Agonistes, you bring up some interesting points, and I'll respond at greater length once I've had some sleep, but I don't know that we've ever advertised it as "Ask Amanda Anything." It's "Ask Amanda" and the questions ARE filtered before they're asked on stage. When I'm merching on tour, I take out all of the questions that aren't questions ("OMG I LOVE YOU PLAY PEORIA!!!), everything that's been asked many, many times before ("Is Coin-Operated Boy about a dildo?") and questions that just generally don't make for good stage answers. The above questions, phrased the way they are, would NEVER make it past the filter.
thanks for your answer for tonight, too, beth. and, i realized as i reread that i'd said 'ask amanda anything' instead of 'ask amanda.' i got 'ask _______anything' from a message board i used to lurk on and it stuck in my head. of course i also realize questions get filtered (onstage is not the time to read through fifty posts about LUUUURVE when you have to think on the fly) for brevity and appropriateness; i do dig how the stage works. i also realize no one in amanda's crew (by saying which i mean to leave no one out) is so naiive that they don't expect asshole questions with any 'open' forum, but i also agree that these questions in particular here are worded in an inflammatory manner, at the least; hence the STATED anticipatory expectation of flaming......but this is actually a subject that interests the hell out of me, when i posted my ass off in the thread where amanda was asked question #2 in a different context; it's more or less the same issue. in part it bothers me that it bothers you
for amanda, if i can be allowed that sentence, but that is of course because of my personal view OF amanda, which is in no small part a 'strong person i admire who can take care of herself and doesn't afraid of anything.' i realize the reality is not always exactly that but i also understand fandom makes it reeeeally hard to remember the personhood of the person. in other words, i guess i don't like to see someone (troll) goading a response that they are indeed getting, yet at the same time i do like to address a subject i'd love to see discussed on the forum in detail without the indignation of someone CAUSING the discussion, if that makes sense.
Also, I take major issue with this statement:
from a social/fan standpoint, i can easily understand 'it's not your place to ask' but again, i present the reality of the situation...if someone posts about the intimate recesses of their body and functions that 'should only be asked about in an intimate friendship situation' then it follows logically that they are going to have uncomfortable and even rude questions. it's not, therefore, a question of whether anyone 'should' ask or whether they have the 'right' to ask, it is the fact that they will. at length they will, and in front of anyone who will listen, and all the while they will point to the blog and the self-taken naked pics and protest that anyone who bares so much of themselves has no reason and indeed, no right to claim privacy.
Saying "Since you talk about XYZ openly, you should expect people to ask about ABC" is kind of like saying that if I wear a low cut top it should be okay if men comment on my tits. One does not equal the other. Being open and honest about CERTAIN SUBJECTS does not entitle the OP (or anyone) to ignore social decency and demand information about others.
These questions could have been asked in a different tone. Had they been, my response would have been worded differently as well. But the sheer entitlement issues that the OP is showing by 1) asking the questions at all, 2) asking on a public forum and 3) phrasing things as they did--- it's not okay. And I'm not going to shrug it off as an inevitable consequence of celebrity, because as long as we accept what is as what should be, nothing changes.
i agree with you that the statement i made is probably akin to one you get a lot (not my intention, but i didn't divorce myself from it enough, it would seem) and i do agree mostly with your first sentence here, if not to the letter. obviously the obvious answer is, 'but if you didn't want people commenting on your tits why then frame them so attractively and conspicuously.' well, as you are saying, it isn't a matter of how nice the tits are, it's a matter of respecting them and allowing them to be nice tits without making them into a joke or an object of scorn by treating them shallowly. allow me to backpedal from my redundant cliche (my last post was toned somewhat combative) by explaining my view better, though: i don't BELIEVE that 'because amanda says this i now have the right to ask that' or anything like that, but then if we are talking about me personally, i flatter myself that i have a sense of manners i already feel is lacking in the world. no, being open and honest about certain things doesn't open the floodgates for anything and everything. of course it doesn't. but, it does blur the line even more than it in the past had been blurred...while solidifying it in other places that previously were purposely blurred, perhaps. it reshapes the whole celebrity/fan dynamic, in fact. as such, i do still feel the inevitable is inevitable--for the time being. i'm not saying i don't see something different already in amanda's obvious rapport with her audience BECAUSE of the length she goes to to open herself up to them. and i am not saying i don't expect it to change and form and possibly grow into something wholly unlike what we've been doing with music for the past century. it already is, and it is to be hoped that makes up for the negative shit...treat the negative shit like what it is, though, i guess is what i mean.
by saying, 'they will' and by pointing out that they who will, will holler 'but she's naked on her blog and talks about her jiney, how come i can't ask if she __________the _________when she ________?
??' i was saying, there are people who absolutely cannot (and won't) distinguish between the information amanda does give freely, and what is inappropriate. it's not even that 'it's to be expected from the assholes' so much as, some people really can't tell the difference. i'd love to add a 'yet' to that sentence, always wanting to be the optimist for humanity's collective enlightenment, but to paraphrase jesus; 'the ignorant you shall always have among you.' he said it about the poor, but it applies to almost anything, i think. fuck, i'm from alabama, i'd believe almost anything of anyone at this point, even myself; i like never quote jesus.
and i am not saying one has to accept anything as a matter of course, please don't hear that from me. i'm more trying to comment on human nature, and how there is always one who tries to ensure we can't have nice things. there is always one who will try to ask the unasked or draw attention by asking loaded, hostile questions also, and i guess what i am trying to say, more than 'just accept it' is 'don't give it emotion to draw from.' i'm not even saying dont feed the troll, really, because i'm sitting here actively discussing a subject a troll brought up, albeit indirectly. and i am not saying the entitlement is okay, either. what, then, i ask myself,
am i saying? i guess i'm trying to point out that the way the questions were asked is more telling, in this instance, than the actual subject matter of the questions...the author even reveals in the title of the thread, this is a post that invites flaming. they expected it; in fact it would seem they flat out asked for it under the guise of asking questions that might be what they think are 'uncomfortable' ones for amanda. that's on purpose, and that's assholistic........
i don't know; i guess the bottom line is, lately all my discussion topics around home have centered around free speech and human nature, two things which often are as close to anarchy as possible to get. on the one hand, as an artist of course i very much have a view of 'either everything is okay or nothing is' when it comes to personal expression and subject matter, and again, a reason i admire amanda is that well, no one out there seems free-er, right now. it's not always easy to take into account how careful she and her crew are to present only so much, when we GET so much. so, i do think when the standard gets stepped on, as happened with a regular poster who got in trouble for asking a blunt question before, as compared to this one.......well, it's easily compared i guess because this querent is, by nature, a troll sn and they asked essentially the same question......from an ENTIRELY different context than it was asked before, by yosi. i guess that's the difference i am focusing on. i personally didn't find the post yosmark made offensive on amanda's behalf in the least, yet i did find this one so, and i am not only trying to come to grips on why i am invested in this post, but trying to articulate some difficult feelings about an as yet undefined subject (yet connected to me enough for me to invest long winded posts in, ha), as it has yet to finish playing out through time in the form of amanda's body of work and career, etc. i'm neither trying to define what is nor tell you what to expect from it, so to speak. i'm just looking at it from as many different angles as i possibly can, because it's hella fun to watch. i admit i am no less a voyeur than anyone else with the ability to watch stuff happen with people.
and, of course i see people defending amanda, and i wouldn't expect any less. i guess i'd rather see more nonchalance than upset; more shrugging it off than ire. let the artist do the drawing out of emotions, you know? if that makes sense.
edited to add, i apologize that an emoticon sneaked into that post. imagine his surprise at finding himself lost in a wall of ag text.
edited also to add, you once kindly asked about pronunciation. it's ah-go-NIS-tees. rhymes with 'some of this please.' emphasis on the 'this' syllable. this has nothing to do with anything except it occurred to me, and i am not asleep yet.
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Topic: Questions for Amanda. Fully aware that I will get FLAMED for asking them. (Read 4227 times)