CAUSE I LIKED THE VIEW: As Danger Guerrero notes, Disney's recent track record in choosing young women has not led to an exemplary slate of role models.
(That said, I wouldn't include Vanessa Hudgens on the list. The pictures were private, and it's not her fault some cad released them.)
I'm not sure why Hilary Duff's on the list either. I don't think one suggestive scene in a movie merits getting lumped alongside Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears.
ReplyDeleteSo, take away women who are only on that list because they make their sexuality apparent in some way, you're left with Britney and Lindsey, the former of whom has apparently gotten her stuff together. So, the listicle says more about the poster's puritanism than any actual judgments about who is a good role model.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Xtina's just been inconsistent. That's no vice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Benner, although I think the poster does have it right about the awfulness of the kid in the video in the Hudgens section. I wish I could un-watch that.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind Uproxx, and actually I like Warming Glow, but that article is pretty typical of Uproxx's willingness to stretch the facts to make an argument (pot calling kettle black, I know).
ReplyDeleteBritney and Cristina were in a Disney show, sure, but it's not like that show had penetrated the popular consciousness at all while they were on it. They don't seem to have been picked for their looks -- my guess is they were picked because they had stage parents and could carry a tune. And I've never seen anything that suggested that they were sexualized while they were under Disney's control. It was only later, when Britney signed to Jive and Cristina signed to RCA, that their "glamming up," as Guerrero puts it, happened.
Lohan, her descent began when she was still working for Disney, that's true. By the time she was finishing what I think was a three-picture commitment to Disney, she was driving the crew of Herbie: Fully Loaded nuts with her absences and petulance. But again, you can't blame Disney for any of that. The pictures people always show from Parent Trap are of an age-appropriate tween, not some tarted up Lolita, and I don't remember ever seeing anything from Freaky Friday that's age-inappropriate either. I'm open to being corrected here, but I don't think I've ever seen anything suggesting that she was picked based on some kind of projection of future vixenhood as opposed to being a cute kid whose degenerate parents rode her fame into shared Hollywood decadence. And by the way, before H:FL, Lohan did her one good movie, Mean Girls, the point of which was exactly the opposite of Guerrero's point: it was about a girl who had missed the hypersexualization of other girls her age.
Duff, I agree with StvMg. So as an adult she took a role where she bared her midriff. Stone her! Yeah, she's dated rock stars, and I always assume that people who are or date rock stars have some skeletons in their closets, but if that's true of Duff, she's done a pretty amazing job of hiding it, which is really all we have a right to ask.
I'll actually give Guerrero Hudgens. I guess I'm more of a prude than Adam, but I like to cling to my naive view that most 18-ish girls are not emailing naked cell-phone pics of themselves to their boyfriends, reasonable expectation of privacy or not. That qualifies as bad role modelhood.
Miley Cyrus, I think, seems like a horrible person and a terrible role model (if I had a 15-year-old daughter, I would not want her dating a string of men in their early to mid-twenties, i.e., pedophiles, for example), and is the worst actress and singer on the list as well, which ought to count for something. But I disagree with Guerrero on one point: Cyrus was not chosen for her looks. She was a homely child and is now a homely fake-adult. She was chosen because her father was modestly famous, had connections, and was willing to be a stage parent.
I have a lot to say about Guerrero's argument below, but I do agree with the premise that hypersexualizing a child is a bad thing. You don't need to be a puritan to say that it's okay for adults (men and women) to create a sexual public image while at the same time saying that it's wrong for adults to project a sexual public image on children.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with your premise, Isaac, but Christina didn't release her first album until she was over 18 (and didn't really become hypersexualized until the Dirrrty video when she was 21) and Duff was never really hypersexualized at all. Your point stands with Cyrus, though.
ReplyDeleteNo, I agree with you in the particulars of Guerrero's argument. I was just disagreeing with Benner's argument that Guerrero's point was based on the notion that sexuality=sluttiness. I think he was making an argument about the sexualization of young girls that doesn't hold up under scrutiny of the facts.
ReplyDeleteWhile I certainly hope that my daughters will not be emailing naked pictures of themselves when they're teenagers, I think the sad reality is that there ARE quite a few of them doing it. But I grant you that still makes her a bad role model. On the other hand, my daughters (all under age 9) are completely unaware of those pictures, and just see her as Gabriella, who isn't a terrible role model (smart girl gets the hot guy... okay, it doesn't hurt that she's also pretty)
ReplyDeleteI totally give you Miley Cyrus. My girls are fans because of watching Hannah Montana, but now I'm afraid they're going to want her new album. The commercials for it make me cringe, and I want to change the channel before my kids can see it. I don't want them to see Hannah/Miley like that. At least as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana her outfits are generally age appropriate, and her dance moves aren't anything that would make me blush if my daughters started copying them.
Isaac, I agree that's the better argument, but then the appropriate targets would be the parents and managers. By including weak examples, examples with minimal connection to Disney, and examples were the shit went wrong once over 18, it takes away what could be a decent, particularized arguments and makes it seem like "nice girls don't do x." So if the argument is that any singer who dresses in a provocative way is a bad role model, yawn, we had that debate with Madonna, and probably Annette Funicello. If it's, "don't dress your kid up like Miley Cyrus's latest," or the Britney "Baby one more time" video, I totally agree, but why bring Duff or Hudgens into that?
ReplyDeleteI think part of the issue is that in order to be perceived as "grown up" actresses and shed the Disney trappings, they feel they have to do something extreme and overtly "adult," which for women ttypically means something sexual. (I'm also surprised that they didn't mention Duff's Gossip Girl arc, in which her having a threesome was a major plot point and was shown in CW style--much heaving/kissing.)
ReplyDeleteI don't think Guerrero is saying that there's anything wrong with grown-ups being sexy. Maybe I say that because I've seen his work on WithLeather, a site that uses any sports-related excuse to post a picture of a half-naked woman. I think his argument is about the sexualization of children. As you can see below, I'm not willing to defend his article, because it is based on falsification of the facts (as you also mention). As bad as his article is, though, it's not accurate to suggest that he's some kind of modern puritan railing against the overt sexuality of modern adult women. He was just pretending that modern adult women were children for the purpose of constructing an argument about the sexualization of children.
ReplyDeletethen there may be an element of mysogyny -- wanting to gawk at sexy women, while at the same time condemning them as bad role models. or double standard, whatever. where he lost me completely was the claim that he hoped any daughter of his be a nerd, as if nerds wouldn't be tempted to tart themselves up in response to cultural stimulii (i refer him to the battle of 1993 wherein i, nerd, sought to grow my hair in the manner of Kurt Cobain). and i don't think it's fair to say he's pretending adult women are children for the purpose of that argument; he's suggesting that adult women who used to be children and achieved fame as such must therefore remain so or else get codemned as whores.
ReplyDeleteI'd also suggest the bigger issue with Miley Cyrus is that what she's doing is more boring than anything else -- it's as though she's trying to be some sort of sex kitten because that's the next phase in the development of an "artist." The whole thing just seems fake, like her entire career.
It may well be impossible to impose a cogent thesis on Guerrero's article, so probably we should stop trying just for the sake of figuring out the best way to agree that it makes no sense.
ReplyDelete<span><span>(I'm also surprised that they didn't mention Duff's Gossip Girl arc, in which her having a threesome was a major plot point and was shown in CW style--much heaving/kissing.)</span>
ReplyDeleteWhy wasn't I told about this???
(Kidding...sort of.) And I agree that movie and tv roles shouldn't count. Hillary seems to have a normal, scandal-free life...isn't she married now?</span>