7 Year Old Girls Performing Beyonce's Single Ladies?

[susiestar]

Has anyone else seen this? I saw it on the news and it has apparently gotten 2 million hits on YouTube.

These are very talented little girls dressed very provocatively dancing to the Beyonce song "Single Ladies".

I am quite disturbed by this. The dance is VERY sexual in nature, as are the costumes. Why is this not considered child porn? I have a personal problem with many things that sexualize little girls.

These girls are wearing dance costumes that are designed to look like fancy lingerie. in my opinion this goes way beyond the boundaries of acceptable. My child would be pulled out of a program that had outfits like these. Or had moves like these. If I had not been able to see the performance before it was made public I would pull her off the stage. Scene be dipped.

If this were little boys dressed in g-strings making these very sexual moves it would be considered obscene. It would not be "dance" or "art" or performance.

Comparisons have been made between Beyonce dancing this way and the little girls dancing this way. Beyonce was an adult in full control of herself, her fortune and her career. She CHOSE to do this. For her it was a performance. More sexual than I really like to have on screen in my home, but she IS an adult.

these girls are so little. It sets them out as targets, more so than many other dance/cheer routines do. The girls do NOT understand the meaning of the movements. Not really, I hope and pray!

What were the parents of the girls thinking??? Would you want your 7yo daughter to be doing those moves in that outfit in public?? What happened to encouraging ladylike behavior and some modesty in kids? Gentlemanly behavior in boys? I remember the dance routines my childhood bff did. The costumes, routines, etc... They were sparkly and feminine and designed so the girls looked like little girl versions of showgirls (one year). Even so they were not made so the girls looked sexual. Just feminine. Ladylike behavior was encouraged - in those words.

I guess I am woefully out of step with society. cause no way in Hades will my daughter go out in public like that before she is an adult paying her way. Heck, even Jess thinks this should be pulled because it is too much like kiddie porn.

What do y'all think?

 

[donna723]

I saw it and I agree with you 100%! What were those parents thinking? What ever made them think that it's OK to dress up seven year old girls like little hootchie mamas and have them do provocative dance moves like something off of MTV? The whole thing was completely inappropriate for children, but the kids probably didn't have a clue. Next year they'll probably have their little boys dressed up in white collars and bow ties, doing a routine from the Chippendale Dancers, colllecting dollar bills in their little drawers! I personally think people have just gone flamin' nuts lately! And probably half of those millions of hits on Youtube have been from dirty old men who LIKE watching little girls dancing like hootchie mamas! That is disgusting! Sheeesh! When my daughter was that age and had a dance recital, they were dressed like monarch butterflies! We've come a long way ... in the wrong direction. Do you ever watch any of those TV shows about the little girls in beauty pageants? Ever notice how there's really no audience there except for the parents? The reason they restrict attendance to just family and a few friends is because if they open it to the public, all the dirty old men come in off the streets to leer at the little girls!

They talked about it on Good Morning America yesterday and it made me even madder when they had one of the mothers on the phone explaining how this was 'different' and it was 'OK' because this was a dance competition and wasn't intended to be seen by a wide audience! Hey, THIS wouldn't be OK if it was just done in their own living room in front of grandma and grandpa!

 

[DDD]

The exploitation of children for the amusement of adults (family, friends or others) makes mewant to barf! When AMW features missing children I often wonder if there is any guilt felt by those who flaunt their children. Scientifically there may not be a direct connection betweenperverted attacks and the stimuli of child pictures and videos BUT I still remember from sixty years ago that "romance magazines" triggered erotic thoughts for me and many of my littleuniform wearing Catholic schoolmates.Yuk! DDD

 

[DammitJanet]

I just had to go find that video hoping maybe everyone was overreacting. OMG!

We are starting Keyana in dance classes the end of June and no way in H will she be doing that. Im not going to pay for my kid to look and dance like that. Ballet, tap, even jazz or country line dancing is fine. She can learn pole dancing when she is an adult if she so desires. I wont pay for it.

 

[trinityroyal]

O. M. G!

Like Janet, I hadn`t seen the clip and just went to look at it. I could not watch more than 5 seconds. It is sick and wrong, and I too question what on earth these parents could possibly be thinking.

I remember being in dance classes when I was 7. My costumes included things like a sombrero-and-poncho, a tutu, a candy-striped waistcoat with white top hat and slacks. Music was things like Chattanooga Choo Choo and the Mexican Hat Dance. Nothing racy AT ALL, until we were over 16 and even then the performances we did were tame compared to that clip.

Janet, sadly I think that is what passes for `jazz`these days. I hope they don`t try to teach Keyana that sort of thing. Just as I won`t permit it if Baby P ever wants to take dance lessons.

I`m horrified.

 

[KTMom91]

Just looked up the clip, too. What are those parents thinking??? No way Miss KT would have been on stage like that.

I was watching this and said, "Unbelievable...what's wrong with these people?" Hubby asked what I was watching, and I handed him the laptop. He frowned, shook his head, and said, "What IS this?"

 

[JJJ]

I was horrified. I want those parents to meet a girl who was sexually abused as a child. I want them to realize that they are setting their daughters up to be victims. I want the dance "teacher" fired and blackballed from EVER teaching little children again.

 

[DammitJanet]

Whats weird or some other word I cant quite put a name to is that while attempting find this specific clip, I was searching for 7 year olds dancing to this song and I came up with a group of several that were doing it at a school talent show and they were in tee shirts and leggings. Black on black. The tees had some white writing on them but I couldnt make out what they said.

I watched them and thought...if this is what everyone is up in arms about...I dont get it. They were completely covered and danced like 7 year olds. No odd body movements that 7 year olds couldnt pick up off tv. I mean they may have attempted to prance but they pranced like 7 year olds prance.

Then I found THE clip. What a difference.

Cory wont even let me put a bikini on Keyana to swim in and we dont buy her bikini underwear. We buy her hipsters or boy cuts. God help that poor child if she ever wants to buy a thong...her daddy is gonna beat her!

 

[Marguerite]

We had this topic discussed on Australian morning TV too. We had the child psychologists on, the social workers etc. There was nobody to defend the teachers or parents position, I think because we're further removed from it here. But a couple of points were made:

1) The girls are clearly talented dancers. These kids are really good!

2) They are definitely enjoying what they are doing and are totally oblivious to the provocative nature of their dance.

BUT - IT IS WRONG. And such a pity, because these girls ARE talented, that ARE enjoying it, the teacher should be (figuratively) shot for doing this. The moves are clearly sexual when viewed from an adult perspective, and another point the panel made when discussing this - when your kids are in a dance troupe and they are getting ready for a big show or contest, they PRACTICE in the school playground, in the living room, waiting in line at the canteen - anywhere. With absolutely no idea of the ramifications.

Whoever choreographed that piece (and to me it looks like they just watched Beyoncé's video clip and copied it - again, morally questionable artistically) is the person who needs to be given a reality check.

My girls (and difficult child 1) did dance school. The girls went through several dance schools, actually. One of them in particular was trending towards this kind of performance and parents complained. The costumes were often too skimpy and again, the girls complained or the parents did. A sad problem we had with two dance schools especially, was that the enthusiastic 'follow-through' of movement we see in this video clip, was dumbed out of the performances in our girls' dance school because of the attitude of "we mustn't show off". So talented dancers learned to pull back on their performance and not give their all.

I do remember one of the last dance concerts my girls did - easy child did a song and dance number with "I'm a Believer" and easy child 2/difficult child 2 tarted it up big time with "Cabaret". easy child 2/difficult child 2 was 17 at the time, one of the youngest in her group and they all agreed on the choreography and costumes. What they wore and did was sexy, definitely, but they were all decently covered and slinked around the stage, not gyrating with pelvic thrusts.

I was once in a local play where I had to do a strip-tease on stage. It was important to the plot. I was in the early stages of pregnancy with easy child 2/difficult child 2 at the time and managed to do this striptease without actually showing anything more than a one-piece swimsuit would show - I had glammed up the underwear to a black and red corset with black fishnet stockings. A church elder in the front row still left very noisily, and gave me heaps about it publicly at church next day. I pointed out that we live in a town with a beach and he saw more of my flesh when I met him and his wife at the beach for a swim. Also, he had left before the final, moral, ending of the play in which the woman I played reconciles with her husband.

But I was an adult, playing an adult. My girls in tier dance concert were either adults or close enough to it in our legal system plus were not overly provocative.

But these kids - that's a real worry. What are they going to go through as they get older and learn about sexualisation and sexual identity? They have already been taught how to move provocatively, and will not forget it.

Marg

 

[DazedandConfused]

I'm stunned that anyone could think that this an acceptable way for little girls to dress and gyrate.

Once I got beyond those (and it was incredibly difficult), those girls ARE amazing dancers. It can be hard to see how good they are because of the sexualized moves and costumes.

The adults in these girl's lives let them down badly. Shame on them!

 

[witzend]

Excellent dancing. Bad adult supervision.

 

[susiestar]

Not just bad supervision. An adult TAUGHT them to do those moves.

I asked Jessie's opinion. I showed her a clip from the news and she was appalled. Her point of view was that it was clear that they were good dancers, excellent really, so why did anyone feel they needed the sexualized moves and costumes? I think it is a good point. Those were not needed, in fact they have distracted viewers from their talent as dancers.

Jess also says this will follow them forever. If anyone googles them or in jr high or high school looks them up on youtube this will come up. Unless it is removed it is here for life. The girls do NOT deserve to be put in a position where the people at the grocery or the library, or their babysitter's boyfriend will look at them in the sexual light that this performance puts them in.

I was taught to not do anything that would embarrass you if your grandparents saw it. I asked Jess if she would be comfortable finding out her Grandpa had seen her dance like that. She shuddered! No way would she be comfortable with that! IF the girls have any understanding of what the moves and costume represent, I think they would be uncomfortable also.

Poor kids. Their adults must have so little confidence in their abilities to think they had to dance like that in those clothes to have a chance to win.

I hope YouTube removed the clip as child porn. in my opinion it is. The pedophile down the street probably LOVES it.

 

[SRL]

Ugh. That was cringeworthy.

I have a daughter who has been in dance for 8 years, and I kept her out of jazz during those early years because it often does venture into more sexualized moves. I wanted her to be old enough to let me know if something inappropriate was being incorporated into the dances. It also gave me some years of getting to know the teachers and watching the recital performances so I knew how things stood before giving the go ahead.

They are very talented dancers and I can tell you a huge amount of work went into that performance. I feel sorry for those poor girls, not just because of how they were guided but because that video has gone viral.

Those of you with little girlies who love Hannah Montana better check out Miley Cyrus's new video "Can't Be Tamed", so you know what direction her career is moving towards. (Warning: sexually suggestive in nature)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjSG...t&p=75F47BB8776A64A8&playnext_from=PL&index=5

 

[skeeter]

I'm so glad I had boys.............

 

[donna723]

Susie, just pulling it from YouTube won't help - it's all over now. I first saw it on Good Morning America and there's a link to the video on the ABC News website!

I think that's what upsets me the most, that some adult actually taught these kids all these adult dance moves rigiht off of MTV! These little girls were in a dance studio with their teacher up there showing them how to do all this, practicing over and over again, and the teacher probably came up with those "lingerie" costumes too! And then the parents all thought it was OK and didn't see anything wrong with it? It's just mind boggling!

 

[JJJ]

What state was this in?

 

[DammitJanet]

Ok, kill me now if I am wrong but I think this clip is adorable and I would love it if Keyana could dance this well!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W4cnV29DKQ

 

[Shari]

I am very worried about where this world is heading...

13 used to be the new 17. Now 7 is the new 13?

Someone made the point about this not being just for grandma and grandpa to view. What would grandma and grandpa think if they saw it????? OMG. I'd be embarrassed to show it to my parents if that was my kid.

Yuck.

Janet, I could see the rumba goiing terribly wrong, too. lol But at the hands of an adult.... these kids don't look like anyone has emphasized the bumping and grinding...they seem to know the basic moves. Akin to us teaching our kids to 2 step, I suppose.

 

[SRL]

Good article about the clip in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...05/14/AR2010051404324.html?hpid=moreheadlines

 

[Shari]

Has Beyonce made any statements about this? I'd think she would even find this disturbing.