Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

This Is Learning?






Little Miss...What?

As is generally the rule, I'm behind again. I've been out of the mainstream, it would seem, for almost three years; however, like so many times before when I have discovered this lapse, I am far less dismayed to be out of the loop than one might imagine. See, I still thought TLC stood for "The Learning Channel," and now I find that programming there has given MTV a run for the misnomer title.
In 2009, a program began called Toddlers and Tiaras that featured a closeup view of 3-year-olds engaged in the business of winning beauty pageants, complete with the whole stage mother bitchiness, temper tantrums and motherly dreams of Hollywood stardom. Really? At three? It seems that eventually, people got tired of the whole thing and watched Little Miss Sunshine a few more times, so the talking heads got together and came up with a brilliant promotional plan: dress toddlers like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or like Dolly Parton with...well, you get the idea.
Turns out adults blew a gasket. TLC even had to take down its Facebook page because it got so many comments blasting the idiocy of the whole promotion. Since I didn't read the comments, I don't know if the vitriol dealt with the slutty images or the idea that 3-yr-olds were being exploited for ratings. Either way, another blow fell on an already-harried generation of girls who are being led to believe that "sexy is wonderful and necessary." Are you kidding me?
And the most amazing thing is that all of this exploitation is taking place long after a study in 2007 by the American Psychological Association proving that the hypersexualizing of girls by the media resulted in negative cognitive and emotional development and was strongly associated with eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression (no surprises there); furthermore the emphasis on girls as visual objects reduced their desire to follow careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Go figure.
And all of that just to beat out 50 other worthless, degrading reality shows in the ratings.
There is no shame left anymore.
Up next on the most stupid reality show that degrades people: Hillbilly Handfishing. really

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home