Meet the latest girl group to hit the music scene.
Girlicious.
Chrystina. Nichole. Natalie and Tiffanie.
Singing catchy tunes like "Stupid Shit" and "Like Me". The website biography boasts the new group is "Hot with a Capitol T. And when you're that delicious, you become girlicious."
Just what the world needs. Another choreographed playboy bunny singing group.
The costumes they wear in the "Stupid Shit" video (yes, I wasn't being sarcastic - it really is the song title) consist of faux school girl uniforms - plaid micro-mini skirts that bounces up when they walk to show frilly white underwear. Tummy baring white button up tight shirts with ties and crests on the pocket and knee high socks. They sing through a chain link fence and growl at the camera, giving their best 'attitude' and sex appeal and rub up against the bars.
A quote on their bio gives a description of their music. “Like Me” is a Jazze Pha-produced urban-pop gem that is guaranteed to melt radio waves, the smooth-as-silk vocals popping from a thick, deep groove you can get low and “bump your booty to,” according to Tiffanie. “Stupid Shit,” produced by Beau Dozier and Stefanie Ridel (with Antin and Fair as Executive Producers), turns the heat up a few notches, flirting with raciness and a subtle raunchiness, and exuding an edgy sexuality that encourages you to “bang your knees, get low and booty pop.”
They have all the elements of modern day superstardom. Beautiful young women who can carry a tune performing a striptease without actually showing a nipple or taking off their panties. Okay - I am being a little hard on them. (the entertainment industry) I am quite certain they are perfectly lovely (and hard-working) young women who feel doubly blessed that they have found fame and fortune. And as 19 year old Nichole says, "We're really hot, too."
Sadly, for young women, that's the name of the game these days.
We've all seen digital camera and webcam photos of pouty mouth teenage females, pursing their lips, softly nibbling on their fore-finger.
At a wedding we attended this summer (we were invited to four so I'm not naming any names) there were a number of beautiful 20 something women in attendance. One in particular stood out among the rest. She emerged from the church swinging a stunning head of full-body chocolate hair and had on a stunning coral shirt dress to which the hem rested at the crease where her buttocks meet her upper thigh. The front of the dress dipped about 6 inches below her bust line and looked as though it had to be taped in place as to not have a boob pop out. As gorgeous as she appeared, she was so self-conscious of the skin that showed between her breasts that she kept placing her hand sideways there in an awkward position.
The group she was with was having their picture taken and the whole lot of them posed the same way. Slightly turned in to the middle, chin down, shoulders back, one leg bent in front with a hand resting on that hip. Like every photo you've ever seen of Paris Hilton.
Ay-yi-yi.
I can hear the people now, reading my opinion, calling me an old, fat, bitter woman who is jealous of the young and beautiful... or an angry old fashioned (traditional) feminist.
It's not about that.
I like to look good. I like fashion. I like feeling sexy. Heck, I even have to admit to liking most of the dance music out there. Justin Timberlake's SexyBack kicks my ass on the treadmill. I own a plaid mini skirt and white frilly panties... my husband loves them - kidding!
What bothers me is the value that is placed on a woman's sexuality. That our society has created this enormous expectation for girls and women to be desireable; to create themselves sexual physical specimens (for lack of a better word) and that we're teaching an entire culture of females to base their own worth on how 'hot' they are in the eyes of ... strangers, really.
I mean, come on. We're not dressing and acting like this to impress each other as women. It's all about being desireable to the opposite sex. I like to be attractive to the opposite sex too, but there is a limit. A woman should want to repel as many, if not more than she'd like to attract.
It makes me wonder if these girls have ever considered exactly who it is that is admiring their parts. I wonder if they realize how many men, of all different ages, sizes and demographics are staring at their frilly white panties. I wonder if they would still value being hot in a room full of overwieght, balding, middle age men?
Conversely, you ain't heard nothin' til you've heard your eight year old daughter singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chapstick... I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don't mind it" with the radio.
Remember when Madonna dancing next to a burning cross stirred controversy? Remember when your Grandpa thought Elvis was the devil because of the way he swivelled his hips?