Voulez Vous Couchez a la Moulin Rouge?

Judges Week!


Judges 5:28-30

Out of the window she peered,
the mother of Sisera gazed through the lattice:
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’

Her wisest ladies make answer,
indeed, she answers the question herself:

‘Are they not finding and dividing the spoil?—
A girl or two for every man;
spoil of dyed stuffs for Sisera,
spoil of dyed stuffs embroidered,
two pieces of dyed work embroidered for my neck as spoil?’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Itchi gitchi ya ya da da
Itchi gitchi ya ya here
Mocha-choca-lata ya ya
Creole Lady Marmalade

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

"Lady Marmalade" by Mya, Pink, Lil' Kim, and Christina Aguilera featuring Patti Labelle, recorded at the 2002 Grammy Awards from the movie "Moulin Rouge" written by Kenny Nolan and Robert Crewe.

Looking at yesterdays entry, some were wondering just what was going on. First read the book of Judges, cover to cover, all in one sitting. If you can read it and not come away asking yourself "what was going on?" then music selection may be the worst of the problems with Judges Week. It shouldn't be, but it is.

So, as for the song selection? Why a song (to put a dull point on the knife) about a sex worker? The last time I heard this song, the original Labelle version (this version is fine, but I do love 70's R&B), the phrase "Hey Sister, soul sister" started rolling on my tongue and with it the name Sisera and I got a smile out of the way it blended rhythmically and lyrically.

But, more, there is a power in the lyrics. There is a power in the delivery. There is a power to knowing the original was done in 1975 and this hadn't been seen before by a network audience. (This thirteen year old boy from the burbs sure hadn't seen anything like this before.) There's power there. And when Patti Labelle points to the blonde gentleman while singing... well, there was power in that moment that was sensual and sexual, but there was more. It harkens back to gender roles. It harkens to race. But in that moment there is no denying there is power and it does not belong to the traditionally powerful person in the equation, the white male.

Admitttedly, no matter the power exchange happening in that moment; no matter the financial exchange happening between patron and Call Girl; no matter the implicit and explicit exchanges made between the Courtier and a Courtesan, you will never find the "Sex Worker" table at Career Day.

Nope. Never.

But I do want to display an overtly sexual element because I wonder if there wasn't a covert sexual element in the original story. There is scandal in the General entering Jael's tent. Was there a sexual metaphor being used when Sisera asked for water and Jael offered a skin of milk? I don't know and again, not a biblical scholar, just a guy willing to ask a weird question or two.

But here is something in the realm of gender power relationships that must be considered... Sisera's mother awaited her son's triumphant return, a return that would come not on his war horse but on his shield. When the Catty Canaanite women who were in the court of the General's mother talked about dividing the spoils, they spoke of a girl or two for every man the same way as the dyed stuffs embroidered for her neck. They compared female slaves who would have been used in any number of ways, including sexual, the same way they talked about a nice scarf.

Maybe Jael did move like a woman wooing a man, like a harlot making her mark; all to kill Sisera, end this war, and do the will of God. The tease more than the act, but either way, my professor would have been right... if we're uncomfortable with these questions from the world of the Judges, surely Biblical Scholars would have a disagreeable thing or two to say.

Sisera thought he had the power. Then he had to run for his life right into the arms of Jael. It was then Jael who fulfilled Deborah's prophecy, the glory of the victory belongs to the women.