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December 12, 2005
"My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas
The thing about "My Humps" is that while for the longest time I thought I hated it, nonetheless every time I heard it on the radio I couldn't turn it off. I've finally concluded that I just have to admire its relentless bluntness. If "humps" and "lumps" are single-entendres - nicknames rather than puns - then the closing references to "all that ass" and "all that breasts" become zero-entendres - somewhere between pornographic and clinical in their literalism. Meanwhile, the detatched way in which Fergie discusses her "lady lumps" has the bracing cynicism of a good Nip/Tuck episode. Fergie makes her T & A sound like just two more accessories she picked up for the evening. Plus, you have to admire the invention of a new term that lumps together breasts and buttcheeks into one indistinguishable batch of soft flesh. It's the dialectical resolution of the long-running American cultural conflict between the values of "breast men" (the traditional Monroe ideal) and "ass men" (the rising J-Lo rebuttal). In a sense, it queers the objectification of the woman's body, refusing to accept familiar distinctions between body parts. It also raises the question of whether men, in turn, can have "lovely man lumps." I'll have to await the inevitable answer record.
For thorough evisceration of the song, check out Notes on "Humps" - A song so awful it hurts the mind. By Hua Hsu
Posted by tedf at December 12, 2005 02:40 AM
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