Yeshiva World News is not precisely a bastion of liberalism. (Okay, it's not exactly a bastion of responsible, impartial journalism either.) For some reason they have found my email address and have been sending me all kinds of notices. The one that had me scratching my head was for three fun activities for Chol Hamoed Sukkos. The first one mentioned, and the one with the biggest sized ad, was for a Lipa and Bello concert at a Ringling Brothers Circus performance. This is the same YWN that excoriated Lipa for a concert that was separate seating and meant only for a frum olam? This is the same YWN that claims a readership that would be offended by Lipa's music? This is the same YWN that won't use women's pictures in their publication?
So let me see if I understand this correctly. The circus performance, open to the general public, both non-Jewish and Jewish, with no separate seating, and featuring a performance by Lipa and a musician who is pictured in the ad with longish hair and no kippah is perfectly fine to be advertised in the same venue that took Lipa to task for the type of music and moves in his performances? YWN has no problem in advertising an event in which there will be female performers wearing abbreviated costumes? Pray tell what has changed? Oh, silly me. Ads bring in money to YWN. A very strange relationship, money and principles.
Update: I finally figured out how to get the fine print in the ad enlarged and now I am truly confused. This is the wording of that fine print: "1:00 to 4:00 Circus with a Poshiter Guest performer? No live singing." Yet elsewhere in the ad in much larger letters it says "Lipa joins Bello in the circus in a live performance." Okay, I'll bite. Just what live performance is Lipa, a singer, going to perform if there is no live singing?
12 comments:
Maybe they plan on throwing Lipa to the lions, or shooting him out of a canon. No? Maybe a high-wire balancing act, then. He has experience with all of these, I should think.
Lip-syncing! They never said no prerecorded music :-)
I think a frum circus would be boring. The female trapeze artists would fall every time because whenever they'd swing through the air towards the guy he'd just shout "shomer negiah!" and let her drop.
They probably wouldn't have any non-kosher animals. Cows, oxen and performing goats. My, oh my.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention to the centre ring for Rav Blatherstein's siyum of Maseches..."
I admit that I don't get the circus advertisement in Yeshiva World. I always took my kids to the circus but my Williamsburg family equated that to committing all of the thou shalt nots at once. My more yeshivish neighbors, a few take their kids, but only the very young ones and most of them don't. So who was that ad aimed at? Or maybe a lot more do take their kids and don't tell anyone so they can't get in trouble with the frumkeit police.
At first I thought you were going to talk about how such an event would be a waste of money. But I like the angel you used. You see people are money hungry no matter which way you look at it, and they use it as a motivational tool to do things that are normally against their ethics. They will probably add a small disclaimer to justify themselves, by saying the views expressed in the advertisements don't necessarily represent the views of the site.
About the update, perhaps he will be playing a recording?
To be dan lekav Zechus, perhaps the circus will be a 100% kosher one. They've had such ones before. could be they regretted their standpoint on banning Lipa, and they realized he's ok, so now their making up for it, by supporting his events.
Funny post.
Money does strange things to people.
For years, there have been frum circus events by the Ringling Brothers Circus with only male performers, generally scheduled on chol hamoed.
Of course, there are still complaints from Williamsburg and Boro Park...
Shmendrik and Babysitter,
I'd buy your comments that maybe this is a "kosher" performance with only males except for one thing: it doesn't say so in the ad. Why not? Only a few words to add in "male performers only." Nor does it say separate seating. So for those who care about not seeing women, mixed seating is okay at a circus but not at a concert? No consistency shown in this ad.
I'm still trying to figure out what or who a "Poshiter Guest performer" is. What is a poshiter performer? As opposed to who? They name Lipa in the ad so is this someone in addition to Lipa?
On second thought, why would you expect an ad in YWN to be better constructed and/or more informative than the articles that appear in it? I'd imagine that the regular YWN readers never saw the flaws that you pointed out.
ProfK: First of all as far as I know, the Lipa concert wasn't going to be mixed. Second, Perhaps they make the assumption that you would realize it's a kosher circus if their advertising it. They've had them in previous years, so they assume people are familiar with the concept. Especially since it's for Chol Hamoed.
A poshiter guest performer is another name for Lipa since he came out with his CD called a Poshita Yid.
If you read the posting carefully The Babysitter you'll see that it said that the concert was separate seating. The fact that the circus is giving a performance on Thursday is coincidental to its being Chol HaMoed. They are giving more then one performance. And I really wonder about the seating then. I would imagine it's going to be mostly women and kids--it's during a weekday and not everyone can get off on Chol Hamoed. I just don't see mothers letting their little kids sit separate from them in male and female sections.
But I have to agree that if this is a special performance with no women performing then why not just say so and make it clear? Why try to be cute in the wording, and fail to make it clear just what Lipa is doing or going to be doing at the circus?
Uri: ok, so then it does say that it's separate seating. Problem solved.
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