Political message

Unit 1 The Language of the Media

Homework Text 1

Much more than just a pretty voice

Siobhan Grogan meets Shakira, the Latin pop diva with a political messagelearning English so that she would not need15,000 New Yorkers look startled as Saddam someone else to translate her lyrics. Yet sheHussein strokes his chin and considers his next pouting for men'sseems equally at homechess move. Across the table George Bush waits magazines.his turn. A single spotlight moves away from the Shakira was born in Barranquilla, an industrialactors on the big screen to the stage below, town on the Caribbean coast of Colombia and shesearching out Shakira, the newest, blondest pop moved to Miami eight years ago. "I have alwaysdiva. been aware of the situation in Colombia" Shakira"I know pop stars are not supposed to stick their acknowledges. "A five-year-old child there knowsnoses into politics," she says, shrugging. The what a guerrilla is. They probably know whoascreen above her

head next reveals Bush as Mickey Mouse is, too. They are aware that therehooded Grim Reaper and Saddam's puppeteer, is injustice."

controlling the chess game below. This is hardly Her first song, Your Dark Glasses was a tribute tosubtle social comment, but it is daring for a popscar in its her father ("My idol," she declares). Aged just 14concert in a city still with a painfulaltered skyline. Shakira may have sold 12m she released her first album, Magia, comprisingalbums and accepted the "Latin Britney" tag, but songs she had written between the ages of 8 andthis is not the behavior of a pop princess. 13. In 1995 her third album, Pies Descalzos, sold4m copies and Shakira the popstar was born."Sometimes people don't want to see pop stars Encouraged by Latin diva Gloria Estefan shegiving their opinion about politics. They think pop spent the next two years studying rhymingstars are made to entertain. I come from dictionaries, the poems of Walt

Whitman and the Colombia, a country that has been in a slow, lyrics of Leonard Cohen, hoping to learn English.
subtle war for 40 years. Growing up with this "I had to find a way to express my ideas and my
feelings, my day-to-day stories, in English." She
use my show to deliver a message - many people then went to rural Uruguay to write her debut
around me told me not to do it - but it was a English-language album, Laundry Service. Even
statement about love and what I feel this world more significantly, she dyed her black hair blonde
and its leaders are lacking."
on the eve of the album's release in 2001, to the
This explanation unwittingly betrays the disgust of a number of her original fans. It was a
contradictions behind everything Shakira does. fuss over nothing, she says. "I'm not pretending to
While she wants to make serious political be American. How could I? I am Colombian. I
couch
observations, she feels it

"I would never abandon the Latin community," she said, choosing her words carefully to express her love for them in a less controversial manner. She emphasized the control she has over her own career, writing and producing her own material.

Glossary

startled (adj): suddenly frightened or surprised by something

hooded Grim Reaper (adj + noun): wearing a hood + an imaginary character who represents death

puppeteer (noun): a person who performs shows using puppets. Puppet has a secondary meaning: a person or government that a more powerful person or government supports and controls.

scar (noun): a mark on something where it has been damaged.

unwittingly (adverb): in a way that is not conscious or deliberate

to couch (sth) (verb): to express something in a particular way.

pouting (verb): originally means sulking or pushing the lips forward as an expression of displeasure. In this context, it means to pose for the camera using this type of expression.

fuss

Noun: a lot of unnecessary worry or excitement.