You know what? You’re wrong about Snoop Dogg. Sure, he’s an ex-crim and a misogynist thug, but these things are all relative. Woman-hating asshole? Compared to whom? That’s worth asking. Well, what about compared to Isaac Hayes and Tim Buckley, two of electric ladyland’s most beloved rakes? We could say there are a lot of other mitigating qualities, too, maybe ones that flip the script in favour of forgiving either the scalp-wax abusing Scientologist pants technician or the junkie honeyman. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is simple: Snoop Dogg’s hateful attitude toward women possesses a rare honesty and a willingness to take responsibility for his mind-set and actions, two qualities that Hayes and Buckley lack.
Cop a load of Hayes on ‘One Woman’. The guy drives home, kisses his wife, then gets up in the morning and drives back through gridlocked traffic… to have breakfast with his mistress. There’s nothing in the song that suggests any discomfort or remorse (just the fear of getting sprung with yolk on his cuff and the pain of having to choose once he’s busted double-dipping). Not only that, but Hayes manages to twist the situation around so that it’s both women’s fault somehow: ‘One woman’s making my home/ while the other woman’s making me do wrong/ I didn’t intend to let it get that strong/ Now I’ve got to decide where I belong’ Note the use of the expression ‘making me’, as if the women have Alan keys and claw hammers, and he’s a piece of Ikea furniture. Hayes reckons he’s having the whole situation ‘done to’ him – he’s as passive as a Rohypnolled mormon copping a love shampooing from a shaft-strapping widow with cruel intentions. Now that’s a mouthful.
Exhibit two in this atrocity exhibition, Mr ‘Crooner’ Buckley the first, is no better. You wanna know why he cheated on you? It’s the classic ‘Neanderthal defence’ – cop this: I’m a predator, baby, and, frankly, you wouldn’t let give you one a là Backstreet Boys. And honey, ‘I want it that way’. In his own words (‘Sweet Surrender’): ‘Well I had to be a hunter again/ This little man had to try/ To make love feel new again/ ‘Cause there’s just a few things, honey/I’m not old enough to do for you/ And there just the kind of things/You just never care to show me.’ Again, it’s the same pattern, one that says, ‘Hey, I sure screwed the pooch, didn’t I, but after all, I can’t control myself… and you don’t satisfy my needs… biyatch.’
Compared to this, Snoop comes up smelling like (suspiciously musky) roses. From the get go, he lays it on the line – I’m a total dogg, with no respect for women at all. If you ‘step into the ring’, you’re gonna lose your halo, baby. And if you come with me, knowing what a vicious cad I am, well, maybe you don’t respect yo’self either. From ‘Aint no Fun (if the homies can’t have none)’: ‘When I met you last night baby/ Before you opened up your gap/ I had respect for ya, lady/ But now I take it all back/ Cause you gave me all your pussy/And ya even licked my balls/ Leave your number on the cabin/ And I promise baby, I'll give ‘ya a call/ Next time I'm feelin’ kinda horny/ You can come on over, and I'll break you off/ And if you can't fuck, that day, baby/ Just lay back, and open your mouth/ ‘Cause I have never met a girl/ That I love/ in the whole wide world’. The lyrics show utter contempt for ‘her’, but at the same time, there’s four counteracting gestures: Snoop is honest about his bastardry, up front about his needs, willing to takes responsibility for the consequences and he’s conscious enough to mourn the fact that he can’t relate to women. By every measure, the Dogg is a more sensitive, responsible and mature adult than both Hayes and Buckley, who (like children), want to make a mess, not have to clean it up, and blame the other person for the scat lodged in the teeth of the fan. My mess, your fault… biyatch.
Now, compare Snoop to Phillip Ruddock, a man prepared not only to defend Snoop’s ban from Oz, but also to abandon David Hicks to five years of solitary confinement and torture, blame Hicks for his own predicament, then bend over and cop the $500,000 charge the US government wants to shaft Australian taxpayers with for flying the jihadi-tourist home, on the same day that he issues a statement saying he’s happy Hicks is home, and that he never really supported the US anyway. Yeah right. Nobody knows (and has approvingly enjoyed) the hilt of US power more than Ruddock. ‘Oooh, Bushie, what a fat, throbbing sword of Damocles you have. It’s so glistening, so… evil. Oooh, yeah, dangle it above our heads. Ooh, yeah, I like that.’ His disgusting little press conference was more or less the Liberal party equivalent of saying, ‘Aww, shit, pimpin’ ain’t easy… biyatch’. I’m gonna call it – Snoop Dogg, for all his pimping, dealing and hateful views, is a more humane and responsible adult than Hayes, Buckley or Ruddock – let him in, give him citizenship. Hell, give him a job… hey, maybe we can swap him for Ruddock? I’d like to see that – Snoop at the airport in a pimp suit giving a press conference, like ‘Yo, we had enough o’ this biyatch, fo’ shizzle’. And Ruddock in orange overalls, being herded onto a waiting plane full of CIA thugs, all eager to show him their extra special Dogg pound, the one with no windows. Oh dear, I think I’ve just gone too far.
© Peter Chambers 2007
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