On the Rise of the Superficial, the Eclipse of Substance and the Sexualization of Little Girls
One woman to another at a cocktail party: Fill me in – who’s detox and who’s botox?
How delicious the irony that it’s impossible to gauge the full extent of Hollywood’s reaction to its first big Botox scandal. That would be because the facial muscles of so many of its residents have been so paralyzed by the potentially deadly toxin that they can’t register much of a reaction to anything. (SP1)
A dermatologist-to-the-stars and a Botox distributor are being sued, one of the claims being that all risks of Botox injections were not disclosed, among them that
Botox could spread from the point of injection to other parts of her body (SP1).
Can you visualize lips on the hips? Or would that show lack of empathy on my part?
. . . . in its natural state, botulinum toxin is the deadliest substance known to science-100,000 times worse than sarin. . . . if the stuff were to be unearthed in Iraq, . . . it would be deemed a “weapon of mass destruction” (Saturday Post, Apr. 19, 03 SP1)
The whole thing elicits a mean-spirited little snicker from most of us (the plainer ones, anyway). Serves them right for not being able to see beauty in any but the unlined, vapid face! Fear of the side effects, to say nothing of the potential pain, may have kept most of us au naturel, but this striving for youthful appearance does highlight an aspect of our society which deserves some thought.
We have all been suckered into concern with the superficial rather than the substance and seldom question the enormous drawing power of charisma, as opposed to the lack of drawing power of exemplary character. The pervasiveness of the public obeisance to a kind of beauty – of youth, unlined skin, facile attraction -- is such that most of us don’t even notice it any more. It just is. (Facile attraction: I thought of a former charismatic politician -- and Slick Willie.)
Nevertheless, it should concern us that this is the result of years of a deterioration in respect accorded everything that used to hold society together: the desirability of strong families and cohesive communities held together by common attitudes about what is and is not appropriate, some belief in a higher good that transcends the self, and a general belief that education leads to a rich inner life, not a higher value in the marketplace.
When a newspaper expects to be taken seriously, its editors should consider the effect of the photographs and the seeming acceptance of the marketing of products aimed specifically at children (Read the details of “kidfluence” – and the availability of a mini-thong even!) in This ain’t OshKosh B’Gosh by Lianne George. (SP1,7,8). The article revealed little outrage at the idea of the creation of little buyers of tween products who will become big buyers of teen products who will eventually see a day shopping at the mall as a legitimate leisure pursuit. Then they can start the cycle all over again with their own offspring!
There is even a therapist quoted, explaining the tweens’ fascination with teenagers
When tweens are looking at teenagers, . . . onscreen, they’re looking at glamour. They’re looking at sex, or sex appeal. They’re looking at a liberated lifestyle. They perceive well-known people like Britney Spears as not having to follow as many rules, not having to do homework. That’s very appealing.
Sex appeal and tweens? Can you visualize the six-year-old LA child described, shopping where Britney Spears shops – in a boutique, no less! Our magazines, television, internet, music and music channels (particularly) are robbing our children of the right to be children, not little consumers. Parents, whose own values are so geared to teenage values of “youth, beauty, vitality, self-indulgence, and infinite possibility”, nevertheless have a parental responsibility to leave behind the values of teenagers when they become parents. They have the responsibility–the duty–to rage against and fight the marketing to and sexualization of children. (Check the page 1 picture; see what you think.) Midriff bared, flower fastened to the bust area, the child is representative of the age 9-14 tweens, a marketing man’s dream because she herself has, or has influence over, billions of dollars in buying power. And that, it seems, is all that matters – not what is being done to her right to a childhood.
There is sexualization of children at an earlier and earlier age. The above-mentioned article and the attitude it reveals contribute to it. Did anyone else think of Jon Benet Ramsay when looking at the child pictured on the front page of the Saturday Post? I am outraged by the fact that any parent would paint and dress a 5-6 year old like Jon Benet, teach her to vamp, put her in beauty pageants that, to some of us, look like the first steps in training little girls in the arts of the kiddies’ bordello.
Little girls are learning to strive for the current trappings of beauty or popularity before learning enough in school to reason – or to develop the rudiments of an education that could enrich their lives – or to understand that the kiddie paint and fashion give off signals to the opposite sex better left for much later. Does anyone care enough to rage against it? The article mentioned here is simply representative, not the only nor the worst example, of the ways we have failed children – leading to a situation where accomplishment is being degraded while superficial cloaking becomes all important.
It is as though Pretty Baby stepped out of her New Orleans' brothel and into your daughter's bedroom as a role model.
To Saddam: the one virgin you should have courted was Cassandra, who could have forseen it all.
