A most revealing bar mitzvah invitation

It seems like the last time anyone sent out an actual printed “save the date” card for a bar or bat mitzvah was the Ice Age.

These days Jewish 13-year-olds (well, at least some of them) invite guests to their ritual rite of passage by starring in professionally made music videos. They post it to YouTube in a bid for viral stardom, which we’re guessing they do even before sending it out electronically to those they would actually like to show up to the event in the flesh.

And speaking of flesh, no matter how over-the-top some of the bar and bat mitzvah videos shared in recent years on social media have been, to our knowledge none have dared to feature any nudity. This, however, has changed thanks to the audacity of Brody Criz from the Chicago area.

The video features Brody singing bar mitzvah-themed parodies to popular songs like Pharrell’s “Happy,” John Legend’s “All of Me,” Lorde’s “Royals,” and “Let It Go” from the Disney film “Frozen.”

Then at the end we are exposed to Brody bouncing around with nothing but Crocs on his feet and pixelation over his privates to his very own take on “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. He is mimicking the “unrated” version of the chart topper’s video that featured topless women.

There’s a lot to question about this latest viral bar mitzvah video.

First, there’s the choice of this last song, which has been widely criticized for its misogynistic lyrics. Second, there are Brody’s exclamations throughout about how his bar mitzvah is all about him and whatever he wants for that day he’s going to get. He could just be poking fun at how ridiculously ostentatious many bar mitzvahs have become…but can one take his accusation seriously when he himself is guilty of the crime?

Finally, we have to question the boy’s parents when it comes to their allowing him to jiggle and gyrate with no clothes on in front of 811,200 pairs of eyes — and counting. Brody’s obvious and unusual lack of self-consciousness notwithstanding, one wonders whether years from now, when he is a man (and not just in the Jewish sense), he will be celebrating the fact that this image of his 13-year-old self will have been seared in to our collective memory.

http://youtu.be/PHqCclFaK8g