MB Hair

Sunday, October 8, 2006

THE ASSOCIATED PRESSÂ

“Spanish candidate bares all”

“Goal: Shift debate with nude pictures”

[Excerpt follows]

 Barcelona, Spain —

“Albert Rivera’s nude body is everywhere to be seen — just what he wants as he runs for president of Catalonia.

“Rivera has filled the streets of Barcelona and other Catalan cities with thousands of posters of him in the buff, modestly shielding himself with hsi hands.

“The 26-year-old lawyer knows his campaign to lead this powerful northeastern Spanish region is a long shot. But he hopes to get voters to talk about something else besides their role within Spain and whether they should speak Catalan or Spanish.

“[…]

“Besides Rivera’s picture, the poster reads: “We don’t care where you were born. We don’t care which language you speak. We don’t care what kind of clothes you wear. We care about you.

“Rivera acknowledges using nudity is ‘pure marketing’ designed to buck tradition, grab headlines and lure young voters.

“‘If major brands are so daring in their ad campaigns, why can’t a political party be?’ he asked, chatting fully clothed in baggy jeans and an untucked dress shirt in a cafe near the party’s headquarters. ‘We wanted to move away from the traditional Catalan politics and show people that they can relate to us.’ […]”

[Perhaps you can word-search to find an online posting with the entire text]

Anyway, point is, IMHO, the point of Rivera’s “nude scene” is not so distant from the point of HAIR’s nude scene. Or at least A point. Clothes do NOT necessarily “make the man.” And often society must be shocked to remember, more important than the trappings of “success” and “victory” and “dominion” (particularly when used in comparison to those not so “in uniform”), are the human beings ‘neath it all. Strip everyone down, and you’ll see, you’ll remember, we ARE … all one. Perhaps we might benefit from seeing, from imagining that all humans are our family. “We don’t care about the kind of clothes you wear. We care about YOU!” –tioga

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