismiss teen-appeal acts like Bieber or Twenty One Pilots as Lite. But part of it is explicitly racial: "Self-pity won’t float a ballad if the vocalist doesn’t sound genuinely wounded. Self-absorption is more magnetic when it’s scandalizing (see: Kanye West) than when it’s austere." Richards even compared these young whipper-snappers to the late Andy Rooney, the caricature of the grumpy white grandpa (now that's taking the fight to CBS):

And if whining about these whiners makes you feel as if you’ve suddenly been possessed by the roving spirit of Andy Rooney, it’s important to remember that there are still armies of young maestros forging ambitious, self-aware music out of hope, fury, freedom and desire. Some are competing for best new artist on Sunday night (Chance the Rapper, Maren Morris), some will compete for lesser prizes, (Lil Yachty, Gallant), some were unceremoniously snubbed (YG, Alessia Cara, Young Thug), and one wisely decided to boycott the Grammys outright (Frank Ocean).

Richards is championing the black millennials, like Yachty, YG, and Young Thug, who at 25 has had "six children by four women." Ocean bit the Grammy hand in just the right way to thrill journalists: he compared himself to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. “I think the infrastructure of the awarding system and the nomination system and screening system is dated,” he said. “I’d rather this be my Colin Kaepernick moment for the Grammys than sit there in the audience.”


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Nothing but class from Hollywood.

I am still waiting on the earthquake to rid us of that blight.

1 posted on 02/11/2017 5:18:30 PM PST by markomalley
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To: markomalley

I predict all time ratings lows.


2 posted on 02/11/2017 5:20:25 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (MAGA!!!)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

I wonder how long before we “normals” will be hunted down and exterminated?

Crazy? We’re already well on the way to being redefined as the abby-normals — those nasty, intolerant, traditionalist people.

I give it ten years, tops.


3 posted on 02/11/2017 5:25:43 PM PST by William of Barsoom (In Omnia, Paratus)
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To: All

“Changing up the Grammy trophy presenters isn’t window-dressing.”

LOL! Is there a SINGLE ‘genuine’ thing about Hollywood? It’s Fantasy Land; it was designed to be an ESCAPE from everyday life while selling ‘stuff’ to the masses!

Self-important Posers, all!


4 posted on 02/11/2017 5:26:18 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set!)
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To: markomalley
Seriously, who watches this crud? Lonely house-dressed fat women in trailer courts. Fags. Starry-eyed celebrity worshippers. But does anyone really respect the "award" they supposedly represent?

It's all just socio-political theater, and not very good theater at that.

I'll pass. Just like I've passed for the last decades on the Tonys, the Oscars, the Dummies, and the Crummies.

5 posted on 02/11/2017 5:31:02 PM PST by IronJack
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To: markomalley

This thread is perfect without pictures.

As for earthquakes ridding us of Hollywood, well, the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo destroyed Olongopo in the Philippines back in June of 1991. They rebuilt the wretched place.

As long as there is Film Actors Guild we are stuck with Hollywood. Maybe pizzagate will get some of them locked up for a while, that’s the best hope I see, but it would just be like stomping a few ants in an anthill.


6 posted on 02/11/2017 5:35:09 PM PST by MrEdd (MrEdd)
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To: markomalley

I wish a large meteorite would fall on the hall right when the show begins.

I guy can dream can’t he?


7 posted on 02/11/2017 5:37:48 PM PST by vladimir998 (Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: markomalley

I remember when the Grammys featured Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.


8 posted on 02/11/2017 5:38:07 PM PST by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: markomalley

Going to see the “Grammies”? Can’t. Both died in 1966 and 1977 so unless I can get to their gravesites, I won’t be attending the “Grammies”.

PS: Both my grandmothers were much more decent human beings than some of the crap at this upcoming musical circle-jerk, and that’s a fact, Jack!


9 posted on 02/11/2017 5:43:38 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: markomalley

They keep doubling-down on identity politics, do they?


10 posted on 02/11/2017 5:45:08 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (STOP THE TAPE!)
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To: markomalley

I wonder what is the percentage of “white boys” in the ranks of CBS’s upper management.


11 posted on 02/11/2017 5:51:36 PM PST by Steely Tom (Liberals think in propaganda)
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To: markomalley
Transgender model Martina Robledo (left), actor and model Derek Marrocco (center), and model and actress Hollin Haley (right) will present awards during the 2017 Grammy Awards
Transgender model Martina Robledo (left), actor and model Derek Marrocco (center), and model and actress Hollin Haley (right) will present awards during the 2017 Grammy Awards

At least it looks like a woman.

12 posted on 02/11/2017 5:57:58 PM PST by Robert DeLong
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To: markomalley

The left is so evil. They parade this poor lost soul around like a circus freak, offering no hope for salvation, recovery or peace. “Look at us! Check out this freak! We can make her m dance and do tricks!” Horrific evil.


13 posted on 02/11/2017 6:12:58 PM PST by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: SkyPilot

As “normal” people were marginalized since the Clinton administration in all facets of society, it has become very clear that the “bread-and-circuses” sector is increasingly reliant on low-information people as customers. TV, movies, sports - all are geared towards the kind of people who can sit for hours in front of a screen and be sold things: products, ideas, etc.

These awards shows, even the Super Bowl, are reflections of this; it was always clear that people who worked all day were growing further and further away from people who watched daytime TV, now a widening chasm is developing between people who watch TV and those who do just about anything else.


14 posted on 02/11/2017 6:14:31 PM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Caipirabob

Normal people have been blamed for years for the mental illness of deviants (and related substance abuse and suicide issues); the fact is that no matter how much such freaks are “accepted”, they cannot ignore the simple biology that indicates there is something very wrong. I genuinely pity them, as I view them as mentally ill; when they politicize and attempt to normalize something so obviously crazy and immoral, I despise them.


15 posted on 02/11/2017 7:18:22 PM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: markomalley

Glad to say that I don’t know any of them. Most of the new music I listen to today isn’t even in English.


16 posted on 02/11/2017 7:21:20 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo
Haven't watched in years, but then again, not much compelling music out there and there hasn't been for many years.
17 posted on 02/11/2017 8:17:13 PM PST by Major Matt Mason (Those that can, do, those that can't, work in the Beltway.)
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To: Major Matt Mason

We aren’t missing anything.


18 posted on 02/11/2017 8:18:36 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (MAGA!!!)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

The winners will be lip syncing autotune singers with backup dancers gyrating to distract the audience that they have no memorable songs.


19 posted on 02/11/2017 10:38:20 PM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: Robert DeLong

I’ve seen breast implants on men, and they look like plastic bags under the skin. Guess that’s what happens when you’ve got no breasts (other than man boobs) to begin with. Laverne Cox has the worst looking implants in history.


20 posted on 02/11/2017 11:58:58 PM PST by NetAddicted (Just looking)
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