It's so interesting to me. The unavoidable media spectacle of Beyonce, Jay-Z and "Blue Ivy Carter," a name they are claiming as intellectual property before the competent authorities because apparently a cottage industry would otherwise arise using that name or variants thereof to sell all matter of domestic convenience ware, much of it related to infancy. And I don't know which is worse: (i) that people would seek to capitalize on someone else's fame so nakedly and exploitatively, (ii) that Jay-Z and Beyonce would seek to use the birth of their child to further their individual and joint brands or (iii) that anyone would buy something branded "Blue Ivy Carter" because they thought it would improve his or her life.
Then I thought, this is Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher for 2012. In both cases, extremely popular but not terribly profound artists. On some level, a truer affirmation of an African-American aspirational narrative than Barack Obama's.
