You’re all no doubt aware about how Britney Spears has become the “whipping girl” for provocatively dressed singers or whatever. And parents (always the parents) are outraged because she’s inciting girls to wear sexy clothing that makes them look slutty etc. etc.
Just one question…why is this news?
Elvis Presley wasn’t nicknamed “the pelvis” for nothing. None of the 70’s teen heartthrobs shied away from, er, certain imagery. Madonna Ciccone built her entire career around her innate provocativeness (somehow, everything seemed ten times more scandalous when she did it) George Michael also has left very little to the imagination…he even had a hit called “I Want Your Sex”! (Complete with the lingerie model in the video…guess he never wants to do a halfway job.) Both Divinyls and Right Said Fred might not even be known as flashes in the pan were it not for good 'ol sex appeal. Paula Abdul? Michael Bolton? Janet Jackson? Sex appeal, or at least the appearance of it, a-plenty.
My point is, has there EVER been a point in the history of American pop music where singers haven’t tried to exploit their sexuality? And for that matter, what’s the big deal, anyway? Come a couple of years, I don’t think anyone will have to worry about their kids wanting to be like Britney Spears. (Heard from the Spice Girls lately?)
I think Spears’ age has caused her to be singled out for more abuse than others. Elvis exploited his sexuality too, but was considered old enough that he could do that acceptably. Spears started at what, fifteen?
Not that Elvis didn’t have his share of prudish detractors too, despite his physical maturity.
I think part of it has to do with her being 13 or however ‘old’ she was when she became famous. How old is she now? Mentally, she acts about 12, but then again she’s blonde, so I’m not sure how that works.
Now, you have pre teenagers wanting to dress like whores, which tends to grate on parent’s nerves, not surprisingly.
I think what’s supposedly “new” is that she’s younger than most, if not all, of the aforementioned performers were.
I, for one, don’t care what she wears. She’s not my kid sister. (My actual kid sister is too far off in her own world to notice how Britney, etc. dress.) And her voice isn’t terrible. It’s those freakin’ lyrics I can’t stand.
What the parents should be concerned with is…where are the too-young-to-get-a-job set getting trashy clothes? Trashy clothes don’t come cheap, y’know.
Divinyls? Are we thinking the same band here? While Chrissy certainly played it up, there’s no way the Divinyls would ever be considered a flash in the pan.
tavalla, I hate to break this to you since you obviously like the Divinyls a lot, but more people I know agree with DKW’s assessment of them than with yours.
Ugh, Britney Spears. I’m 18 years old…my main problem with her lies not in her (fiendishly horrific) style of dress, but her lack of talent.
Her voice grates on my nerves, but she’s what sells now, so I guess I can respect (hah!) her music for being what it is: a money-making device, rather than art.
I just hope she doesn’t keep “reinventing” herself, like another certain pop-tart (though I think Madonna had a little bit more to go on that the Divine Miss B).
Perhaps it’s because she’s always harping on the fact that she’s a “virgin” who wants to wait until she’s married, and that she’s such a goody little girl.
Anyone read the article on her in Rolling Stone? Blargghhh. I think she blew her “I’m a virgin” cover, because the article talks about how her boyfriend lives with her, and she walks around naked all the time. Granted, walking around in yer birthday suit doesn’t make ya a superslut, but everyone I know that lives with their SO also has sex with them. There may be exceptions to that ‘rule’, but I doubt there are many.
As far as I know, “I Touch Myself” was the only hit the Divnyls ever had over here. I knew of them beforehand, but that was only because I had a good friend who embraces the punk movement back in the late '70s/early '80s…not that The Divinyls are punk, but he thought that was a cool name!
In Australia, maybe. But as hard as it is to believe, not everything or everyone that was quite big in Australia is that big across the other side of the Pond. I think the only claim to fame that the Divinyls have in the US is for ‘I Touch Myself’.
Brittney Spears is nothing but a disney robot. Sometime in the future Disney will sell individual SpearBots to the public, I’ll buy one, providing it has a mute button.
I think one of the problems which parents have is the way in which Ms. Spears is marketeed. For example, there is a Britney Spears lunchbox available. So her target market, at least in this instance, is kids of the age who carry lunchboxes. AFAIK this is typically pre-teens.
Of course, IMHO, any parent who lets their pre-teen daughter dress like Brittany should have their license revoked.
This is actually part of something my father predicted back when he was a radio DJ at the start of Elvis’s career. Elvis made (or was part of) a profound change in popular music. Up to that point, the entire family would gather around the radio and listen to the same music–kids, parents, and grandparents. They all liked the same performers. There were some exceptions, but basically a family would be fairly homogenous in their musical taste.
Once Elvis et al. showed up, there began to be a more marked stratification between different age groups. The older crowd still listened to Sinatra et al., while those dang kids started listening to that rock and roll…
