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Open up any big name magazine at your nearest newsstand and find a half-naked woman lying atop some man dressed to the nines in Armani pinstripes--scotch in one hand; cigar in the other. Flip over a few pages and see pictures of a twenty-one year old pop icon, naked but for a pair of skimpy panties and a few beaded necklaces. In recent years, the media world has done a swift one-eighty degree spin to something that can be described as crass, crude and overtly sexual. A bikini-clad model perched on a shiny, red sports car, licking a monkey wrench, has become as normal as candles on a birthday cake.
In the infamous November 2003 Esquire Magazine interview and photoshoot, Britney Spears talked with savvy journalist Chuck Klosterman. Klosterman writes:
Interviewing Britney Spears is like deposing Bill Clinton: Regardless of the evidence, she does not waver."Why do you dress so provocatively?" I ask. She says she doesn't dress provocatively.
"But look what you're wearing right now," I say, while looking at three inches of her inner thigh, her entire abdomen, and enough cleavage to choke a musk ox.
"This is just a skirt and a top," she responds.
It is not that Britney Spears denies that she is a sexual icon, or that she disputes that American men are fascinated with the concept of the wet-hot virgin, or that she feels her success says nothing about what our society fantasizes about. She doesn't disagree with any of that stuff, because she swears she has never even thought about it. Not even once.
"That's just a weird question," she says. "I don't even want to think about that. That's strange, and I don't think about things like that. Why should I? I don't have to deal with those people. I'm concerned with the kids out there. I'm concerned with the next generation of people. I'm not worried about some guy who's a perv and wants to meet a freaking virgin."
And suddenly, something becomes painfully clear: Either Britney Spears is the least self-aware person I've ever met, or she's way, way savvier than any of us realize.
Or maybe both.
Britney Spears is but one of a new breed of pop tarts and pre-teen idols--gyrating, sashaying (and singing) in revealing, low-cut clothing and getting paid for it. The flip-side to this is the millions of very young, easily-influenced girls buying her albums, playing with their Britney Spears dolls, poring over her photos and mimicking her dance moves. These girls are growing up idolizing superstar Britney Spears and they assume that they should look, act and dress every bit as Britney's image. But what kind of example is she setting for her young fans?
Children are becoming accustomed to blatant displays of sexuality - and who can blame them, as the world has accepted this as the norm. What's more? Some parents approve her as a role model for their young children. In some ways, she has almost become a replacement for parenting. Eleven year-olds can gyrate better than I can!
Top personal branding consultant Peter Montoya said: "She has been so well marketed that the question of her talent is really a non-issue. Like Madonna 20 years ago, Britney Spears is having a major impact on American culture, influencing the way teen-age girls dress, act and think — especially with regards to sex."
According to Britney, she's "concerned with the kids out there"; but as to how she dresses, her sexually-charged music videos and her over-sexualized image in general, she "[doesn't] even want to think about that." There in lies the dilemma.
There is a fundamental issue that is steadily surfacing. Media has brainwashed society to value outward appearances over other qualities such as intelligence and personality. In fact, the individual's intelligence, character, moral worth--or lack thereof--plays not the slightest role in whether they should be (or are) made into a noteworthy icon. The media only considers the amount of skin one is willing to bare; and the more the better. To them, a person has no value unless she can be made to appear visually provocative.
"As a child, I don't remember seeing scantly clad women on the covers of magazines as excessively as today. And I feel it's negative for young boys to grow up thinking that that's the standard of beauty. The long-term repercussions are not good at all." - Nelly Furtado in Rolling Stone magazine
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to me..personally..i think she's just a dumb blonde! (i just re-formated ma pc...but once i get all ma softwares installed..i will upload the pictures to prove between air brushed- images n the reality of Britney)
