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To brighten up everyone’s Christmas season, here are 7—count
‘em—Victoria’s Secret supermodels trying to sing a Christmas Carol. For better or worse, it's SFW.
I know it's not Bach, but you have eclectic tastes, don't you.
The killjoys over at Jezebel want us to keep in mind that the people who put together this
video are a bunch of meanies:
…half
of these women don't even speak English as a native language, and none of them
are professional singers, and that casting them in some kind of scantily clad
all-singing, all-dancing holiday revue and then editing in bloopers is a)
cheesy and b) kind of mean.
Still, the models seem to be having fun. How bad can that
be? Besides, if you can’t laugh at yourself occasionally, then you really have
a problem.
12 comments:
"The killjoys over at Jezebel"?
I think you meant "The jealous killjoys."
Very important omission.
And yet, we want young girls to act modestly and not dress sluttishly, be serious about relationships, actively pursue marriage, etc. Why oh why would they think that is a good idea when super models, Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, etc. etc. etc. are rewarded handsomely for doing what you counsel not to do?
It ain't always the feminists ruining the culture, ya, know.
Ah, but *I* enjoy taking part in it,and its harmless when *I* do it, so in that case, its okay, right?
Kim K got her start doing hard core porn. These girls are quite different. By contemporary standards this is rather mild, I find. Ironically, the feminists who want girls to be immodest find this video offensive. How does that happen?
But these girls aren't being modest and there are plenty of examples of immodest behavior that isn't porny being well rewarded in our culture. If you want the next generation to behave better than you have to stop supporting the Hooter's mentality.
Bottom line, you want it both ways. You want to be able to ogle the VS babes but you want women not to behave like sluts in the main. All young girls see is that they are rewarded handsomely for dressing and acting slutty.
Gosh, I don't know why a teenage or just past teenage girl doesn't have the foresight to see that it is not in her best interest long term. So many teens and early 20's are so well known for being able to discern what is best in the long term, right?
Why feminists don't have a problem with what is portrayed by the actresses on Girls but do have a problem with the VS girls, I'm not sure. I've never understood that dissonance. But the same dissonance is coming from the male or anti-feminist side, too.
I've heard plenty in the so-called "manosphere" about feral females being raised to be "carousel riders", but then the same sphere turns on the very women who say women shouldn't act slutty.
As far as contemporary standards go, they are part of the problem, aren't they? Those same standards say putting off marriage and children to your 30's is good, having many hook ups before marriage is good, getting a divorce for no reason even if you have children is good, having a child without being married is good (actually the way single mothers are held up as noble, selfless creatures this one is regarded as being beyond good), etc. The contemporary standards argument doesn't hold much water.
By the way, Stuart, I do really enjoy your blog. I may not agree with everything, but you have a lot of interesting, thought provoking takes on society and the therapy culture.
They criticize the models because the models look way better than they do.
Thanks Kristi... this may get me into more "trouble" but I saw the ad more as comedic than lascivious.
I also saw girls who were happy to be girls... something that is rare these days when girls are trying to act like imitation men.
I think that girls who like to be girls will hook up less than will girls who are trying to show that their sex drives are just like a man's.
Thanks for including the link. I hope that everyone will check out your post.
In no way do I want women to be men or the reverse. But it is tiresome that when any woman stands up to, even in a small way, the immodesty that is rampant today they are labeled as jealous. And VS is not a modest store or selling anything modest. Feminine, sure, but not modest.
And bear in mind that I'm not talking making women go full burka mode, either, before I get accused of that hoary old trope.
The problem with feminists is they can't be consistent with their protests. Today they decry VS and yet yesterday they celebrated the "Slut Walks."
I agree with you that the remarks about jealousy were neither gallant nor chivalrous.
Does the fault for the way young girls have become overly sexualized lie with VS or perhaps with their parents.
By and large there is too much sex exposed in the media these days... because at some point people came to think that it was good to talk freely and openly about matters sexual. They decided that it needed to be taught, in explicit detail, in schools and that access to sexually explicit materials was an exercise in free speech.
Given the open display of all things sexual, the VS video seems to me to be small change. As you might have guessed I do not hang out in VS stores, but much of what shows up in store windows seems to have a lot in common with swimwear.
I don't see how to shut it all down, but it does seem to me that parents should have considerable power over the way thirteen year old girls dress. Call me old fashioned and unrealistic, but I would bet that the Tiger Mom never allowed her daughters to dress up like sluts.
I agree also that the feminists contradict themselves all the time on these matters. After all, they champion free and open sexual expression, but hate it when it is commercialized.
"After all, they champion free and open sexual expression, but hate it when it is commercialized." Ah, but Stuart they are not even consistent on that point because they will defend the "right" of sex workers to be prostitutes right after they condemn the VS models. Very little is consistent in the feminist world view. Other than denial of reality, that is.
A agree that VS is only mildly part of the culture wars, though they are targeting a much younger group through their Pink line (something you probably have no idea about if you don't go in their stores). They can't come right out and say they want the under age market 'cause as bad as the culture is, they daren't risk the outcry. But they have acknowledged in various business stories that getting very young girls to buy in now is a huge untapped market for them now and will add to the bottom line later as they have customers for life. I don't think VS is appropriate for the pre-teen and teen set, yet they are going after that market. After all, they are in business to make money first no matter how pretty the package.
Yes, parents should have the ultimate control over their children, but with single parent families abounding that power has been fractured. Also, mom and dad may be telling the girl all manner of good messages, reinforcing it with allowing only certain kinds of behavior but it can be quickly forgotten when the girls see the lush rewards for certain behavior in our culture. It would be a little nice to get some kind of help with our kids from others in the culture. And part of that is establishing and maintaining some level of public decency.
Context matters. Behavior matters. Reason and reasonable matters. We should ignore the wisdom of fanatics.
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