‘Too many bad role models for us girls’: Girls, female pop celebrities and ‘sexualization’

Abstract

In recent years the 'sexualization' of pre-teen and younger girls has been a dominating presence in the media and popular press. Female celebrities' hypersexual performances and styling, in particular, have been significantly implicated in claims about girls being launched into premature sexuality under the influence of their idols. Yet, despite the claims, relatively little is known about how pre-teen girls make sense of 'sexualized' media in relation to self and others. This paper contributes to an emergent feminist literature that aims to expand our knowledge about pre-teen girls' understandings and negotiations of sexually saturated popular culture. Drawing on material from a project in which 71 pre-teen girls recorded media video diaries about their everyday engagement with popular culture, the paper examines girls' negotiation of female pop celebrity performances of hypersexual subjectivities. Our discursive analyses highlight girls' negotiations of hypersexual celebrity as necessarily complicated and contradictory, reflecting their location in intersecting discourses of age, sexuality, and femininity.

‘If I don’t look good, it just doesn’t go up’: A qualitative study of young women’s drinking cultures and practices on Social Network Sites

“…The rejection of the display of both the hyper-sexual and feminine look and intoxication by young black women participating in the research also helps position these ideals as racialised (Dobson, 2013;Griffin et al, 2013;McRobbie, 2009;. Of note is the way in which the hyper-sexual and feminine look adhered to by most young women resembled the contemporary constructions of femininity presented in celebrity culture, in which femininity is commoditised and a narrow set bodily attributes and sexiness are perfected in ways that lead to competitive femininity between women (Jackson & Vares, 2015;Watt et al, 2015;McRobbie, 2009;.…”

“…The region in which the research was conducted is traditionally characterised as working class, with local women and celebrities being regularly derided, blamed and shamed for their post-feminist hyper-sexual appearance and behaviours in drinking environments by the mainstream media (e.g. The Daily Mail, celebrity magazines; 2012a;Jackson & Vares, 2015;McRobbie, 2009;Watt et al, 2015).…”

Tween girls' dressing: Shifts, implications, and future directions in Singapore

“…The images and representations of women and girls in Western popular culture have been argued to have harmful effects for young girls (Jackson & Vares, ). The APA Task Force's report (Zurbriggen et al, ), for instance, suggests that Western television programs, music videos, movies, and advertising inundate young girls today with the wrong messages, teaching girls that it is normal for women to be treated and portrayed as sex/−ual objects (Zurbriggen et al, ).…”

Celebrity Politicians as Health-Promoting Role Models in the Media: the Cases of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu

“…This influence consists of what individuals perceive they can or should do (Morgenroth et al 2015), affecting the opportunities enabled to each individual in society (Shomron and Schejter 2020;Hesmondhalgh 2018). For example, "bad" role models in the media can negatively influence the opportunities of teenagers (Jackson and Vares 2015), and the lack of role models can negatively influence the opportunities of individuals to advance professionally (Shomron and Schejter 2020).…”

“…While any person can serve as a role model to any other person, for example, a teacher to his or her students or a parent to their children; role models can also appear through the mediated forms of media content (Bandura 2003 ; Jackson and Vares 2015 ). Furthermore, the media can amplify the influences of a single role model as the media content can be received by many individuals simultaneously (Bandura 2003 ).…”