Eight-year-old Nada Abougad sings along to her Britney Spears tape on a My First Sony Karaoke player, almost daily. She scolds if no one calls her to watch You Drive Me Crazy or any Spears music video play on MTV. She idolizes Spears, as do many young girls and boys.
The rise of teen stars such as Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson, who frequently dress and act much older than their ages suggest, has stirred a murmur of national controversy recently.
This week’s issue of Time magazine deemed the 18-year-old Spears the queen of pop tartiness and an already-too-precocious teen. Her lingerie-clad appearance on the February 26, 1999, Rolling Stone cover was called Lolita-esque, by the magazine in July 1999. People magazine’s cover story last week entitled Too Sexy Too Soon, examined Spears’ risqu? image, including the widely-circulated rumor that the young pop singer had breast implants last year. She denied the claim.
Some college-aged observers have sympathy for the stars.
I feel they’re thrown into a world that’s above their maturity level, GW freshman Lynn Caruso said. Like at New Year’s they were around people not their age.
Still other students questioned if any parent would let their child pick up a copy of the Rolling Stone, with a teen star posing in a seductive stance.
(Young teens) think it’s the idea of what a teenager is like, and they are trying to imitate them to feel older, freshman Johnathan Montgomery said.
Yet the new crop of teen vixens continue to reign despite concerns from older listeners. Spears’ brother Bryan reportedly urged her to put on more clothes, according to the recent People story. At the American Music Awards, her dress was so revealing her cleavage nearly popped out. According to fan Web site Carsondaly.com, the popular MTV VJ has also made comments on Spears revealing her upper half.
I love that part where Britney Spears leans over in the chair, he is quoted as saying. It’s all about the cleavage!
Similar sentiment has been brewing over Sabrina the Teenage Witch’s star Melissa Joan Hart and her half-naked appearance on the cover of Maxim magazine. The 21-year-old is the main character in a series geared toward teenagers.
We both decided that we liked our decisions, and we just had to stand up to them, Spears said in a recent article about her friend Hart and their appearances.
Spears and Hart have justified their open style of dress by saying they are merely playing a part. Spears said she doesn’t dress like that in real life. And it’s nice to feel sexy, she said in an article.
On MTV’s Total Request Live, viewers e-mail and call nationwide to request Aguilera and Spears videos because they are so hot.
I think it’s wrong the way we idolize them and their silicone-filled bodies. It’s just wrong, says freshman Rachel Miller. Would they be as popular if they didn’t have their accessories?
People sit on MTV’s flower-patterned couches and are quick to judge the young performers, said GW English Professor Gayle Wald, who researches the role of women in music. Female sexuality has always existed in society, she said, especially in the sexualization of female performers. Selling an image is not a new idea, she said. From Marilyn Monroe to Jennifer Lopez, women have expressed sexuality openly in their performances, attitudes and images. But what triggers the arguments and judgments is the youth of these new performers and the youth of their target audiences.
Adults and parents are quick to judge without trying to understand what these singers’ fans see in them, Wald said. The target audience always has a different way of explaining things.
Aguilera and Spears are perceived as being cute and in control by their fans, she said. Their tunes are catchy and the words are easy. The songs also have tame subject matters as they talk about puppy love, not dirty sex. Fans seem to relate to what these young artists are portraying, according to her research.
I think it represents the contradictions in culture, Wald said. She said the anxiety and moral panic formed around these young women comes from adults and parents who are trying to police girls’ sexuality.
Sexuality has always been a controversial issue. Teens often find themselves receiving mixed messages concerning what is right and wrong, and normal and abnormal, she said. Yet society itself is geared around sexuality. Pop culture re-focuses the same values on teen audiences.
We shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not shy, Wald said. It is part of performing what they are experiencing. They are representing something real.
