Reviewing the Review
Above: Danse Eroteknique article from page 3 of The Montreal Gazette’s Weekend Life section.
Below: Close-up of Ms. Kitka.
Last month, my erotic dance instructor invited her star pupils to participate in an interview and demonstration for the Montreal Gazette. I was very excited and even plugged mskitka.com to the reporter just in case she felt the need to talk about the diverse kinds of women in the class. Unfortunately for me, though, the image the reporter was looking for was not the image I was portraying. Instead the reporter was more interested in the women who were least likely to be taking the class… the mother, the older woman and the student.
The frightening thing, though, is that the reporter was not reporting, she was dictating what the article would be. She often re-worded phrases and “quotes” that were said in the interview to make them seem more pertinent to the point she wanted to get to. If she wanted to play the educated card, I could have played it… I could have neglected to mention anything about my sex blog and video-podcast and told her about the other me - the me that works for diplomats, has a university degree and speaks multiple languages. But, no… I thought that diversity was more interesting so instead of telling her what everyone else was already saying, I discussed my blog and the national gold medals I won in synchronized swimming and martial arts (the main reasons why I have such coordination and flexibility to pull off the erotic dancing).
Like I said, though, she wasn’t interested in outgoing national champions and sexperts.
However, the women she did decide to talk about were great women indeed, including a smart young friend of mine studying nanoparticles. But, instead of celebrating the diversity of women in the class she decided to portray the women as all being shy educated ladies who seem to be complete opposites of actual professional erotic dancers. The problem with this train of thought, though, is that most strippers are educated… they are students!
When the reporter (Monique Polak) was interviewing the girls, she did not record any of the discussion. Instead, she took notes on the back of used paper, altered quotes to suit her article and filled in the blanks. After the interview, the girls were flabbergasted and afraid of what she would end up printing! Luckily the article didn’t turn out too badly… but one problem still remains: the article was fabricated from a pre-conceived idea.
Doesn’t this outline the mainstream media perfectly…
Although I am horrifyingly disappointed with the media these days and their inability to thoroughly exercise their first amendment rights due to a fear of losing subscriptions and funds raised from selling advertising space, I was pleased to receive an e-mail from Ms. Tracy Connor of the NY Daily News on Friday for my opinion on the future of iPod porn. Unfortunately, I received the e-mail a little late in the day and got her answering machine when I finally had a chance to call her in New York.
As bitter as I am about the mainstream media, I was very flattered that Connor took the time to try and consult me… I believe that we do need more media-blogger cooperation in the world to keep the media from becoming over-regulated. Hell, isn’t that the whole problem with the United Nations and NASA these days? The world has become too bureaucratic for its own good.
