I’m sure that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her stooges… I mean… Cerges… I mean, spokespeople, would downplay the whole New York Post Page Six story and play the “gossip news” card. After all, Page Six is a section of the New York Post that talks about New York, and “no one takes it seriously.” It’s precisely when your President finds herself in the “gossip sections” of a foreign tabloid not “taken seriously” that you kinda worry about the standing of your head of state. Just around the five-foot mark… but really? A million peso dinner?
RLY? SRSLY? OMG WTF ME WANT $$$ FOR NOMNOM NAO! (I swear, I’ll never do that again.)
(Here’s the wine list and here’s the dinner menu.)
The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (YES!) writes that taste is something that is not freely chosen; it is often framed and defined by those who have power. Taste is one of the many things used by the dominant to assert their power, as well as to keep class distinctions in place. As a friend of mine quotes: “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.”