Two-thousand, four hundred and thirty-three years ago, Aristophanes’ play “Lysistrata” was first performed in Athens.
The plot — spoiler alert for those who haven’t managed to catch it in the past two-and-a-half millennia — is that the women of Athens and Sparta join together to withhold sex from men until they stop fighting the Peloponnesian War.
“Whenas the swallows, fleeing before the hoopoes, shall have all flocked together in one place, and shall refrain them from all amorous commerce, then will be the end of all the ills of life; yea, and Zeus, which doth thunder in the skies, shall set above what was erst below,” the titular character said during the play whilst explaining her aims.
I won’t ruin the ending, but will note no reputable historian is on record claiming the Peloponnesian War ended for lack of amorous embrace. I merely bring this up because, 2,433 years later, liberals have proved they have no new ideas except for stealing old ideas they can vulgarize and dumb down.
In a new ad created in a partnership between a black-centric dating app and Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote organization, rappers Saucy Santana and Trina encourage midterm participation through the classy slogan, “No Voting, No Vucking.” Yes, really.
According to NewsOne, dating app BLK unveiled the ad “[i]n honor of National Voter Registration Day” — although the video hit YouTube on Tuesday, two weeks after National Voter Registration Day, which was on Sept. 20. Nice timing, there.
NewsOne noted that a BLK survey found a refusal to cast a ballot “doesn’t impact dating, with 70 percent of users stating that they will date someone who intentionally chooses not to vote.”
Well, that can’t stand, especially since Democrats rely upon minority communities to act as voting blocs for them — particularly in 2022 critical states like Pennsylvania and Georgia.
I don’t know that this will be what convinces anyone to vote (or refuse to date a non-voter), though:
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
“No voting / no loving / no voting / no touching / no voting / no looking / no voting / no vucking / no voting, no vucking,” Saucy Santana raps.
Eat your heart out, Aristophanes. None of that Zeus piffle. None of that talk of swallows and hoopoes — those were Dr. Seuss characters, right? — or no talk of anything that doesn’t begin with the word “no” and end with a word denoting sexual activity. The ancient Greeks could only dream of this kind of lyrical prowess.
The ad tells the tragic tale of two star-crossed lovers, an unnamed female and a guy named Scott who seems to be made for the young lady: “Face is a nine / abs is a 10 / ‘D’ is a / hmm, to be determined,” Santana said.
I’m sure he’s referring to “dignity,” which is a solid zero.
“He got mad jokes / he don’t seem broke / The only red flag? / He said he don’t vote,” the rapper continued.
This, alas, was poor Scott’s downfall.
“This midterm, for all the single cuties / wanna hit this booty, gotta do your civic duty,” Saucy Santana continued before yet again going into the chorus.
Right. Pro tip: If you can’t watch a video with your children in the room, it’s probably not an appropriate pro-voting message.
This isn’t the first time BLK has waded into sociopolitical territory with abominable rapping and questionable messaging, either. Last year, they recruited rapper Juvenile, along with Mannie Fresh and Mia X, to record “Vax That Thang Up” — a vaccination-themed rework of Juvenile’s “Back That Thang Up.”
Just in case you didn’t catch the original when it was released in 1999, “that thang” refers to the female posterior, which Juvenile wanted the subject of his affections to “back up.”
So clearly, it’s not as if Michelle Obama can pull a Captain Renault and claim she’s shocked — shocked! — that there was vulgarity in the ad her organization helped create.
This was already BLK’s playbook to affect social change, after all: They take a serious issue, debauch it thoroughly and trust that the app’s hookup-culture users are so low-information and amoral that they’ll respond like they’re told. If you wanted to gauge the political seriousness of Generation Tinder in just two YouTube videos, you could do a lot worse than this.
Will you be voting in the upcoming midterm elections?
The least dispiriting thing about this ad is that I can’t imagine anyone persuaded by its conceit of having a long enough attention span to either a) vote or b) strategically withhold sex from non-voters. Thus, I’ll assume “Lysistrata 2: Swipe Left” will be stuck in what Hollywood refers to as “development hell” for at least another few years.
However, the point remains that voting — and the choice to vote or not, for that matter –is a solemn responsibility. While there’s certainly space for levity in campaign messaging, “No Voting, No Vucking” is crude and vapid enough to debase youth civics more than years of witless, frivolous MTV “Rock the Vote” turnout campaigns ever did.
And on top of that all, a former first lady is partially responsible for this dreck. Nice work, Michelle.
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