Nice to know I’m not the only one with a negative critique (also published in On Line Opinion Friday)of the Lady Gaga machine. Here’s an extract from a piece by Jim Schumacher and Debbie Bookchin titled ‘What’s Next From Lady Gaga: A snuff film?’ recently published on Huffington Post:
What if glitzy Lady Gaga is exactly what she appears to be: The latest manifestation of a culture industry that pushes the boundaries of civility and sexuality to the extreme in order to make a buck? And worse, pushes it on our kids long before they want or need to be presented with some middle-aged ad executive’s personal sadomasochistic sexual fantasies?
With all the press it’s getting, Lady Gaga’s latest video offering (‘Telephone’) hardly needs elaboration here: Naked girl-on-girl-in-prison soft porn sprinkled with violence, a mass murder fantasy and, of course, ample product placement. Ms. Gaga manages to foist it on our kids in the name of “art” with the tacit approval of culture critics who apparently fear political incorrectness if they go against the trend.
Lady Gaga may be a talented singer and pianist, but when she makes the jump from wild theatrics and sexually-charged lyrics to releasing a video soaked in sexploitation–the complete reification of women as sexual objects in accordance with pornographic stereotypes that the women’s movement thought it had put to rest 30 years ago–doesn’t someone have to stand up to the Gaga juggernaut and ask if this is really art…>more
The Sydney concerts included a clip of Gaga being vomited on by another woman, her bathing in blood and visual references to group sex and sadomasochism. She also invited the audience to show her their cocks. Some parents were taken by surprise though you have to wonder what planet they’ve been living on, to think Gaga’s porn-inspired violence-celebrating performance (which she told Nova Radio last night came to her as a “vision from God”) might be a fun night out for a nine-year-old.
Scott Mackillop in The Punch also questioned the presence of children at the concerts.
Meanwhile, NSW Labor Whip Greg Donnelly was lambasted for a speech on the effects of sexualisation, referencing Gaga. The Sunday Telegraph called his speech bizarre and Liberal MP Catherine Cusack took him to task.
A woman I am privileged to call friend, Maggie Hamilton, author of What’s Happening to Our Girls (and the soon to be released What’s Happening to Our Boys) responded with this letter to the Sydney Morning Herald:
For the thousands of teachers, school counsellors, child psychologists, sexual assault support services, police, and emergency staff dealing with the fallout of our highly sexualised youth culture, it’s dismaying to discover that a number of NSW parliamentarians continue to shy away from hearing the hard facts. One in ten teenagers is now cutting. Every weekend girls as young as 12 are being admitted to emergency wards so drunk they can’t breathe, often having had sex. The explosion of underage sex and the resulting sexually transmitted infections has caused a huge rise in chlamydia amongst other things, to the point that adolescent health expert Professor David Bennett says we could be facing the most infertile generation of young women in history. Sexting is now impacting little girls as young as eight who are taking inappropriate photos of themselves and distributing them amongst peers. Sadly, the examples are endless. These and other trends are putting a strain on our education system, policing and hospitals. Daily professionals battle to keep our kids safe, turn our kids round, rescue them when they get hurt. The longer these parliamentarians and other adults fail to get up to speed with the twenty-first century realities, the more our kids remain vulnerable.
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The Huffington Post piece amused me greatly as Debbie Bookchin was immediately caught out. This from her last piece; “One summer afternoon, forty years ago, I announced to my mom that I was leaving our New York City apartment and heading up to Woodstock for the three-day music and arts festival. I was 13 years old at the time.[… ]Like most people who attended Woodstock, I had my share of adventures: By the first day of the concert I’d lost my moccasins and went around barefoot the rest of the time; the second day I noticed an acquaintance, Alan Wilson from the band Canned Heat, walking across a bridge to the performers area. I let him drag me up the scaffolding — against the security guards pulling at my ankles – so that I could hang out in the backstage area…”
Ah, when 13 year olds hung around backstage at a music festival in 1969 filled with free sex, LSD and weed it was a political statement. When a 13 year old goes to a Lady Gaga in concert in 2010 its pure filth! Get off my lawn you kids! Blah, blah, blah… The hypocrisy is astounding.
There’s also the issue of parents letting a child under 15 go to such a concert. Seriously, the job of the parent is up to the parent. It’s not like Lady Gaga is some underground artist, she’s everywhere in the media. If parents can take five minutes to do a bit of research, well I have absolutely no sympathy for them. Record companies and artists like Lady Gaga are out to make money (what you mean it’s not art? It’s not a feminist statement? Shock! Horror!). They aren’t there to provide role models for your children or to baby sit. No entertainment industry is.
I also take offence at the suggestion that somehow young people are so dumb and are so lacking of free will that they will be influenced and follow Lady Gaga unquestioningly like a pack of zombies. I recall my generation wasn’t that stupid, and neither where the ones before or after. Blaming the media and pop culture for social problems is a load of rubbish.
Do you know where I can find sources to your friend, Maggie Hamilton’s claims at the end of this article?
I looked up Professor David Bennett, but he doesn’t seem to have published anything on sexually transmitted disease for quite some time:
http://www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/people/academics/publications/davidb3.php
A frequent colleague of his, Dr Melissa Kang, appears to have published things more recently:
http://www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/people/academics/publications/mkang.php
However, going by this article by her on Online Opinion, I think she would have a far different interpretation to the problem than has been presented here.
http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3266
I’m not questioning that the rate of Chlamydia infection is on the rise, I’ve seen this news report as well (where Dr Kang appears to be a source):
http://abc.gov.au/news/stories/2007/10/08/2054036.htm?site=news
I’m looking for a source on the connection of the rise to ‘youth sexualisation’. An older report I saw from 2002 showed the Chlamydia infection rates in Australian schools wasn’t high, but was much higher among similarly aged young people who had left school early. There seemed to be a correlation between social disadvantage and infection rates. They did point out a steady rise since the last government education campaigns from the 1980s.
One thing i’ve noticed in this debate, particularly online, is how views are constantly misrepresented, resulting in a very pointless “conversation.” One way to misrepresent is to over-simplify it. For example “kids aren’t going to rush out and prostitute themselves because of a lady gaga concert”…..”kids aren’t going to start having sex because of billboards”……”i listened to madonna when i was younger and i turned out fine.”
Well things are different now. It’s not the same as decades ago. It’s not simple, it’s complex. Human beings are complex and culture is complex. But there is significant data to show that those who are concerned about the sexualisation of children have concerns that are consistent with the evidence. It’s not about thinking that children are “dumb” it’s about responding to the evidence for harm.
I suggest that those who are still confused about the issues, look at the following:
The American Psychological Association’s report on the sexualisation of girls.
http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-summary.pdf
The Australia Institutes report, “Corporate Paedophilia: sexualisation of children in Australia”
http://www.portadimassa.net/site/files/upload/pdf/DP90.pdf
Sexualisation of young people: review
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/Sexualisation-of-young-people.html
Dear Arved,
Thanks for your query. Professor David Bennett hasn’t done a study I’m
aware of in the last two or three years, but as a practitioner in the
adolescent health area is on record as having made this comment. He
also refers to this generation of girls as the ivf generation.
You’re right Melissa Kang has done research recently.
Chlamydia is rising steadily 10% in 2008.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/unprotected-sex-blamed
-as-infection-rises-20090908-fg3g.html
Thank you Kelly,
The ‘I turned out alright’ isn’t a responsible or helpful way to protect our children and their future… the evidence is overwhelming, we need to fight hard for our kids before it gets any worse.
I wanted to post something of mine but if I could also add to a comment above. Obviously the majority of girls are not going to go prostitute themselves (as if child prostitution is a choice?) because of 1 clip or 1 billboard. But this is the FISRT generation where they are totally saturated in media. Between TV and movies, video games, music, the internet, print media, social networking and chat sites, mobile phones etc there are so many more avenues available to girls and boys to be exposed to certain attitudes and images.
I watched to recent interview with Greg Donnely and Catherine Cusack and had to let my feeligs about it be known! So I emailed Pru Goward, as the shadow minister for women the following email:
Dear Pru,
As shadow minister for women, I feel the need to contact you to articulate my horror at the blatant disregard for women and girl’s experiences that, to me, Ms Cusack showed this morning.
Rape is a reality to so many women. But rape is not just the attacks of a random men on women. Date rape is more common than rape by strangers in this state. Not only is the physical abuse of men in relationships an issue but the mental and psychological abuse that many of us are living with is a reality and I personally believe that the minimisation and the disregard for the way women are being portrayed in popular culture has a large role in this.
So lady ga-ga is only one part of this culture, but when you have so many just little parts they add up to the big picture and the big picture is that there is this generation of males that think getting what they want must be put before the right thing. I have worked with girls as young as 12 who are pregnant, they are having sex because if they don’t than there is another girl who will and he will get it from somewhere. My 9 year old (yes NINE) daughter come home from school last Thursday in tears because she got dumped by her boyfriend because she wouldn’t kiss him on the lips and by lunchtime he had another girlfriend. These are children 9 and 10 years olds who are learning this behaviour from somewhere.
I personally am going through the trauma of being emotionally abused in my last relationship for 2 years. I didn’t know what this real was until I finally realised there was something wrong with me and had to seek counselling. This man, the man that was supposed to love me had no issue with minimising what I was feeling and how I was reacting to his actions. he felt it was okay to make me feel anything but stable in the relationship and when I would dare question him on this I was either ignored or berated with degrading words like bitch and slut. Males are learning this from somewhere!
Please, I know that the language that was used was not what we are used to, but that is the real world. Rainbow parties of both kinds, friends with benefits and teenagers thinking anything but penis to vagina sex is okay because it is not real sex is what our children are living with. Log into a chat site and you will see the discussions being undertaken by men of all ages regarding their desires to well I know you can imagine what they will say.
I am a woman, just as you are and I am begging you from one woman to another to have the courage to stand up for the realities that we live in. yes we have some so far in the last 30 years for women and I am ever so grateful that myself and my daughter live in Australia in 2010 rather than any other country or time but this is also a part of the world. Our children are growing up in a time where its normal to see borderline pornographic music clips (and the Lady Ga-Ga clip is actually banned from MTV for being to sexualised) and lets be honest dumb blonde bimbos making fools of them selves on saturday morning TV. This is not a positive influence on any little girl and I can only imagine what these messages are doing to boys and how these will influence their behaviours as teens and adults.
And this was the response I got:
Dear Ms Lane
Thank you for your email, Pru did not hear Catherine’s interview but has spoken to her about it subsequently.
Both Catherine C and Pru agree with your analysis of rape and share your concerns about the sexualisation of girls. However we can never agree that men have the right to rape women because they dress inappropriately, which Catherine Cusack argued was the implication of Greg Donnelly’s remarks, either fairly or unfairly. Pru apologises if you have been offended, absolutely agrees with you about the concerning changes in social and sexual mores for young children and regrets that Catherine Cusack’s remarks offended you when no offence was meant. Catherine herself is disappointed that she has been unsuccessful in the way she argued her case.
yours sincerely
X
Quite an interesting relpy although I would never have thought anyone (even a man) would say that there is a right to rape!
Once again keep up the good work Melinda
Jenn