суббота, 6 октября 2007 г.

coinoperated (in feministvoice): "Hit her, baby, one more time" Britney as a representation of a prevalent trait in our culture

I found this piece on salon.com some time ago, and posted it somewhere else at the time, but thought it would fit here.

Here's the link: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/09/12/britney_vma/index.html

And here's an excerpt:

Who can believe that there is anything more to say about Britney Spears at this point? But, alas, there is. Spears has come to represent something -- something important enough that it keeps rearing its head. As has been pointed out before, she embodies the disdain in which this culture holds its young women: the desire to sexualize and spoil them while young, and to degrade and punish them as they get older. Of course, she also represents a youthful feminine willingness -- stupid or manipulated as it may be -- to conform to the culture's every humiliating expectation of her.

What happened to Spears, and what she chose to do to herself, this weekend was actually pretty hard to watch -- a gross example of exactly how much malicious satisfaction we get out of the embarrassing weakness of an addictive, postpartum, out-of-control mess of a human being. But as sad as anything is that the young musician shows zero interest in making it stop.

...

She embodies the disdain in which this culture holds its young women: the desire to sexualize and spoil them while young, and to degrade and punish them as they get older.

I think that this is an aspect of our society that is becoming ever more prevalent. We almost demand that our young women flaunt themselves for our enjoyment, and the moment they let their beautiful façade slip, they incur our full wrath. No longer is beauty within or in the eye of the beholder - now, it's only about how much flesh is on display and how that flesh meets our 'criteria'.

Men don't have to endure the same 'standards' but that was not the intention of highlighting this piece. My point was to say that NO ONE should have to endure these standards.

As the author of the piece says:

And so it continues, the nauseating spiral.

(Cross-posted to relevant communities.)

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