In praise of Pussy

I may watch the Oscars tonight. It all depends on how much Pussy I can get a hold of. Plus I'm really into the taste so just one isn't enough. Personally, I tend to get through a couple at a time.

God, bless ya!

I'm only talking about the energy drink!

I manfully strode into my local corner shop yesterday and, as I browsed through the myriad of drinks in the open display fridge, the owner chirped up "I've got some of that new Pussy, if you're interested."

I paused...

"Ex-Cuse! Me?!?"

"It's just to the right, sir. Pussy."

Sure enough, bold as you like on the shelf of a refrigerator in my corner shop: Pussy. I delicately examined the vessel, gently fingering the light moisture on its surface, my mind awhirl as I moistened my lips, and shot out, "What does it taste like?"

"No idea. I never touch any of that stuff. It keeps you awake," he replied.

Aroused and intrigued I bought 7 cans. I've been sucking down its sensual effervescence in enthusiastic gulps ever since. Being an obsessive I also visited the website to read the manufacturer's mission statement:

Pussy is spontaneous, entertaining, optimistic and fun. It’s a starting point. A moment when something happens and when things begin – Pussy starts conversations. It believes in having a good time as often as possible.

So, as you make your way to bed tonight imagine me with the taste of Pussy on my tongue as I follow Oscar proceedings from the red carpet to the ceremony itself.

The big winner tonight will undoubtedly be The Hurt Locker. I'd heard nothing but good things about this movie and so, as a contrarian, was absolutely convinced even before I watched the recently released DVD that it would be yet more propaganda for US military intervention overseas. It is, but it's far worse than that.

As there is no contextual exposition Iraq and Iraqis are reduced to mere background noise as we exclusively explore the Hell of War through the eyes of the American Crusader. The only pain is that experienced by the soldiers. A bi-product of this wilful myopia is the crude fetishisation of their male bonding which reaches a climax when the central characters take off their shirts and wrestle. Kathryn Bigelow, the director, might as well have had them oiled, naked and going at it by candlelight. That would have been entertaining.

But it was ever thus and will remain so. Heinrich Goebbels contended that films were a "scientific means of influencing the masses," and a powerful tool for shaping attitudes. He stressed that, "a government must not neglect them." Under Nazi rule, over a thousand movies were either approved or commissioned by the Reich. Goebbel's ministry punctuated popular films with reiterative motifs and symbols evoking a fervour in the German public: "heroism," "sacrifice," "mass murder," "hatred for Germany." Sixty years later and the same themes are played out in the same manner in our cineplexes, the subtext: "hatred for America."

Black Hawk Down espoused this world view whilst neglecting to reference the hundreds massacred by American troops.

300 ostensibly a movie about taut male flesh and ludicrous abs cast Sparta as the protector of Enlightenment and the principles of reason, freedom, and liberty from the "Asiatic hordes": reinforcing the western indoctrination that we are the good guys and that our ideals are better than the ideals of our enemies.

Apocalypto is about how the Mayan culture, prior to the European Conquest, was so inhuman and barbaric that it was necessary for the Mayans to be 'civilised' by the Europeans. Christianity was the best thing that ever happened to these savages. The human sacrifice referenced in the film was actually part of the propaganda promoted by the Spanish conqueror Cortez, a man who himself revelled in butchery and extermination.

Hollywood seeks to turn reality on its head in its use of images which places all guilt for death and destruction in the lap of the West's enemies. It's Bum Syrup. Utter Bum Syrup.

I'd like to see them turn that into an energy drink.

No. Really.