If someone is going to cover Rihanna's BBHMM, it might as well be Miss Piggy

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/21/rihanna-bbhmm-miss-piggy

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One of my earliest memories of movie-watching is sitting on the living room floor with my little brother, a bowl of cheese crackers by our side, enamored by the bobbing foam heads of the Muppets. The Muppets Take Manhattan was a personal favorite, carried between our parents’ homes, the constant rewinding causing the tape to thin. We shared an unabashed love for those fuzzy-faced creatures.

Of course the gender norms of the late 1980s meant that it was my job to admire Miss Piggy, and I was gifted dolls in her likeness accordingly (never mind that Fozzie Bear was my favorite, or that Miss Piggy was created and voiced by men).

Then again, it was Miss Piggy’s world and the rest of the Muppets were just living in it. She was, and has remained, a woman who knows what she wants and lives her life out loud and without hesitation. Sometimes these qualities are labeled “aggressive” or “brash”, to which I can only give a side-eye.

On Monday, Vulture released the Miss Piggy remix of Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money, a song which has quickly become the anthem of the summer – and of freelancers everywhere – while stirring controversy for its depiction of a violent kidnapping. The Vulture video is comprised of clips of Miss Piggy singing the words of Rihanna. Per usual, she is glammed out, hair perfectly done and bouncing as she saunters around demanding what is owed to her.

Of course there are misgivings about a Muppet, primarily a children’s character, singing such an explicit song. There are also the moments in the clips where she tosses Kermit the Frog around, standard slapstick in their PG relationship but jarring in this particular video. All that being said, it’s difficult not to smile and clap while watching the transgressive stylings of Miss Piggy as she turns to say, “Pay me what you owe me, don’t act like you forgot”.

“There is no one on the planet to compare with moi”, Miss Piggy once said. And it’s true. She has been the epitome of woman power for decades, starting long before the stirrings of debates over gendered behavior. About that: it’s well into 2015 and there is still an assumption that ‘confidence’ is for men only. That’s partly why Rihanna’s unapologetic lyrics can seem shocking, and why Miss Piggy is the perfect character to lip-sync them.

To which I say, go on with your charming, curly-tailed self.