Ha! OK so there are a gazillion funny (and trying to be funny) yoga videos on the interwebs now. But we found this one to be a bit different and oddly refreshing. It’s down and dirty and we kinda dig it for the grit and grime, as compared to the fluffier sort. No tip toeing around yoga mats this time.
“I gotta look like Hiawatha…when I do my Hatha” made us snort. We’ll warn you now about the camel toe reference and crotch shot. Also there are curses, obvs.
From the yoga rap stylings of Delia Brown the yoga bitch responsible for the Whole Foods Parking Lot Rap Response: Revenge of the Black Prius. Could this be in response to Fog and Smog’s ‘Yoga Girl’?
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Earlier…
Just remember that REAL men love yoga bitches … and I can see why from this video. LOVE IT!
This is just hysterical!!!! Too funny!!
I love a good yoga parody, but wow this is so un-yogic. Not feeling the love 🙂
Not so much bitchy as creepy. Please deliver me from any place where the ladies are checking out each other’s crotches for signs that menstruation might be happening.
Martha, Maria, (I think they made a movie about you recently, starring the youngest Olsen sister?) — You inspire me to make another song about how humorless yogis can be! Yah, the zoom-in on the non-camel-toe is really based on reality…Not. It’s a joke!
I understand that caustic humor doesn’t gel with some yogini’s desire to take themselves very seriously, but I’m pretty sure real yogis bring a sense of levity to their practice of everyday life.
I also believe, personally, that not being able to light a match near a sacred cow is not a healthy relationship to the divine.
No, no, db, you’re wrong. I like caustic humor a lot. I like my caustic humor funny, though.
This is just Mean Girl bullshit with feather extensions.
You know the old joke: Some people can be funny without being vulgar. Some people can be both funny and vulgar. One should try to be one or the other.
Aside from vulgarity, which who really cares, let me see if I can say what really bothers me about this video.
It’s like a vision of the yoga studio as an extension of high school, with a bunch of “cool girls” bonding through ganging up on the smelly pariah. And we’re supposed to greet this vision with what? Affectionate, rueful recognition? Fuck that. Or should I feel really bad because this Swiftian satire has skewered the secret unregenerate Heather in me? Fuck that too.
Maybe I identify too closely with the smelly pariah to get the joke, but I don’t think women policing each other are funny in the yoga studio or anywhere else.
Hi Maria,
First, thank you for your sincere response & for reaching to articulate your conflict with the video. I appreciate it. The song is not universally loved even by some of my nearest & dearest and perhaps you have best articulated the reasons.
As it is with my art practice, so it is with my music. Unfortunately I am the kind of person who wants to be universally liked, but when I am authentic to myself in my creative expression, there are always some negative interpretations.
I identify with both female characters (“the hippy” & “the bitch”) in very small ways, but am neither. I’m actually just a self-proclaimed feminist who has a little bit of snob in her (as someone concerned with aesthetics I can’t help paying attention to material details, for instance) & a little bit of green/nature lover/spiritual seeker in her also. Ive been studying yoga for 15 years but am an on-&-off-again practioner, having herniated discs that often keep me from it. Like you, I don’t like cattiness & work hard to refrain from judging other women for superficial reasons. If there is anyone I judge, it’s myself.
I was raised in Venice, amongst homegirls & gangbangers, & went on to be a rapper in the early 90s. Not that u care for my life story, just explaining where my heavy streak of attitude comes from. The content of my rhymes always begins from the rhymes themselves. For instance, the fact that patchouli & tab oui rhyme, as well as camel toes & camel pose, created the hippy character. I did not have an intention for her to be part of the story, but she came from language & my unconscious.
I love all women.
I’m not apologizing, I’m just trying to say, I guess, that I probably think more like u in real life…but in art, as the artist, you don’t judge what comes through you, you just allow it to come through you. I don’t believe art is the place where we censor our unconscious, so even though I felt it was harsh – the treatment of my hippy – I allowed it as an expression of something latent.
I appreciate you having this dialogue with me. Thank you, Maria.
Thanks for this reply.
I see what you’re saying about not wanting to censor your flow. I actually completely approve of everyone saying whatever they think all the time, but then I guess the scenario was kind of a trigger for me—I don’t usually react like that to stuff on the internet. And I didn’t need to be so harsh to start with–it’s easy to be mean when you’re just typing to a screen.
I’m an artist too, and I wonder, if your work seems to be saying something you don’t really believe, maybe you’re just not done with it? Maybe there’s a yoga bitch epic waiting to happen here…
For what it’s worth I thought your Whole Foods video was awesome.
Hi Martha,
Sorry I called you Maria in the previous msg!
No worries about being harsh, you were just calling it like you saw it. I had hesitation about the crotch zoom (because I didn’t want there to be misogynist undertones), but I didn’t really see a way to stay true to the narrative without it. I’m not even comfortable with the word “bitch”, but I felt like I needed to go for it with the potentially “wrong” stuff, because honestly the whole point of the character was to be a mean person who does yoga but does not have an inclusive or loving attitude — so I included it all. My producer Nelson (DelNel is him and me) and I discussed it a lot because neither of us was 100% comfortable with it. But I guess we like to see how far we can go beyond our comfort zones.
Best wishes with your art! And thanks for the compliment on RotBP…
~db
Started watching the video with a “pissy-face”. I didn’t want to like it or think it was funny, but after a minute or so I found myself chuckling. Doing lines of Stevia! Haha! I think I’ve actually dated that second guy. Except I had to pick him up for the date too because he didn’t own a car… Ugh.
Yeaaah, so I turned this vid off, just like the last one. I don’t really find it that funny and not because it’s “caustic” but perhaps it’s not caustic enough. It could go a bit further to really encompass the yoga-snob mentality, i.m.o. (perhaps include being rude to servers at a vegan restaurant while talking about spirituality- no wait, that’s an excerpt from my reality, lol)! However, I find the Fog and Smog vids to be cute, not overly funny, but endearing and wonder why the need to make “response” videos. On the positive side, I really do dig the “poser” strife beater, just the right amount of snarky!
In Lak’esh. <3
@lentil – glad you like the fog & smog videos, i like them too (at least i liked wfpl). just fyi, this was not a response to their yoga song, it was just a coincidence that they were making one while we were making one.
If u have herniated disc u gotta be sweating w bikram… Bikram class fixes that problem