My Britney problem -- and yours
The father of a 5-year-old gets lost in a world of slutty virgins, massive makeup cases and frighteningly accurate anatomically correct dolls.
By Jim DeRogatis
Dec. 3, 2001 | Becoming a dad is a state of mind, and it's much more complicated than becoming a father, which is a mere accident of biology. It can be traumatic for anyone, but it's especially difficult for a rock critic. Ideally, my career is based on championing music that pisses dad off and/or scares the bejesus out of him. Woe is me on the day I cross the line and become the Man myself, though I've been accused of doing so.
Witness the letter I received from a reader after I wrote a harsh review of "Britney," the much-hyped third album by Britney Spears:
"Why are you constantly complaining about Britney Spears' image? Why are you so bothered by the idea that older men may desire Britney sexually? Perhaps you feel ashamed for wanting Ms. Spears yourself in some manner? Or does it have to do with the fact that you have a young daughter?"
The first charge was easy enough to dismiss: I'm a healthy, red-blooded fella, and there's a long list of female pop stars who get my motor running, from Jill Scott and Angie Stone, to Pink and Shakira, to the fair Justine Frischmann and the risqué art-rapper Peaches. But Barbie Doll Britney? Uh-uh, no way. Sure, I recognize her obvious charms, thrust out front and center from the cover of the current Rolling Stone. But she's too synthetic, too "perfect" and ultimately too cold in that airbrushed Playboy centerfold way. Hell, I'd sleep with the guy from Staind before I'd tumble for La Brit.
The daughter thing, though -- that hit a nerve. Could my disdain for Spears' helium chirp and cynical, sugar-coated musical calculations be motivated by some deep-seated fear of seeing my 5-year-old daughter grow up and become a sexual being? I thought I'd accepted the fact that some day, sooner rather than later, she'll become her own person, do what she wants to do, fuck who she wants to fuck. Hell, we've been singing "Mr. Suit" by Wire since she was 3 and a half ("I'm tired of being told what to think/I'm tired of being told what to do/I'm tired of fucking phonies/That's right I'm tired of you!" -- though we change the words slightly to "big bad phonies").
Still, could I be falling prey to the whole paternalistic "daddy's little girl" trip, and letting it cloud my critical judgment to boot?
The question lingered for the better part of a week, until shortly after my daughter's fifth birthday party a few days before Thanksgiving. Among the presents she received from the other members of her preschool class were a tackle box-sized makeup kit (lipstick, eye shadow, nail polish -- the works); a life-sized vanity-table play set with a bigger mirror than any we had in the house and a doll from the "Diva Starz" series, a little plastic pop singer who says different things when you dress her in different outfits (all sold separately). Sample dialogue: "Let me wear my blue pants!" and "Hyper-sweet! I'm loving this purple skirt!"
The manufacturer, Mattel, says Diva Starz are intended for "Ages 6+," though a similar, competing line called "Bratz" ("The girls with a passion for fashion!") from MGA Entertainment advises "4+." Both collections boast a young, blond diva who looks amazingly like You Know Who, complete with a pneumatically inflated, Britneyesque chest, bountifully curvaceous hips and a camel toe in the crotch.
I realized then and there that the most sinister thing about Spears isn't the sex, it's the selling. My objection is not dad-driven Puritanism, it's a gripe against the hyper-capitalism of America's massive, all-encompassing Teen Fashion/Beauty/Culture Machine, which has now moved the lower threshold of its target demographic from just pre-puberty to barely post-toddler. I'd like to grab hold of the Man (whoever he or she is) and choke 'em with his own marketing plan: "No, no, no, no, no, Mr. Suit."
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Kiddie sex is big business today, but by no means is it restricted to obscure corners of the Internet, as some would have us believe. A friend of mine who's the head buyer at Minneapolis' largest chain of magazine stores says that Hustler's faux-teen spin-off Barely Legal is their third best-selling sex mag; ultra-respectable businessmen invariably come in and buy it along with a copy of Seventeen or Cosmo Girl, which creeps her out to the core of her being. And more than once she's found a sticky, dog-eared copy of the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen fan magazine in the employee's bathroom.
After the horrified kiddies' voices that Michael Jackson inserted at the end of "The Lost Children" from his new album "Invincible," there has been no creepier kiddie-porn moment in recent musical history than during Spears' HBO concert special, when actor Jon Voigt (father of the troubled Angelina Jolie) sat a young stand-in for the pop star (in fact her 8-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn) on his knee after telling her a fairy tale about how all her dreams will come true when she meets a man who will whisk her away.
Just thinking about it makes me want to take a shower.
Next page: Have the pervs had enough?