Working at home today (typically "3rd trimester" sleep last night - extreme heartburn, real pain in my right hand side when shifting from 1 side to the other; getting up to go to the loo twice... eesh) so am watching "the hits" channel - the Freeview pop videos blurb, in the background.
The E4 music during the day bit is much better, frankly.
Anyway. just saw Jessica Simpson doing a more Britney than Britney thang in "These boots were made for walking". Supposedly uplifting somehow in that she punches some guy out after coming on to him and him not doing anything in particular (sigh). But it occurred to me watching that and many other female videos that the pressure to, if you can sing well, have not only the body, but the attitude of a porn star appears to be overwhelming these days. If you're a girl, obviously (the only "woman" I can think of singing in the charts is Jennifer Lopez, who does her best to look as young as possible). Blokes meanwhile can look portly if they sing ballads, muscley or conversely, straggley haired and stringy if they sing anything vaguely alternative (ironically of course, alternative chaps now have a tendency to dress with nice haircuts and cheap white-shirt suits).
Anyway. All these girls, simulating sex whilst wearing skinny bikinis and showing off their well oiled muscley legs (all the better to wrap round some lucky guy) - who are they marketing themselves *to*? Because it's mostly young girls who buy pop, am I wrong? Do 13 year old girls need to have a role model of Jessica frickin' Simpson, wearing a bikini, lying with her back arched over the top of a car she is supposedly cleaning? (Willie Nelson, what on EARTH are you doing in that bloody video?).
The saddest thing of course is in this era of X Factor, thouands of young girls who happen to have corking voices will have their hopes dashed upon the rocks of the visual apartheid of the entertainment industry. Fancy a future doing anonymous session singing? You even have to look like a porn star to have a go at backing singing these days.
Dyke teenagers need not reply to the above question.
Posted by cait at February 6, 2006 03:23 PM