Lingerie for Little Girls

About two weeks ago I saw this newscast about a Colorado children's clothing store called "Kids N Teen" that sold crotchless thong panties designed for young girls. While the offending items were removed after complaints, the store owner tried to defend their actions by saying that about 25% of their inventory is marketed to teenagers. Erin French, the woman who discovered the inappropriate underwear, says the thongs didn't fall into this 25%, as it was "sized to fit seven year old girls." What is perhaps the most disturbing fact of this story is that, according to French, "this is a baby store. This is a children's store. You have 2T sized items in your store and then there's thong panties." Why a store would try to market leopard-print thongs to seven year old girls is beyond me, but to make it  crotchless is absolutely abhorrent. This kind of item prematurely sexualizes young girls to a disgusting degree.

These thongs, though less disturbing than the previous example, were marketed to tween girls by K-Mart retailers. By placing the slogan "I [heart] Rich Boys" on sexy thongs, this underwear condones girls' use of their bodies to attract the men in their lives. And by specifying that girls' should use their sexuality to attract only rich boys, they are encouraging a sort of prostitution, or at the very least, gold-digging. These thongs are a regression into traditional anti-feminist beliefs that women's only reliable source of power are their bodies and that women should rely on wealthy men to take care of them.

The Pressure to be Perfect (Down There)

     Women are constantly being told to change themselves physically to conform to rigid standards of beauty, and cosmetic surgery is often presented as a quick fix. The popularity of elective surgery is incredibly depressing and the marked rise of labiaplasties in Western cultures is deeply unsettling. According to a study published by the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology," Female cosmetic genital surgery is increasingly popular and the number of labial reduction procedures in the National Health Service has increased five fold in the past 10 years." While many women say they pursue labiaplasties to reduce discomfort, none of the women in this study could make this claim, as the article found "that all women seeking surgery had normal sized labia minora." According to Toronto-based news paper The Globe and The Mail's article "Women Pursue Labiaplasty Even When They're 'Normal' Down There," women's reasons for wanting the procedure included cultural pressures like "comments from a partner [and] TV shows that mentioned the surgery."

     Perhaps the most disturbing thing about genital cosmetic surgery is that pressure from gynecologists has also had a role in increasing women's insecurities about their genitals, which has consequently given publicity for procedures like labiaplasties. An article on Jezebel.com reviewed a submission to advice columnist Lisa Priest in which a woman told of her humiliation at a routine gynecological exam:

About a month ago, I went to my gynecologist. There were big poster ads for labiaplasty in the waiting area. I was still surprised, though, that once the doctor was examining me, he suggested he could do this procedure for me. I curtly told him ‘no thanks’ but he didn’t stop. In the middle of the exam that was not related at all to cosmetics, he showed me on his monitor where he could trim my labia. I still said no, but felt ashamed and wondered if I should do it. Only later did I realize how violating this was.

 While the doctor's behavior is obviously completely unacceptable, he will likely suffer no recourse from his actions, as there was nothing illegal about what he did. His repeated offers of performing a labiaplasty insinuated that she needed cosmetic surgery; that there was something wrong with her. There is something inherently wrong with our beauty ideals and value systems when even doctors, people who are tasked with keeping us safe, exploit our insecurities to make more money.

Justin Bieber: Possible Rape Victim or Virile Man?

     Yesterday, news broke of a woman who claimed to be the mother of Justin Bieber's child. 20 year-old California resident Mariah Yeater filed a paternity suit against the tween idol, claiming the two had sex backstage after his concert at L.A.'s Staples Center on October 25th of last year. This completely undermines Bieber's squeaky clean image, and many fans are up in arms.
     However, while many news sources are just focusing on the tantalizing details of Bieber's first real scandal, I've not yet seen anyone talk about the possible criminal aspect of this allegation: statutory rape. If Yeater's claims are true, she would have been 19 and Bieber would have been 16 when they had intercourse. This is in violation of California's statutory rape laws, which clearly state that the age of consent for that state is 18.
     In fact, instead of ackowledging Bieber's possible victimization, many articles are arguing that this scandal has finally made him a man. As this article says, "Like witnessing the gentle fawn taking its first wobbly steps toward becoming a full-grown stag, Justin Bieber has slowly begun sloughing off his billowy swoops of golden fur and developing the tough leather hide of a man—a maturation evidenced of late by his deepening singing voice, his occasional back-sass at the dinner table, and now, his very first paternity suit." While this statement is clearly meant to be humorous, it completely disregards the fact that Bieber was a child at the time when the alleged sex occurred and instead argues that the paternity test will boost the teenage star's image of burgeoning manhood. Do you think this portrayal is harmful? How do you think it would be different if the gender roles were reversed?

Whether You're a Working Class Woman or Nicki Minaj, Marriage is Still the Ultimate Goal

The music video for Nicki Minaj’s hit song “Moment 4 Life” is at once both completely tame and highly problematic. The lyrics are, for the most part, very pro-woman, as Minaj sings about her successes as a hip hop artist which is a very male-dominated sphere: she sings “Don’t worry about me and who I fire/I get what I desire; it’s my empire…/In this very moment I’m king/ In this very moment I slayed Goliath with a sling.” The song itself presents Nicki as an empowered woman who has overcome significant obstacles and prejudices to become the star she is today.

The music video, however, completely negates these successes by portraying Minaj as a typical Disney princess, complete with a fairy godmother. She sings the lines “I wish I could have this moment for life,” while wearing a wedding dress and getting married to the co-star of her video, Drake, whose rapping is also featured in the song. Indeed, having the wedding as the focal point of the video seems to argue that the reason she is “king” is because she managed to tie down such a popular and wealthy rapper like Drake, not due to her own merits as a singer and artist. This type of portrayal simply reinforces the idea that, while women can now be accomplished in the same fields and occupations as men, their ultimate goal should still be marriage.

Isis King: Model or Media Spectacle?

America’s Next Top Model cycle 11 contestant Isis King was never the strongest competitor, but she was invited to compete for the title again in ANTM’s “All Stars” series this fall. I think this is largely due to the fact that she is transgendered. Her appearance on the reality show garnered significant media attention, and she was popular enough to be dubbed a “fan-favorite” and be included in the latest season. While there is no doubt that Isis is an extremely beautiful woman, she only made it into the top ten finalists in cycle 11 and she has already been eliminated from the current season, so it seems that she was simply being used as a spectacle to achieve higher viewership for the show.

In fact, Tyra Banks took such a liking to Isis’s story that she invited her on the Tyra Banks Show after Isis’s first appearance on ANTM and introduced her to a plastic surgeon who would perform her sex reassignment surgery pro bono. She made a second appearance after on the Tyra Banks Show after her surgery was completed to show her new success as a model and, indeed, as a woman: the big finale of the episode was that Isis’s boyfriend proposed to her in front of the live studio audience. The proposal and the sex change were given higher emphasis in this People magazine article than her modeling achievements. This representation enforces a myriad of American cultural values, such as the importance of marriage for women and plastic surgery as charity. While I think it’s important to integrate members of LGBTQ community into all aspects of the media, including television, I think America’s Next Top Model and the Tyra Banks Show’s representation of Isis was wholly exploitative, making her into a media spectacle for their own popularity.

Dr. Pepper 10: Since When is Soda Gendered?

How do you market a diet soft drink to men? If you’re Dr. Pepper, you rely on gender stereotypes of typical masculine and feminine roles. This advertisement for “Dr. Pepper 10” is set in a fictional action movie and uses the hero to sell the soda to men. He tells us that “It’s only 10 manly calories, but with all 23 flavors of Dr. Pepper. It’s what guys want.” It is obvious that Dr. Pepper is exploiting men’s insecurities over their own masculinity in this ad: the crux of the commercial’s argument is that masculinity is defined by a lack of femininity, a cultural belief that is extremely pervasive in our society. Indeed, women aren’t even allowed to drink it, as the hero tells us “ladies” that “Dr. Pepper 10 is our soda...You can keep the romantic comedies and lady-drinks—we’re good.” The advertisement ends with the slogan “Dr. Pepper 10: it’s not for women.”

Thankfully, this commercial has recently sparked a backlash in the online community, with websites such as Jezebel.com and Gothamist.com writing articles criticizing the way it enforced stereotypical gender roles. An online petition has even sprung up to have the ad pulled from the airwaves. What do you think it says about our society that men today see diet sodas as equitable to emasculation, to the point that advertisers feel the need to overcompensate to such an offensive degree?

"Men-Ups": A Gender-Bending Take on Traditional Pin-Ups

     Last night, I stumbled across University of South Florida student Rion Sabean's "Men-Ups" photography shoot. The series is a spoof of popular female pin-up models of the 1940's and 1950's, and I was surprised to see that the photographs push the boundaries of the gender binary in what I believe to be a good way. The pictures show attractive, strong men with typical masculine props, such as hatchets, baseball bats, and drills, in wholly emasculating positions.
     The juxtaposition between the manly men and their effeminate poses is surprising and comical. As Sabean says in this Jezebel.com article, "The imagery of showcasing the feminine/masculine ideals in one single image just struck me as something that could really work." Indeed, the stark contrast between the male models and their girly body language highlights the ridiculousness of both the masculine and feminine gender scripts our society places so much value upon. By giving the models props like drills and baseball bats, both items that could be seen as symbolic phalluses, and pairing them with highly sexualized traditional female poses, Sabean makes a well-executed critique of our culture's restrictive gender binary.

Live Free or Die Hard: A Progressive Look at the Working Class Man?

     Len Wiseman’s 2007 movie Live Free or Die Hard follows the story of working-class, middle-aged cop John McClane, played by Bruce Willis. In the film, it is quickly established that McClane is “the brawn,” so to speak, and the savvy, wealthy antagonist Thomas Gabriel is “the brain.” What I found to be most interesting about Live Free or Die Hard is the fact that in its direct comparison of the low paid cop and ex-FBI member turned top-tier hacker, the film clearly puts more value on McClane’s working-class stature than Gabriel’s elitist intellectualism.

     Throughout the movie, we are given constant reminders of McClane’s out datedness. He is portrayed in terms of his technological illiteracy: in a scene where Gabriel has hacked into a webcam so he can see and speak to McClane, John covers up the camera with his hand and begins formulating a plan with his hacker friend Matt, thinking that Gabriel will no longer be able to hear them if he cannot see them, which Gabriel quickly mocks him for. In contrast, Gabriel’s strength lies solely in his knowledge of computers and how to manipulate them. He is a worthy adversary to McClane and, indeed, the entire FBI. However, his tech-savvy is no match for John’s brute strength: though Gabriel masterminds attacks on McClane time and time again, he is always thwarted by McClane’s physical power. When Gabriel changes the traffic patterns and the timing of the traffic signals in Washington D.C. and sends numerous henchmen to kill him, McClane overpowers them all, even going so far as to launch a car at a helicopter filled with baddies when he "ran out of bullets."

     The overarching slant of Live Free or Die Hard is clearly in McClane's favor: no matter how many times he is outsmarted by Gabriel, he still manages to overcome the odds by way of brute force. While it seems significant that we are rooting for the working-class everyman over the intelligent, technologically advanced programmer, I think this is due to the fact that, as an action movie, it is Live Free or Die Hard's duty to reinforce stereotypical views of violent masculinity as the norm. Do you think Die Hard's portrayal of brawn over brain beaks the mold, or do you think it plays into pre-existing stereotypes?

Wife Swap: Do the Women Really Have a Say?

      What do Gary Busey and Ted Haggard have in common, you might ask? They plan to trade wives for two weeks. Busey and Haggard are slated to appear in an episode of ABC's Wife Swap together, a show in which two families trade wives to "see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence," according to the show's website. The interesting thing about this upcoming celebrity episode is that Haggard is a former Evangelical pastor embroiled in scandal: he was fired from his post at the New Life Church in Colorado after it was discovered that he had been patronizing a male prostitute for three years. It was also discovered that Haggard had engaged in sexual acts with a 20 year old male volunteer at his church and offered to pay him to keep quiet about their affair. Gary Busey has had his fair share of bad publicity as well: he was arrested for cocaine possession after a near fatal overdose and for spousal abuse in 2001.
     Perhaps the most interesting thing about this upcoming episode is that there has been absolutely no mention of either man's wife. Both women have endured tremendous attention due to their husbands' shortcomings, and it seems to me that this is just another publicity stunt meant to attract interest Busey's and Haggard's slowing careers. Especially in Haggard's case, I would argue that his involvement in the show is due to a need to assert his masculinity: although he has come out as bisexual since his scandal, it appears he is using this television show to prove that he will not disappoint his followers by reverting to homosexual urges. On the contrary, he will live with another man's wife for two weeks to show his dedication to living a heterosexual lifestyle. Do you agree? What do you think Busey stands to gain from this publicity?