It's A Girl Thing: Tween Queens and the Commodification of the Girl's Tween Market

A few years of research, thoughts and adjustments that all led to a completed film which, framed by the structure of a faux interactive website for tween girls, looks closely, and critically, at the tween market's evolution and the role of Disney and Nickelodeon's tween queens (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Miley Cryus, Miranda Cosgrove, Kiki Palmer, Selena Gomez, and more) in the market's explosion.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Suri in Heels...Really?



Im not really focusing on the sexiness angle for my film, other critics have that well covered, but age compression is definitely an interest for me and this picture illustrates a prime example. It just blows my mind that a mom would want to dress her three year old in adult clothing. She's not a doll or a mannequin...she's a kid.

But again, who repeatedly tells the tale of how they took adult clothing and made it child size because they didnt like what was offered in regular kid lines? You got it...MKA. And thus, their Walmart line was launched. And the rest...is history.

See the article below to read more about Suri and her heels.
click on above title for original post
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Suri looks adorable, that's why her heels are horrid
By Jan Moir

A step too far: Tom Cruise's daughter Suri in her grown-up shoes

On a wet Boston pavement, a chic young lady steps out in a red coat, tight black leggings and peep toe sandals with high heels. At one point she stumbles and loses a shoe.

It's all right, darling! Mummy is here to pick you up. For the girl tottering along in her grown-up silver shoes is no coltish teen or young adult. She is three-year-old Suri Cruise, the daughter of film stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

She is an adorable child, but there is something deeply unsettling and inappropriate about a little girl in high heels. It looks all wrong - because it is wrong.

For more than any other item of dress, high heels are a form of display.

Yes, women love the curve and lustre of a fabulous pair of empowering skyscraper shoes.

However, the main reason we wear heels is to look better and sexier.

Heels accentuate the natural curve of calf and thigh and also semaphore sexuality; their significance as a weapon in the war of the sexes should never be underestimated.

This is just one reason why heels look so aberrant on children. Were it not for her pigtails and Elmo doll, Suri could be a dwarf chorus girl on her way to can-can rehearsals. Or an adult put through a boil wash.

Heels for tots? It is so wrong on so many levels, another indication of the creeping sexualisation of young girls.

Of course, in her specially made Christian Louboutin heels, Suri Cruise is an innocent abroad in all this. She is the indulged offspring of millionaire parents who live so deep within the celebrity bubble that real life rules do not apply.

Yet it sends out an invidious message, amplified by the kind of fashion and celebrity magazines that heap praise on Suri's wardrobe of designer clothes and her 'fabulous style'. She is only three years old, for God's sake.

Elsewhere, whatever happened to the purity of girlhood? These days it seems to be a flat-out sprint from toddlerhood to full-blown puberty, without a second to spare for sugar and spice and everything nice in between.

One minute little girls are Shirley Temple; five seconds later they are in the Temple of Teenage Doom, getting their navels pierced, drinking superlager and fantasising about having hot sex with Zac Ephron.

From an early age, the pressure upon them all is tremendous. Little girls read magazines. They watch celebrities on television and long to be famous themselves.

Day after day, they drink up the sexual imagery in pop videos, in fashion and in advertising. Every summer, there are little pre-pre-pre-teen tinies in bikinis on the beach.

Department stores sell padded and plunge bras for eight-year-olds. There are mothers who eagerly hothouse the whole girly project; who cannot wait for their first mother-daughter manicure. Or to get their girl fitted for her first brassiere, her first makeover, her first pair of pierced earrings.

Much of this, of course, is done with a good heart. Yet it is becoming clear that ever younger girls are becoming sexualised by society, by peer pressure, by the entertainment industry and then - inevitably - just by habit.

Against this backdrop, it comes as no surprise to learn that the latest figures for teenage pregnancy show that it is rising again, as is the number of 14-year-old girls having abortions.

You have to ask why, despite all the sex education and government initiatives, girls are having unprotected sex - any sex! - at such a young age.

Or why wraith-like pre-teens log onto anorexic websites for slimming tips and study the customs and habits of supermodels as if they were exam modules.

'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,' said Kate Moss this week, echoing the battle cry of the dedicated anorexic. That's one thing about Kate. She never did have a sense of responsibility or duty of care towards her vulnerable young fan base.

All she wants them to do is buy her teeny tiny clothes and try not to die of starvation before next season, so they can buy them all over again.

It is now not uncommon for ten-year-old girls - and younger - to obsess about their weight and appearance. And more than half the nation's teenagers would, according to surveys, be willing to go under the knife to improve their looks.

It is so sad that they feel like this, but it is hardly surprising. Everywhere they look, beauty and sexiness take precedence over achievement. They see that being hot is what attracts all the light and the heat.

Cute girls get all the attention. High heels get you noticed. Personality comes second.

Young girls think that having a perfect bottom like Kate's is an ambition in itself. Or that bleached teeth and hair extensions will bring them the same success as Cheryl Cole.

They see designer tots like Suri Cruise and they want to be pretty like her. Well, in many ways, that's entirely natural. Little girls have always wanted to be pretty. Yet now they want to be sexy, too. And that's not pretty at all.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1229393/Suri-looks-adorable-thats-heels-horrid.html#ixzz0Xptp848U

1 Comments:

At 7:47 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I would never put my little girl in heels at that age. It's just too young. I love getting her girls apparel here.

 

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