accidental feminist

This is one of those things that I feel I am obligated, by the by-laws of bloggerdom, to comment on, given the title and supposed subject of my blog:

Miley Cyrus’s pole dance at the TCA.

-Sigh-

The actual video that was aired on tv does a close-up at the moment of the offending “squat”, so I’ve linked to this random dude’s blog which has a lower-quality, but more enlightening, shot of the move.

Now, I know I was all “who cares?!?!” about the “Single Ladies” video/song, and really I’m sort of the same about this. Let the girl do what she wants: in Vanity Fair, on an ice cream cart. It’s just all sort of…yawn.

My only real problem is not with Miley, but with the Disney machine. Because I have daughters who I allow to watch all that Disney stuff (I figure fighting it will just make them want to do it more, and, honestly, her show’s kinds cute, although, Mitchell Musso, you are a decent little actor, and you must cut your hair now!), and I’m less worried about them becoming pole dancing strippers than I am about them having to watch these girls be exploited by the whole Disney-child-star life cycle. (Although maybe it’s a good lesson in the ills of consumerism.)

Disney knows what it’s doing. You think they cast these kids when they’re 12 not knowing they’ll be hot when they’re 16? Not knowing that, at that point, they’ll want to “break out” from their Disney image and wear hot pants, or no pants, or no underpants, thereby causing a scandal, but also getting them attention and publicity, and, as we all know, “all press is good press”?

Disney is a master at getting these kids young, grooming them, and then pushing them to the absolute brink of appropriateness until they crack. Who watches “The Wizards of Waverly Place” and doesn’t think Selena Gomez is hot? She’s supposed to be hot. Disney saw this and said, “Unless I am wrong, and I am never wrong, that girl is going to be hot someday! Sign her up now!” And soon, she’ll realize that she can exploit her hotness, and that she’s gotten all she can out of Disney, and she’ll start to look like this.

ps: This is just to say, way to go, JT and Christina Aguilera. You guys are both very talented and still pretty awesome and one of you makes Saturday Night live watchable periodically and the other of you sang the most beautiful version of “I Loves You Porgy” I’ve ever heard. Seriously, Christina, way to let Britney take the dive they all thought you’d take. Brilliant. And JT, that little clothing line of yours: not sure if I’m 100% on board with that, but only because I’m not emaciated and/or in the military and/or cool enough to pull it off, but sure, why not? Go for it…because, really, even if you lose, you’ve already won.