Ariana Grande's new music video for her song God Is a Woman has caused a frenzy in pop culture right now, and it has the media declaring that it s the empowering female anthem the world needs. But is it really about God, or is it about the patriarchy?
00:00:00.000So Ariana Grande, Grandy, Grandy, Grandy, anyway, the one who licked the donut, you know, the donut licking one.
00:00:10.300She's out with a new video and song called God is a Woman, and it has caused waves in the culture.
00:00:18.060Pop culture is a frenzy right now because of God is a Woman.
00:00:23.060And it has the media, like the LA Times proclaimed that Grande has officially smashed the patriarchy with her music video for God is a Woman, which, just a quick side note there, we are continuously told that this and that thing or person has smashed the patriarchy.
00:00:43.020But then feminists continue to complain about the patriarchy, so I thought it had been smashed.
00:00:47.680I mean, once you smash something, it's gone, right?
00:00:49.880So, like, I guess that means you haven't really been smashing it.
00:00:53.340I mean, if you actually smashed it, then you have to stop complaining about it.
00:00:56.740But if you're still complaining about it, then you can't claim that you're smashing it because clearly it's, if the patriarchy is still intact and can be smashed, it means that it was not smashed in the past.
00:01:06.500That's just a quick, just a quick note there, technicality, all right?
00:01:12.080But, and there were other, Mashable says that it's the empowering female anthem the world needs.
00:01:19.880The Guardian wrote a lengthy article dissecting the theological aspects of Grande's song, and there's been a lot of coverage like that.
00:01:30.360Of course, the only problem with dissecting the theological aspects of the song is that there aren't any theological aspects of the song.
00:01:37.360The video consists of the singer writhing about in various states of undress, which is, you know, what most pop, female pop videos consist of these days.
00:01:47.620And, you know, she's gyrating on various different objects, including on the globe itself at one point.
00:01:53.060And the video is peppered with a random hodgepodge of blasphemous imageries and things like that.
00:02:00.900At one point, Madonna comes on and quotes scripture.
00:02:06.160Okay, so it's just, there's just random blasphemy going on along with Ariana Grande naked prancing about.
00:02:15.480So, the song itself, like 98.7% of all pop music, is just nonsensical garbage, and it makes you manifestly stupider just by encountering it.
00:02:29.240Like, I will, just so we're on the same page, okay, and kind of as a science experiment, I will read some of the lyrics to you.
00:02:38.040And I want you to be, now pay attention as I read this, because you're going to feel your own IQ plummeting to the earth.
00:02:46.660Your IQ will lower by 13 to 15 points just when I read a couple of lyrics from this song.
00:11:00.820And it has to do with the repetition and the melody, the beat, the way, I think also the way the lyrics of these songs almost always feed into the ego of the listener.
00:11:11.800And I think all of this could entice even potentially smart people to listen to it.
00:11:17.000But if smart people do listen, and they keep listening, and they get enmeshed in this pop culture world,
00:11:24.780then they will become less smart in the process.
00:11:27.960They may remain smart, but not as smart.
00:11:31.120And they will be smart in spite of all this crap they're listening to, not because of it.
00:11:36.540Because your mind atrophies after a while.
00:11:39.840And I know people like to say, well, sometimes you've got to turn your brain off and just enjoy.
00:11:45.620And what they mean is that they're talking about something.
00:11:49.780The song, the show, the movie, whatever they're talking about.
00:11:54.460When they say, well, you've just got to turn your brain off.
00:11:57.160What they're saying is that this thing is so completely devoid of intellectual substance that you would be bored by it unless you made the effort to put your brain into kind of hibernation mode.
00:12:30.460Because with your brain still on, yeah, you might, it is possible to be entertained with your brain on so that your mind is also being engaged in some way.
00:12:41.640And that's a much deeper, more fulfilling, more enjoyable, more entertaining form of entertainment.
00:12:48.280But if you keep your brain on and you try to engage with Ariana Grande or Beyonce or whoever, you're just going to be bored to death.
00:12:55.980So you've got to make this effort to turn it off.
00:12:58.780And yeah, maybe every once in a while it doesn't hurt to do that.
00:13:02.200Maybe every once in a while it doesn't hurt to turn your brain off and really enjoy something completely stupid.
00:13:08.600Okay, maybe that doesn't, although it never really helps, but maybe it doesn't hurt.
00:13:11.860But the problem is that most people are indulging in this turn off your brain entertainment every day for hours at a time.
00:13:21.700They turn their brain off and they never turn it back on.
00:13:24.880They say, oh, sometimes you've got to turn your brain off.
00:13:27.660And the only response to that is sometimes?
00:13:34.980Everything you, every form of entertainment that you enjoy requires you to turn your brain off.
00:13:41.040So, and you're always being entertained by something.
00:13:44.080So when exactly are you turning it back on?
00:13:47.160And it's not like the person who's always turning their brain off for Ariana Grande and company and for whatever reality shows and The Bachelor or whatever else.
00:13:59.220It's not like they're balancing that with Shakespeare and documentaries about military history.
00:14:11.900They're just, their whole life revolves around the turn your brain off stuff.
00:14:16.520And I think after a while you get to the point where you don't know how to turn it back on and you don't really want to.
00:14:23.380So your mind just kind of withers after a while in the same way that your legs will wither if you just lay around on the couch all the time.
00:14:30.780So the mind is hurting and then the soul is also hurt, I think, because art can be a very, very uplifting experience and it can be edifying and it can be enlightening.
00:14:42.520And I'm not just talking about religious art.
00:14:46.080I mean, any art, any art that is rooted in something true and that brings you closer to truth.
00:14:55.320And I think all art should do that, even non-religious.
00:14:59.840I mean, all art should have that effect.
00:15:01.580I've said in the past that all art should bring us closer to God.
00:15:06.340And people always object to that because they think that I'm saying that all art should be religious.
00:15:11.720But that's not what I'm saying at all.
00:15:13.400In fact, I would actually quite prefer it if Christian artists, like Christian musicians, Christian actors, and so on, would make less Christian entertainment, quote, Christian entertainment, and make more entertainment that is consistent with their faith but is not explicitly evangelical.
00:15:32.440So I'm actually not a fan of this thing we do now where you've got art, you know, you've got like regular secular art, which is rooted in nihilism and just stupidity and materialism, and then you've got Christian art, Christian movies, Christian music, Christian TM, trademark, you know.
00:15:53.420Now, what I would like to see, I think what would be great, is that you take some of those Christians from over here, from this category, and you bring them over into secular entertainment, and you have them make secular entertainment that is still consistent with and rooted in their Christian worldview.
00:16:12.420That's the way pretty much all art used to be in the West up until like the mid-20th century.
00:16:18.100It's not that all art was religious, it was that all art told stories of love and redemption and suffering and forgiveness and justice and virtue and sin.
00:16:29.340So even if it wasn't preaching, it was still rooted in a philosophical understanding of these things, and it would increase your own understanding to listen to or watch or read whatever art form.
00:16:42.120But most art today has no connection to anything real, and instead it exists for its own sake.
00:16:47.880It exists only to distract, it exists to appeal to the basest parts of us, and I think that that certainly does hurt our souls, as well as our brains.
00:16:57.300Second point, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, I just, and I admit I'm not a woman myself, so maybe I'm going to engage in a little bit of mansplaining here.
00:17:07.760But when I hear people say that stupid pop music is empowering to women, or when someone says that the song, the lyrics to which I just read to you,
00:17:21.260when someone says that those lyrics and a video of a woman naked prancing around empowers women,
00:17:30.320I can only think that that is incredible, not only is it false, but it's incredibly demeaning and insulting to women.
00:17:39.100Because the women that I know, the women in my life, okay, the women in my family, my own wife, so there's women that I know personally,
00:17:49.460that if you told them that, you know, if you said to them, hey, I found this really empowering thing for women, why don't you come watch it?
00:17:58.300And then you put on the Ariana Grande video for them, the first thing they would probably do is laugh at you, because they would think you were joking.
00:18:08.220And then when they realized that you weren't joking, they would be, I would think, probably insulted.
00:18:13.560It's like, what do you think of me? Do you think I'm empowered by this idiocy? Are you kidding me?
00:18:20.720So the women that I know, that's how they would react to that claim.
00:18:24.660And I think that's probably the case for most women, you know, so this, um, this is always the case with modern feminism,
00:18:32.500that while it claims to be defending women and representing women, all it does is demean them and bring them down to this level where most women have no interest in being.
00:18:45.920So I think there are a lot of, I think, I think substantive, intelligent women, um, like the women in my life, like hopefully any of the women watching this, um, like most of the women in the country,
00:18:59.760there's a lot of places they can look just like men. There are a lot of places we can look for empowerment,
00:19:04.920but they're not going to look to pop music any more than I think an intelligent and substantive man will look to pop music or to rap or something for empowerment.
00:19:14.380Um, and the third point I want to make, this is the last point. There's this really dumb thing that people do where they dismiss concerns about modern pop music on the basis that people had similar concerns 50 years ago.
00:19:29.300And I'm, I'm sure there are people saying this even now, right now, as I, the people, even as I'm, as I'm discussing this, there are people thinking this in their head, I'm sure.
00:19:38.260Or people will say, Oh, please, you know, adults in the fifties were complaining about Elvis and those concerns were obviously unwarranted.
00:19:46.560So what's the big deal? It's just pop music. Every time I hear that, I think, well, yeah, you're right.
00:19:52.560I mean, adults were complaining about Elvis in the fifties. You're saying that their concerns were unwarranted, but were they, it seems to me now, most people in the fifties or in the sixties or whatever,
00:20:06.520when, if they were complaining about Elvis or the Beatles, they weren't literally claiming that the world was actually going to end because Elvis was shaking his hips around.
00:20:17.620I don't think anyone was saying that. I don't think anyone was saying that the world, that, that all human, that all life on earth will be annihilated because of the shape, the, the, the hip shaking of, uh, the, the, the pelvic thrusting of, of, uh, of Elvis or whatever.
00:20:31.040Nobody was saying that. I think instead what, what, what perceptive people were saying in the fifties and sixties, as pop music was coming into its own,
00:20:39.720they were noticing that this stuff is having a course and coarsening and stupefying effect on our culture.
00:20:48.840And so what they were worried is that art would increasingly be debased and would be increasingly disconnected from beauty and truth and God and virtue.
00:21:00.660And, you know, and, you know, and, and, and all of that. And instead it would become this coarse, vulgar, ridiculous, stupid thing that exists only to distract.
00:21:10.480And for no other reason, I think that's what people were worried about in the fifties when they were looking at Elvis and you're saying they were wrong about that.
00:21:19.880No, no, I, I think clearly they were right. I think it's quite obvious that their concerns were 100% warranted and what they warned would happen actually did happen and is happening now.
00:21:35.260So yes, complaints about pop music have been around since pop music has been around.
00:21:41.020But my point is those complaints have all been justified. They've all been proven true.
00:21:46.760I mean, what are you talking about? Have you noticed what's happening in the culture?
00:21:51.040Now I'm not saying, when you look at our cultural state now, I'm not saying that it's the fault of pop music, but pop music has not helped.
00:22:00.420Pop music has contributed to it. Pop music has been both a symptom of our cultural decline and a vehicle for it.
00:22:08.620And I think that is very clear when you just look around you, just open your eyes.
00:22:13.320We live in a culture today that is, that is just dumb, in need of constant stimulation.
00:22:24.480There are a great many people in this country who have no desire for any kind of intellectual engagement.
00:22:32.100So they have this constant need to be entertained, and the kind of entertainment they look to just gets dumber and dumber by the day.
00:22:42.860And I would submit that that's a process that really began in earnest in the mid-20th century.
00:22:50.120And so all the people who were pointing that out and kind of wringing their hands about it in the mid-20th, they were right.
00:22:58.280We probably should have listened to them.
00:23:00.940All this so-called classic pop music of the Beatles and Elvis.
00:23:06.280I mean, all that stuff is just garbage.
00:23:07.820I mean, it's done nothing good for society whatsoever.
00:23:11.220Society would have been better off if none of that ever existed.
00:23:14.180And I know that's supposed to be some kind of, like, heresy now.
00:23:17.660They say, oh, what do you mean, Elvis?
00:23:19.040Well, Elvis is a classic because he was, I mean, how could you say?
00:23:22.940No, I mean, the music is just kind of garbage.
00:23:25.440It's like, what is, what's it trying to say?
00:23:30.520What was the point of most of what the Beatles were churning out?
00:23:33.320I mean, it's just, I submit that if we could turn back the clock to the 40s and 50s and just go off on a completely different path and all the pop music, it just, it never came about, I think we'd be in a better spot today.
00:23:49.660I'm not saying that we'd be in a utopian spot.
00:23:52.360I don't even know how, I don't know how, I don't know to what degree we'd be in a better spot because there are so many other problems as well.
00:24:00.360I don't think the world was made better by any of this stuff, personally.
00:24:06.460So once again, it would seem to be the case that the prophetic voices in the early and mid 20th century who were warning about this and that, we probably should have listened to them.
00:24:17.180But the world didn't listen to them, just like they're not listening to those voices today.