This morning I became one of the last people on the Internet to watch the video of five young girls dancing to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” at a World of Dance competition. The YouTube video of their performance has sparked outrage among people who think the costumes and choreography were too provocative for nine year olds. Everyone from Inside Edition to Good Morning America is replaying segments of the dance and asking “Won’t someone please think of the children!?”
I’m not fond of the girls’ costumes, which resemble something you’d buy at Trashy Lingerie. Simple leotards would have sufficed. But I am sort of surprised this particular video has caused such a controversy. There are countless videos of little kids dancing to “Single Ladies” out there, and plenty of them involve hip-swiveling and the caressing of non-existent curves. The combination of sexy costumes + adult approval + large audience must be what did it.
Still, I’m far more disturbed by the reactions to the performance than I am by the performance itself. Commenters predict that the dancers will become pregnant very shortly and accuse the girls’ parents of failing to protect their daughters from pedophiles. Many invoke JonBenét Ramsey in their freak-outs. Some are calling for the state of California to press charges. Good grief, people! The performance was risque, but responses like these are indicative of rape culture.
Pedophiles are sexually attracted to children, not little people dressed up like adults. Your child in sneakers and overalls is not less appealing to a pedophile than a child “dressed like a prostitute.” Blaming children’s clothing for child sex abuse may make you feel less vulnerable as a parent but it has no basis in reality.
And the JonBenét thing … I don’t even … Talk about scare-mongering. Authorities don’t even know who killed that girl. But speaking of JonBenét, I have never witnessed such outrage aimed at child beauty pageants, which are 100 times more disturbing than the “Single Ladies” dance. Maybe the folks worrying about pedophiles are just as irrationally worried about predators watching pageant girls, though. I can’t say for sure.
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It’s pretty simple: it was a dumb idea. The girls did not need to be dressed that way to dance to the song. Chalk one up for bad parenting. Chalk another one up, for parents who never thought that the video would make it on YouTube. Everything makes it on YouTube.
Parenting is not rocket science, but it does require thought and focus. That seems to be what is missing here, both from the parents who let the girls dress that way, and from everyone outraged by it. Unfortunately, this is closing the door after the horse has left.
I’d heard about this video but had not seen it until a few moments ago. I was totally skeeved out and think the outrage is justified.
Those girls are only seven years old from my understanding and are dancing like strippers. While I wouldn’t say the parents should be charged criminally, they should be ashamed of themselves.
I don’t know…let me add my unpopular opinion. I thought those little girls were fierce and strong and having a hell of at time dancing to a song they obviously love. I wish their parents had considered less revealing outfits (the same thing with the midriff covered would have been good), but I can’t put those kids down for that performance.
Thanks for commenting on this Sarah. The response surprised me as well. I mean, how is this different from any kid featured on Toddlers and Tiara’s? Do I dislike young girls dressing up and performing sexual tinged performances, yeah. I don’t love it. But I don’t love it when adult women do it either, because I’m a hard ass like that. At least adult women are making their own choices (choose your choice!)
I’ll just add that I took tap in grade school and I danced up in outfits and wiggled my hips etc..even wore lipstick! I turned out to be a mean old feminist so…Scare mongering indeed.
@Ailei: I don’t think the girls are being put down, as much as the parents are being excoriated. I do believe the girls are having to endure untoward stereotyping based on what they wore and what the dance d to, and that is the crux of it — the same dance could have been just as passionate and just as good in less-revealing outfits.
@bluebears: And that’s what is troubling: grown women should not have to act in this fashion to attract men — why should girls, who have not even reached sexual maturity, be forced into these types of patterns? It starts with what you teach them at an early age, and I think this is the wrong lesson.
And please do not get me started on Toddlers & Tiaras, because the vein in my neck will burst.
I don’t see how this performance is “to attract men,” though. I don’t like the sexualization of children (by people who are not them) but I don’t see how this dance is anything like, say, two straight women kissing for male attention.
@Sarah: Exactly. They (through their dance teachers or whatever) are simply mimicking the popular culture at large.
But Newt, I actually think the reverse needs to happen. Meaning, I think the culture at large needs to turn away from that sort of rape culture pandering. Until that happens it wont matter what little girls wear to dance recitals.
Why is everyone so surprised (in the video comments)? This is what happens when we have a culture which fetishizes youthfulness and virginity. Sex is being sold to younger and younger people. When I was 10, a decade ago, “tween” wansn’t even a word yet. Now it’s an ever growing market for selling sexy products to kids. So when I see this sort of video, I think “Of course 7-year-olds want to dance sexy. What did we expect would happen?”
Nerd–I think the girls’ dancing is a product of glamorizing people like Lindsey Lohan or Paris Hilton or whatever train-wreck de jour is in the news at the moment. Young girls have poor role models if they think acting like this is “cool.”
Or maybe, at 39, I’m just old.
@bluebears: No doubt our culture needs to reject such things, but we also do not need to simultaneously reinforce them by passing them on to our children, even innocently. I’m a firm believer in attacking a problem at as many levels as I can — if I can get human society to take a look at what its doing and changes its perceptions, and also keep children from being exposed to these things in the first place, I feel like I have a better chance of choking something like the objectification of women off. Maybe I’m a dreamer.
Great post, as always. I think this is just another instance of “sit at PC, tsk-tsk about society, forward message, go on with day”-type activism. Actually doing something to protect children from pedophiles would take real thought and energy. Much easier just to forward, wring hands, repeat.
But the popular culture at large that they are mimicking is selling the idea that fuckability = a woman’s worth. This particular performance was probably not aimed at garnering attention from men, but what lessons are these girls learning from this? That dressing in very skimpy clothes and gyrating in a sexual manner gets an entire audience to explode with cheers and admiration. It’s just another way of inoculating young girls with the idea that they need to conform to increasingly sexualized ideals that satisfy the male gaze.
That said, I’m not sure why this particular performance was the straw that broke the camel’s back. To me Toddlers & Tiaras and it’s ilk are just as cringe-worthy.
I didn’t say I like the dance, and I do agree with what you’re saying, Tall. The incident can certainly be analyzed and criticized from a feminist perspective. But I found the outrage from the non-feminist perspective to be even more disturbing than the pandering to the male gaze. They are not worried about girls pandering to the male gaze; they are worried about pedophiles masturbating in the audience and this experience turning the girls into whores and I find that really weird but it’s a widespread fear.
Y’all know how much I love this song and video.
But I fucking hate this performance. Little girls—and these are girls, not teens—dressed in saloon-whore bikinis and thigh-highs thrusting their pelvises? FUCK NO. I was discussing this with PhDork a while back and I went into a freaky Joan Crawford No Wire Hangers EVER! kind of rage. There is just no reason that children this age should be sexualized like that… EVER.
Will it make them more likely to be the target of pedophiles? Probably not. As Sarah points out, a little girl in jeans is no safer from predators. But buying into the message that sexy is not only appropriate but desirable when you’re in 3rd grade is sick and wrong regardless.
@newt: I hear ya
@tallgirl: it’s like a vicious circle.
@Tall: I hate the toddler beauty pageants like crazy, but in most of those the girls seem to be made-up and dressed in ridiculously lady-like, femme-y outfits. It’s age-inappropriate and there’s a whole bad set of gender-norm messages there, but to me it’s less disturbing than the outright sexualizing of little girls by having them thrusting their hips in lingerie.
There was a sexual element to this that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in kiddie beauty pageants (although admittedly, I’m no expert, so if they have a bump-and-grind-in-a-bikini portion of pageants, I’ll retire the point).
I haven’t watched the video, nor do I intend to. But I get the idea all too well. I’m not prepared to say what any particular pedophile would respond to; for all I know this stuff is a major turn on for some of them. Nor do I think that having this kind of experience as a kid will turn you into a “slut”, whatever that means.
But…I’m with Becky on this. Who the hell thought this was a cute idea? Can you imagine the hours of practice these girls went through, learning to shake it like Beyonce? What kind of adult would think that was a good idea, either to perform or to watch?
It is NOT okay to sexualize children for any reason, ever. If some of the comments were of the protesting too much variety, I believe that. But the whole idea is wrong. And btw, do we ever see little boys doing this? That alone should be a huge red flag. If little kids want to put on You Tube and dance in front of the mirror (begging the question of why the parents are letting them get at You Tube in the first place…but that’s another rant), fine. But an orchestrated, practiced performance is just wrong.
Becky: I’m no expert in kiddie beauty pageants either, but I’ve admittedly watched a handful of the recaps of Toddlers & Tiaras on Jez, and my husband sometimes gets stuck on bad reality TV when he’s clicking through the channels like it’s a car wreck that he can’t look away from. From what I’ve seen, the “talent” routines can be pretty sexualized sometimes. And I believe I’ve seen bathing suit competitions with tiny girls in full-on hair/makeup/bikini that just strike me as…yucky. I recall there being a pretty big outcry against child pageants after JonBenet was murdered, but that fizzled out with nothing changing, just like this will.
Sarah, admittedly I haven’t paid much attention to the mainstream hoopla about this, so I’ve just been thinking about it from just a feminist viewpoint. While I can’t say that I think the non-feminist critiques of the dance are worse than the performance itself, I reread your post and see that I did largely miss your point, which is a good one!
And why did this particular video, of all YouTube videos, make it into so many news segments? I started trying to post why, but I don’t seem to be able to articulate why I think it was picked up, beyond very vague sputterings of “think of the children” and “tween girls gone wild” and “mommy shaming”. Which I guess is a patriarchy trifecta all in itself.
@wondering: As to the latter of your 3 concerns, I would quote Ph.Dork, who said yesterday on another topic that she’s pretty much in favor of stupid-shaming. Parading your elementary-school-age child around in clothing meant for a grown woman who intends to look provocative, and giving your permission for that child to learn how to grind and move her bodies in an explicitly sexual manner is – stupid. The question to me isn’ why this video, but why not the gazillion that have gone before.
“It is NOT okay to sexualize children for any reason, ever.” I’m sorry, but even though I completely agree with the notion that children should never, ever be sexually exploited by adults, I can’t help but detect an undercurrent of “children are completely asexual beings with no agency or desires of their own” that squicks me out, which often leads to “they’re precious little innocent babies who must be protected from the big bad world!” which just sends me into a towering rage. Granted, children’s agency and awareness of their own sexuality varies greatly with age, but you just can’t lump middle-school kids in the same camp as toddlers, even though they’re both technically “children.”
The sad thing about this is not that “kids are dressing like sluts!! OMG!!!” it’s that since they most likely have parents that are two afraid to talk to them about healthy ways of expressing one’s sexuality (e.g. how to express a crush on someone without going overboard, how it’s okay to touch yourself at times if you’re alone and feel like it), they instead turn to social models of sexuality laden with devil-may-care attitudes, poor decisions and a heaping ton of Patriarchy, which results in things like elementary school students dancing like strippers. Pearl-clutching and austerity in childhood is NOT the answer—better models of age-appropriate sexuality are. As for pedophiles, I’m with you on the clothing issue—it needs to be treated just as any other rape would: the problem is not “kids, don’t dress in a way to attract pedophiles,” it’s “pedophiles, don’t sexually assault kids.”
Hmm. This sort of thing isn’t new. The YouTubification of everything is what’s new. My sister was in dance competitions throughout her childhood (pretty much throughout the 90s) and this looks like just about everything they ever did. Skimpy outfits with bare midsections, too much makeup, and suggestive dance moves before any of them even had boobs. But the recordings were all on VHS so they weren’t open to the scrutiny of the entire world.
Do I think it’s creepy? Yes. I never would have participated back then, and I wouldn’t let my (hypothetical future) kid do that either. Just saying that those who look at this and wring their hands about the decline of blah blah blah… Not really feeling it. This sort of dance has been a huge industry for a long time. Again, not saying I love it or condone it, but I don’t get the sudden outrage.
I would be interested to see what my mom’s initial reaction would be to this. Maybe I should test her and see, then remind her what she used to encourage sis to do back in the day. It would be an interesting experiment.
I’m not a big fan of the costumes, I’ll say that first. But. Those girls are ridiculously good dancers, particularly for how young they are. (If you haven’t watched the video, their choreography goes far beyond Beyonce’s in difficulty and they execute pretty well.) And I bet they had a blast performing it. Whether and/or to what extent they internalize the broader societal message from having performed in said number wearing said costumes, I can’t say. But if it was me, back when I danced competitively, and especially when I was that young (as opposed to being in high school), I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me that I was doing anything other than having a fantastic time performing a challenging and impressive number in front of an audience (of men, women, boys, and girls) that loved it. And if THAT is the message they leave the stage with – not that gyration and skimpy costumes please the male gaze, but that they’re fantastic dancers whose hard work paid off in the form of audience appreciation – that’s AWESOME, and exactly the kind of feedback little girls need.
I realize that’s a big “if,” but I honestly think girls that young wouldn’t necessarily think/know their choreography was sexual or their costumes provocative unless an older person commenced outraged pearl clutching in their direction. It’s like toddlers who ask what “fuck” means and get an outraged parent threatening to wash the kid’s mouth out with soap.
Then again, I was in dance competitions in the ’80s and ’90s, and I was definitely part of a pretty non-edgy studio. Our costumes were often objectionable, but only because they were hideously ugly. And maybe I was naive, or maybe pop culture was less overtly sexual, but even in middle school when we danced to Janet Jackson’s “If,” I didn’t realize how explicit it really was. I knew all the words? Just not what they really referred to.
@Cat: I can’t help but detect an undercurrent of “children are completely asexual beings with no agency or desires of their own” that squicks me out.
I’m not saying that at all and I don’t think anyone else is.
The problem is that these girls are being told to adopt a grown-up form of sexual expression that is not authentically theirs. They’re not being encouraged to explore their sexual feelings in private or express normal curiosity about sex—they’re being dressed up in sexy outfits and told to thrust their hips in front of a roomful of cheering people.
We’re all sexual beings, but we go through different stages in sexual development, and this sexuality DOES NOT match what’s appropriate for 7-9 year olds. It’s adult sexual imagery and physicality being imposed on small children for an audience.
I can’t comment from work, so I’ve been watching this conversation with interest from afar. I did have time to check in with some of my psychologist colleagues and we here in child abuse land think that sexualized children ARE more appealing to pedophiles. When pedophiles talk about their victims, they sometimes say the same fucked up things rapists of adult women say — she wanted it, she liked it, I could tell by how she danced, I could tell by how she was dressed, etc. Even when the child victim is the age of the girls in the video or younger. So a performance like this is just going to feed into their deranged fantasies.
Also, as Becky pointed out, these girls (and the ones in beauty pageants and every other sexualized child) are being taught to express adult sexuality which they may not understand. This gives them a false sense of sophistication and confidence, which is totally inappropriate for their age, and which may lead to their being exposed to sexual situations that they aren’t ready for.
What settles the question for me is which video the girls were taught to perform. No one is saying that teaching little girls to dance is bad. But really, as I said before, this was a deliberate choice by some adult(s). The children here were taught sexed up moves that were grossly age-inappropriate. It’s naive to pretend that the contrast between the age of the dancers and the moves they were doing wasn’t part of the power of the performance. It was titillating, a little naughty, to see kids move their bodies in imitation of sexual movements.
If there are some girls who feel happy and proud of their performance, I bet there will also be some who, a few years down the road, wonder why their parents let them be part of this display of bad taste.
As Becky mentioned above, I brought this up to her last week, and I’m still not sure how I feel about this issue. I agree with FreshPeaches that this reflects more about the power of media than anything “new” in the world of kinder-dance.
Are the costumes horrible and unnecessary? Yes. Like a huge proportion of the dance costumes I’ve seen for kids (or worn myself). Is the dance provocative? Sure. But again, I don’t think that’s a new thing.
There’s something else going on here, beyond the pearl-clutching, or the pedophilia fears. I’m actually considering coalescing my swirly, inchoate thoughts around this issue and submitting an abstract to a conference panel about female bodies and contagion…
@pedimd: So we should all twist our actions and choices around the warped desires of a few perverts? People will fetishize anything and ignoring it doesn’t mean we’re accommodating it.
@Scrumby: So we should all twist our actions and choices around the warped desires of a few perverts?
Not what she said at all.
One commenter asked, “do we ever see little boys doing this?” The implication is that we don’t, but in fact we do. Children of every generation have mindlessly imitated contemporary gender stereotypes. It used to be that girls played housewife and boys played war. Now girls play trashy slut, and boys… well, boys are still playing war.
Point taken, Kevin, but the problem is it that little girls are defined by the sexual–i.e. playing trashy slut (nice choice of words there)—but not boys. Because the last time I checked, “playing war” wasn’t about boys being sexual available or exploited.
@scrumby — There’s more than “a few” perverts, but we could reduce their numbers by preventing sexual abuse of children, since some of the abused children grow up to be some of the perverts. One part of child abuse prevention is teaching kids about boundaries. They learn that other people shouldn’t touch them or make them do sexual things or involve them in sexual situations, not even if it’s a “game” or “for fun.” Which is the opposite of what this video performance is saying.
This is kind of random in relation to what others have said above, but I wish that we had a dance culture in the US that did not associate virtually all dance with sex.
What if, instead, it would be (commonly, I’m not saying it’s completely not now) acceptable to dance to express joy, etc? What if the coaches of this young dance troupe had taught them an almost identical dance, but used age-appropriate costumes and took out the sexual touching-self moves? Wouldn’t that be joyful?
Have any of y’all thought about this before? Dance received as more than just sexual…
I think that’s SO true, Adara, and that’s an angle that’s been missing from this debate (by which I mean in all the media coverage, not just the conversation here). As talented as they were, they could have done a dance to the same song that would have totally kicked ass without setting off everyone’s alarm bells.
The (much older) kids on “Glee” did a version of Single Ladies that was cute but nearly as provocative, and then the whole damn football team did the dance in full uniform on the field.
“… but that they’re fantastic dancers whose hard work paid off in the form of audience appreciation – that’s AWESOME, and exactly the kind of feedback little girls need.”
@Penny: But that’s the rub – if it was really about that, it could have been accomplished without the lingerie outfits and overly sexualized dance moves. As Adara says, there is a lot more to dance than just skimpy clothes and sexualized movement. It would have been simple to put together a technically challenging routine that showed off the girls’ skills and hard work minus the overt sexuality. But that’s not what the choreographer chose to do, and I doubt that the girls walked away thinking just, “wow we’re good dancers!” The outfits and dance moves were integral to that performance and I think it’s more likely that the girls will also associate those elements with the positive attention they received.
@Adara: Exactly, that’s what I’m saying. The deliberate choice of sexually laden costumes and moves makes this kind of situation way beyond a simple dance routine. There are tons of songs that are not sexual in nature, and tons of songs that can be performed without the bump and grind.
@Kevin: You miss my point. I’m talking specifically about little boys (1) dressed in revealing outfits (which alone is harder to envision than it would be with girls) (2) doing dances that are specifically sexual in nature (3) for an audience. Even if you got a bunch of little boys on a stage acting out a battle, it wouldn’t be the same at all.
@pedimd: fair enough and I will keep that in mind whenever this subject comes up again. I’m far to accustomed to the knee-jerk “protect the children” reaction and find it almost as reprehensible as the actual abusive behavior.
I found myself astounded that they didn’t use simple black leotards like in the original video. WTF do sparkly bikinis add to the performance? I think those girls are rocking dancers, though!