People are up in arms now about kids acting in violent home youtube movies or dancing this way or being in pageants. Ok, but why arent they up in arms about the professional kid actors who are in movies who get made up to work in violent movies or other types of movies? I guess its okay if they get paid?
Janet, bandwagon theory doesn't apply to us here. We've been through this with the local dance school, only what they were doing was nowhere near as extreme as this (costume-wise as well as dance move-wise).
I take your point about the costumes alone not being that bad - true, if they weren't up on stage on display AND doing those very obviously sexually provocative moves. The combination is the problem. And the choice of song, plus the use of the same moves as Beyoncé, didn't help. Purely by association (and over here, we don't much like Beyoncé's moves in that clip either) that choice draws attention. But honestly - whenever we've seen moves like that here in any dance competition, especially a public one (and we have big ones, mostly school-based, every year) they get slammed for it and generally get absolutely nowhere in the ranking.
The dance competitions we have that are BIG here in Australia are generally organised by public schools. Private dance tuition undoubtedly gets involved - I know when our kids have been in these things, generally all the kids were in the private dance school, the teacher just translated a dance school routine to the government school her students attend and, with the blessing of the school, they enter the competition. But anything sexually provocative, and the Dept of Ed is all over the school for allowing it. There are various stages of entry, and at a very early stage, the 'wrong' stuff just gets edited out. They tone it down, or they're out.
A classic example -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Eisteddfod_Challenge
Janet, there is nothing wrong with children dancing. It is natural. Children love to dance. They can even be taught more formal dance moves. But dance need not be sexually provocative. There is plenty of dance that is not. A child should not, under any circumstances, be taught to be sexually provocative way beyond his/her years.
Now to the movies - some movies in the past have drawn HUGE criticism for the things they asked their performers to do. Certainly when you see the film, you have to assume that the child was exposed to things they should not have been. But the film-making process is very complex and especially these days, is governed by strict rules. At least it is in Australia. And we know, because we've done it. I've had two of my kids actively involved in film at a professional level. difficult child 1 got hooked in also. So we went into the rules. Yes, there is the risk of exploitation, because child agencies are often exploiting the children. But the film-makers are not, as a rule. Our labour laws are not only strict, they are under scrutiny.
Let's say a scene is being filmed for a TV murder mystery; the child is about to be abducted and raped. What will be filmed - the child will be filmed with the camera inside the car so the child's face is seen approaching. Then an external shot of the child getting into the car. Maybe the SOUND of a child screaming. Not filmed in sequence, the sound recorded either in a studio or in a different location. None of this is in context for the child. The child's parent/guardian is present, as are some officials to determine the child is not in danger in any way. That includes emotionally.
A great deal of the filming is done out of sequence or out of context. A lot is implied by the later-spliced-in sequencing.
I remember the furore over "Pretty Baby" with Brooke Shields. I went to see that film, I read all the interviews. I was appalled but also fascinated - it was a brilliant film, but disturbing. I doubt it could be made like that these days. But even then - the juvenile Brooke Shields wore a body stocking, was never actually filmed or photographed nude. Hard to believe... although according to IMdB, she was wearing just a G-string at one point. Another explanation from IMdB states that nudity at any age is not illegal as long as no sex act is being depicted. I'd like to check that one out.
The thing is, that film probably would not get made these days. Not in that way. But the whole premise of the film, the message of the film, was deeply disturbing. However, you could see that the experience of filming it (in terms of exactly how the scenes would have been set up; the scenes with Brooke) would not have been anything like what we eventually saw.
The scene in that film that said the most to me, was the very innocent one (from the actress's point of view) of Violet (Brooke Shields) waking up in the morning (in the photographer's bed) and finding a glass of milk and something to eat left for her. A cat is lapping out of the glass, so she reaches for the glass, drinks it down far enough so the cat cant' get to it, then goes back to eating the food. She then drinks the milk more at her leisure - that said so much to me, of the life the CHARACTER was accustomed to.
But to film that scene, the child was clothed. It was a child waking up. She probably did not actually drink form a glass that had been lapped at by a cat. But it also showed me that even as a child, she either took direction brilliantly, or really understood what the director was trying to say. From what we know of Brooke Shields these days - probably both.
Scenes with violence - these have to be set up so carefully, when a child is involved. If there is active violence with significant risk, the scene is not played by a child at all. So not matter what you actually see - the reality of the film from the actor's point of view is very different.
When "Black Balloon" was filmed, the kids (all teens or older; most autistic) were carefully prepared for the actor throwing a tantrum and rushing off. They were introduced to the actor, told what was going to happen, told to ignore it as much as they could. difficult child 3, however, was told he had to react to it with annoyance and concern. He was carefully prepared for this over weeks and weeks of rehearsal.
Professional movies are made with strict controls and safeguards. So it's not "it's OK because they get paid", it's because when it's professional, we know they've been checked out by the child welfare people as well as meeting regulations of child labour. Again, getting back to "Black Balloon" - there were two kids in that scene who were under 14 years old. difficult child 3 was one of them. and because they had begun to work (when the camera begins to roll) at 10 am, they had to stop working by 3 pm (I can't remember the exact times). Now, the scene had been filmed by that point. But the cameras now needed to film the audience reaction to the scene. They had to dismantle a lot of the set-up and move it to beside the stage, and aim the cameras back into the crowd. They came to the kids who were in the scene and said, "You two need to sit this out, you've now worked your maximum allowed. Thank you for doing a wonderful job. Now for this next scene - the rest of you can sit it out too it's OK. We will roll tape and play the sound, we we'll still have difficult child 3's voice-over, even though he has to sit out. But if the rest of you are happy to go on and perform, this time not for the cameras but just for the audience so they can be filmed reacting to you, that would be great. So what do you kids want to do?"
The kids were all on a high, they wanted to go back and do it again, even though technically their job was done. Even difficult child 3 and the girl who had to sit out with him wanted to go back on stage. But they were told no, it's not permitted.
When we saw the film we saw that they had filmed the tantrum sequence separately, it was even more graphic than our kids were exposed to, and was spliced in. The whole sequence in the film is only about 30 seconds but it took weekly rehearsals for two months plus a full day to film.
Janet, I hate exploitation of kids in any form. I hate premature sexualisation of kids in any form. I agree, YouTube is overloaded with some really dangerous stuff which is NOT filmed with any child safety considerations in mind whatsoever, and I think someone at YouTube is going to have to take a stand over what they accept. Some nasty stuff gets posted and anything that has been filmed at someone else's expense should be banned. The trouble is, more begets more. Like begets like. It's not the professional stuff that is the concern. It's the amateur, who doesn't understand how the professionals do it, nor do they follow the rules, the safeguards, the checks, the balances.
There are cultural differences between us here, I know it. In Australia we watch US-based video clips and wonder what they mean by this, or that. Why the apparent emphasis on shaking someone's rear end at the camera? Here, that doesn't make sense to us and video clips that over-use it tend to bomb over here. In Australia, the rear end, especially when being obviously thrust into view or exaggerated in any way, is more a joke than a sexually inviting part of the anatomy.
But Beyoncé's film clip for that song - it just doesn't make sense to us. It's as if she was filmed "pleasuring herself" publicly, rather than doing anything meaningful. To us Down Under it's aggressive, it seems pointless because she's just standing there moving like that - for why? It's like she's advertising, "I can move like this, so I would be so good at sex that you wouldn't have to move at all, I could do all the work for you," while at the same time her words are saying, "Get lost, you've missed your chance." If she is saying this, then her moves belie her motives. Her moves imply she really is angry at the betrayal and is flaunting her sexual capability at the person who failed to follow through with her. So she (her character in the clip) is clearly NOT over him, she is sending out very mixed messages.
So while the words would seem to be empowering to women, the moves definitely are not. No way, no how.
And to teach those same moves to little girls - I'm beyond appalled. And my opinion has not been influenced by anybody.
But as I said, I do recognise that this definitely has a cultural component.
We're not strait-laced here in Australia. No way. We have stuff on our TV shows that have often taken US performers here by surprise. I remember we were billetting some people from the US at our place and one bloke was appalled when our kids told him that their favourite TV show was called "Full Frontal". He was disgusted that we let our kids watch it, but it was a comedy show with no nudity at all. The name was referring to a no-holds-barred humour, nothing sacred.
However, even in professional circles, things sometimes go wrong. A current controversy in Australia is a TV sitcom which was a big hit in the 80s. "Hey, Dad!" has now been the focus for allegations that the lead actor was a sexual predator of the children in his cast.
http://womansday.ninemsn.com.au/celebrityheadlines/1026162/hey-dad-sex-scandal
Because these allegations have been made so publicly, it is unlikely that charges will be brought. But we all did wonder when the lead actor left the show (and the country) abruptly at the height of its success. They had even hired a chaperone for the kids, but the abuse continued despite the kids reporting their experiences to the show's producer. So in this situation, the safeguards in place had failed to protect.
But the thing is - at least there were safeguards in place. And we all know how pedophiles are able to get around safeguards. The failure of the system to protect, does not mean the system is bad. It just means it was not good enough here. At least it is there, where so many amateur films and video footage is being made with zero safeguards.
If we say about this kiddie clip that OK, other people do it, so we have to let it slide - then we are saying, "This is OK to continue."
And I don't think it is.
The parents don't see anything wrong. But they are not the villains. The teacher taught the kids (not very original) but she is only giving people what she feels they want. She is not the villain either. Beyoncé put her film clip together and has made a motza. She gave people what they wanted and won an award for it. Is she the villain?
No, the problem lies with US for what we accept. At some point we have to say, "OK, stop!" If rules have to be brought in, then so be it. Sometimes that is what it takes to get the message through, that some things are not as OK as we might have thought.
Marg