Music Video Open Letters
By Jimmy Chen
To Bono sitting at table smoking cigarettes in "One"
Bono,
No it's not getting better, and I don't feel the same. Do you know why teenagers smoke, despite years and years of solemnly futile anti-tobacco ad campaigns? Because of rock stars like you, who glorify smoking as some Euro ennui-ridden deep ritual for people with high IQs. Sure, you look really sexy and love affair tortured in the video, but now we got a generation of 35-year-olds who can't shake the habit, filling black lung sacks of cancer with more smoke. Meanwhile we just paid for another breast implant for Mrs. Philip Morris & Co., and their daughters of Limbo. I know this has been going on since the 1920s, and I'm not blaming you entirely, it's just that with all that Africa, AIDS, Live Aid, pro-bono stuff, it seems a little non-progressive and hypocritical that you would propagate such a corporately driven image of smoking as being cool. Nice voice, though.
Cheers,
Jimmy