World of the strange - Weird, but wonderful?
Has any one else noticed that the world has gone slightly....well... odd.
What I mean
is that for at least the past decade a vaguely sick fascination
with the peculiar has developed in society as a whole. Popular culture
is heading towards bod-mod and other once in the closet activities,
with arms opened wide. Which is nice. Maybe it shows that we are
becoming more accepting or permissive, however you put it, the things
that were once considered ‘odd’ aren’t any more.
Channel 5, that bastion of cheap American re-runs and softcore porn,
has an entire show dedicated to weirdness. UK Raw, personally I
think it sounds more like a severe case of chafing of rather delicate
bits, but it has had naked poets, odd stretchy people and other
minor league eccentrics. It all seems a bit humdrum, you can find
that in my local back home! Where Channel 5 fail Channel 4 excel,
in my opinion with Euro Trash. Aaaaaah, how I have laughed at fat,
naked Germans, Belgians, Austrians, Swedes, Finns.... you name the
European country and I have chortled at them. I think even Luxembourg
have managed to get on to Euro Trash, naked of course.
Yet I digress.
The European porn industry is not quite the type of weirdness, that
I am talking about, I just like watching it (OOOh Missus) on Channel
4.
The re-emergence of ‘FREAKS’ is odd in its self. Freak
shows were around back in the late 1900’s, with famous acts
like ‘The Unified Twins’, who were conjoined, ‘Jojo
the Dog Boy,’ was he real or fake, nobody knows. Then around
the carnivals of course the bearded lady and the worlds tallest/fattest/strongest
man etc. Now in our supposed Politically Correct times we are experiencing
a re-born taste for the strange. In history and human evolution
those who were different to us were tortured or cast out, now they
appear on Jerry Springer! Don’t know which is worse.
But it isn’t
just for entertainment we are becoming interested in the unusual.
Take home decorating, formerly you just popped down to B&Q,
bought a role of wallpaper and Bob was your parents sibling. Not
anymore. Feng Shui, crystal paths and ambient metaphysical energies
have to be harmonised before your vinyl matt paint has even been
slapped on your walls. Having some odd person, float road your house,
tantrically organising the Karma of your soft furnishings was previously
unheard of in this once sensible land of DIY and Tapestry. Yet this
is more proof of the different and somewhat peculiar times we inhabit
now, but only if our sofa is not affecting the ‘spirituality
corner’ of our living rooms.
Magic Eye Pictures. Nuff said.
Getting back to Bod-Mod, it was once only the preserve of Fetishists
to get pierced nipples, and genitalia. Seems to be common amongst
everyone now, and even if people think its odd, there hasn’t
been a witch hunt against the pierced in our society. I mean getting
bloody great bits of metal in various places all over your body
was formerly left for those who had been in horrendous accidents
or formerly very underground fetish groups. Pierced nipples were
a sign of virility in Ancient Rome, and Mayan, and other ancient
South American societies, held the practice of body altering piercing
as sacred. Yet that was many thousands of years ago. When did it
become acceptable, and now that it is, will it stay ‘alternative’
now it is almost ‘normal’. Catch twenty two really.
Tattoos have been practised for centuries as rights of passage or
for ceremonial occasions, they hurt like hell, basically. And you
only inflict pain for a really good reason, they were very special.
Now tattoos are done using needles they were once literally hammered
in or the skin cut, and the ink pushed in, it shows how they have
become more consumerist, and therefore less extra-ordinary and more
accessible.
Now tattoos are common. You can get TweetyPye on your ankle and
a butterfly on your arse and it isn’t seen as anything too
out of the ordinary. Perhaps a wee bit tacky, but not unacceptable.
This however has enraged ‘die hard’ tattoo fanatics. Remember
those lovely Celtic bands people had, because it was fashionable,
well now they are getting lazered off. Disposable weirdness. A new
and completely nineties or noughties thing to do. From the 19th
century tattoos were for sailors, thugs and bikers. They were frowned
on by society as ‘horrid’ and ‘unacceptable’
for a modern society. Now we skip forward and society couldn’t
care less. Basically there seems to be a tattooist on every high
street, where as previously they were found only down back streets
of large towns. We have taken on something that was once special,
then taboo and made it in to fashion or youth culture. It almost
seems like a shame. Especially if you have a ‘die hard’
tattoo fan as your boyfriend who hates any art work that doesn’t
cover at least 10 square inches of your body, in one go.
Weirdness, we have it on our TV, we have it on the streets, we have it in the bedroom. Well who hasn’t tied, gagged, blindfolded and given their partner a good spanking, it’s de rigure now, isn’t it? We can’t escape the fact that things that were once considered strange are now acceptable. Does this mean now that the only strange thing left is normality? Personally that is even too odd for me.
