![]() One of pornification's many lies is that individual girls and women control the story of their sexiness. Britney's story unmasks the following doublespeak: men control the terms and power of pornification, not the girl or woman in a tight skirt and stripper heels.īritney signed with Jive Records in 1997 at the age of 15 and released "Baby, One More Time" in 1999, delicately surfing an early wave of pornification in a Catholic school uniform. An immensely talented cis girl who enjoyed the spotlight, Britney produced hit song after hit song, performing a coy raunchiness. She catapulted to stardom playing the object of the male gaze. This was powerful. I date pornification's tipping point to the mid-1990s, a period when more and more people used the internet for work, socializing, and shopping, and the content of internet porn began to influence mainstream culture so that behaviors and attitudes, and the clothes and accessories once the exclusive purview of the sex industry filtered into mainstream culture. Being sexy like a stripper or porn star might mean wearing push-up bras and thongs, getting Brazilian waxes, engaging in hookup sex, and taking pole-dancing classes for exercise.īritney Spears is a child of pornification, and her life story so far illuminates the power and influence of raunch culture. It's odd to think of something like pornification as having a beginning. Its creep was so gradual and comprehensive that most of us think it is normal to see half-naked and naked women everywhere: on phones, social media, the mall, in magazines, movies, and television, sexualized in music lyrics and videos, in comedy material, on billboards, bus advertisements, bumper stickers, t-shirts, video games and comic books, in hookup culture, at parties and nightclubs, and in everyday conversations. Indeed, most of us barely see female nudity so ubiquitous is it. "Look how free you are to express your inner porn star and be sexy." This narrative falsely equates commodified sexualization with freedom, and devolves the language of sex positivity from an ecosystem of consent, pleasure, safety, and respect into the single expectation that women present themselves as sexual objects first and foremost. In particular, I examine Britney Spears's story in light of the pornification of society over the past three decades. Pornification, the sexualization of culture also referred to as raunch culture, socializes women and girls to believe (and boys and men too) that a key element of female identity is looking "hot" like a porn star or stripper. Pornification sells itself to girls and women using the rhetoric of sex positivity and empowerment. Spears evolves into something more compassionate and complex, I join commentators exploring the gender inequality trapping Britney. ![]() ![]() Media messaging was almost exclusively damning of the young star, delighting in relentlessly castigating her.Īs the narrative describing Ms. ![]() Then we watched as she was pilloried by talking heads, hounded by paparazzi, and publicly unraveled. Many reading this grew up with Britney Spears' music as the soundtrack to our adolescence and youth. We watched her explode into the pop music scene, writing and singing outrageously catchy tunes with a striking confidence for one so young. 1 single "Baby, One More Time," her work continues in conversation with the culture – mysteriously arriving even on my dresser in 2021.īritney has been on a lot of people's minds lately, in the aftermath of the documentary "Framing Britney Spears" and the widespread news about the oppressive terms of her father's conservatorship. Just this morning I noticed I was resting my coffee cup on a disposable coaster advertising Mugaholics with the tag line, "Sip me baby one more time." Over 20 years since Britney Spears released the No.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |