Monday, December 29, 2003

By Ruth Ann Daily

I hope it does not belittle Christina Aguilera's great generosity to point out that there is a greater gift she could give.

On Dec. 21, the pop star, who launched to international fame from suburban Wexford, returned to the region to visit the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh. When her two-hour visit ended, she left behind some stunned fans and a donation of $200,000.

It's no accident that Aguilera chose the Oakland shelter for her magnificent gift. Rich celebrities receive constant requests for help from organizations and individuals of every stripe. But Aguilera and her mother, Shelly Kearns, turned to various women's shelters during years of abuse suffered at the hands -- literally -- of Fausto Aguilera, Christina's father. Now Kearns serves on the Oakland shelter's board, and her famous daughter is in a position to help those suffering as she once did.

Aguilera's lyrics in "I'm Okay" sear the listener's heart: "Every time my father's fist would put her in her place/Hearing all the yelling I would cry up in my room."

Many other lyrics, however, extol a way of life that, if embraced and imitated, will make her impressionable young fans less likely to find the dignity and self-respect they so desperately need. Her recent, notorious songs praise an ethic, if you can call it that, of using and being used. Only the rich get to avoid the consequences of such behavior -- and then, not forever.

"We have a physical thing/make love, but don't fall in love/Let me get mine, you get yours ... No strings attached/I want your body, not your heart." That's part of "Get Mine, Get Yours," a cut on her "Stripped" album.

Less philosophical but more narrative is the infamous "Dirrty," which goes: "There's no stopping, we keep it popping (oh)/Hot rocking, everyone's talking/Give all you got (give it to me)/Just hit the spot." The song's raunchy video was deplored even by critics not renowned for prudery.

Before the 1960s, devotees of "free love" formed small enclaves, like Virginia Wolff's Bloomsbury Group, where they could practice fluid sexual and domestic arrangements together. Their trust funds allowed them to flout the bourgeois family life and religious practices they despised.

The poor possess no such buffers from the results of "riotous living." Many of today's well-known charities and shelters were established more than a century ago to rescue London, New York and Chicago's poor from the squalor of addiction, abuse and rabid capitalism.

These days the entertainment industry leads the ranks of profit-crazed capitalists who exploit the poor and vulnerable. And when the anti-bourgeois, free-love inanities of the '60s counter-culture became widespread, thanks in large part to the entertainment industry, too many of us believed that we could live however we wished, without ever paying the piper. When we view the social destruction all around us, we know such thinking was wrong. It's hard to put that genie back in the bottle, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Promoting hedonism in exchange for personal gain implies a cynicism or thoughtlessness at odds with Aguilera's generous heart. Her monetary gift will immediately change some women's and children's lives for the better, but disavowing the degrading lyrics and images she has lately been selling would be a gift with a reach far beyond Pittsburgh. Perhaps in this new year, new wisdom will lead her to put her mouth where her money is.

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