The other day I was talking to my sister, and I could hear my niece in the background chatting it up with some friends about a school project they were doing. They were gathering photos of different people who they felt were role models to kids their age. The girls were giggling and talking about different celebrities (most I had never heard of) as well as their teachers and a few other people. My niece was very insistent that one of the role models be her mother because that’s who she looked up to the most. The girls decided to take a vote on who could be on the collage and who couldn’t. Ultimately, my sister was voted out. But Hannah Montana was in. Later on that night, I spoke to my niece about the project, and her overall feelings about the selections they had made. She quickly made it clear to me that she did not agree with most of the choices the other girls had made, but it was a group project so she went along. She felt she could better express herself in the individual assignment where she had to write about her role models, heroes and other people who inspired her to do better. She made it very clear to me that “an actor is an actor” and not someone she admires.
Well, shit. If an 8 year old can figure that out, how come so many parents can’t?
I remember when I first hear Jamie Lynn Spears was pregnant, and the uproar that came with it. Parents wanted her show cancelled, they wanted Nickleodeon to remove repeats from the air. They wanted this and that and this and that. It was all over news, the internet, the paper and magazines. Why? Because she is an actress on TV who got caught doing what so many other kids her age are doing?
Meanwhile around the same time, Miley Cyrus and her family were also appearing everywhere proclaiming how normal they were. How Miley would never be another statistic. Her parents watch over her so closely and treat her like any other kid. She gets grounded… she gets an allowance… A perfect little girl. The girl next door. An everyday teenager.
Her popularity was soaring, parents were paying arms and legs and their first born so that their children could see her concerts. It was crazy. Kids were hootin’ and hollerin’ about how she was such a role model to girls.
It wasn’t very long after that that someone began leaking pictures from Miley’s MySpace. At first they were innocent pictures, but they quickly became much more than that. I’ll just say this, if my child ever took a picture of herself in her panties, in her bed, in a see through t-shirt up, pulled up to reveal her “stomach” with hard nipples, I would knock her ass into next year. Without a doubt. And these are pictures she is taking herself, with what appears to be a cell phone.
But you notice… there hasn’t been a peep about it. No reports of it in the media. No one boycotting her show… and these pictures are everywhere. A friend of mine sent them to her conservative mother and the mother said “that’s her adjusting to the demands of the media”. Hmmm ok.
She went from being cute, to wearing heels higher than I wear. Skirts shorter than I wear; More make up than I wear. And now she is taking pictures and posting them for the world to see. A cry for help? Maybe? Clearly her parents are too busy counting the cash to check what their very own child is posting on her MySpace.
I guess she is just like the average teen after all.
