paper 5 rd

Sabah Siddiqui
Paper 5
April 24, 2009
AMST 072W

Between the ages of 9-12, young girls are just then beginning to create their own identity. While their bodies are developing, they struggle to reach certain maturity. Around the time of middle school, most girls are developing their interests such as engaging in extra curricular activities and gaining more responsibilities . For example, most girls by middle school no longer need to be babysat. However, in present times, most girls are becoming too mature for their age level. Walking into a classroom in an average suburban middle school, schoolgirls can be seen wearing even their undergarments outside their clothing. They may have too much cleavage being revealed, enhanced by a push-up bra or their thong may be visible from their low cut jeans. As shocking as it may be, this was the everyday style of young girls in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, not too long ago. They were influenced by the media, especially “bubble-gum pop” idols, and the most famous of these idols was Britney Spears. Pop music and its influencers forced “tween” girls to become more sexualized, which contributed to their major influences as consumers in the market.
“Tween” girls refer to girls from the ages of 9-12, also known as prepubescent. These young people in this category used to be left out as they are not children; however are not yet more mature teenagers. As Britney Spears put into perfectly into words, “not a girl, not yet a woman.” At these awkward years, girls are developing and trying to create an identity of their own. Yet, without personal experiences of their own to learn from and without the maturity to understand the world around them and establish relationships, they must look up to role models. They look up to role models often pushed by the media, including magazines like Seventeen and popular pop culture. When children of the baby boomers finally reached the “tween” stage, “tweens” took the world by storm. Their pop culture took over headlines and stormed the market with brands specially designed for them, such as Limited Too and Justice.
One of the major role models for “tween” girls was Britney Spears. As soon as her catchy tunes reached audiences, her album sales soared to number one. At the time Britney Spears reached fame, she was only sixteen years old. Just learning to drive. Popular teen-centered magazines such as Seventeen, CosmoGirl and Teen People instantly placed her on covers Because of her age, young girls were able to look up to her as an older sister. They wanted to successful and as powerful as her and even dress and act like Britney Spears. On the contrary, although a “tween: should aspire to be a successful woman, she still is not ready to take on the mature acts of a teenager. Britney Spears came full throttle on the media with a beautiful voice to wow millions, but her style was anything but appropriate for a young girl with her cropped tops and low riding bottoms.
Britney Spears’ first and one of her most popular videos, “Baby One More Time” influenced the sexuality of tweens. Britney’s popular video displayed a fast beat, catchy lyrics and exciting dance moves, which caught the eye of young girls. At first, the tween girls were caught by the popular video and thus placed Britney as their role model. Britney Spears is singing and dancing in the set of a high school and begins the video as a girl prepared to get out of school for the day. This established a connection with tween girls because she displayed to her audience that she is like every other young girl, who attends school. Then a scene is cut to where Britney is in a schoolgirl outfit that is anything but appropriate for a young girl to be wearing to school. She is seen in a white oxford that has been tied and unbuttoned, revealing her midriff and a black bra, a short skirt and thigh highs. In different scenes, she continues to wear revealing clothes with her midriff showing and some sexual dance moves. For example, shaking her breasts as one move. In Madeline Lowe’s article’s “Colliding Feminisms: Britney Spears, “Tweens”, and Politics of Reception, Lowe argues this image not only angers, but confuses young girls. These girls understand that her image is inappropriate because of even the pop idol’s age. Yet, at the age of a tween girl, they do not have the proper cognition to pick and choose aspects of an idol. To embody their idol, tween girls are lead to believe that they must dress like her. Because Britney is popular, all “popular” girls dress like her and in return all girls dress in that manner. From wearing these revealing clothes, the girls sexualize themselves and no longer look their age and thus look more mature.
Britney Spears’ second video, which was also popular and rose to number one on various pop charts worldwide, “Sometimes”, Britney looks more innocent than her latter video. This video has a more mellow beat and the pop star looks more innocent and age appropriate. She is wearing all white as well as her dancers, which is portraying a more virginal appearance. Although her shirt is still cropped, the neckline is higher; she is also wearing pants and less makeup than her “Baby One More Time” video. Her image is totally different from the more sexual look she had in her previous video. As Lowe stated, it is this look that creates a confusion in her fans because they do not understand when it is appropriate to reveal too much skin. Although Lowe says this causes anger in her fans because they then believe that her look in the first video is more sexual than her “Sometimes” video and thus Britney looks hypocritical. The “Sometimes” video actually reinforces Britney’s fame and influence. Britney looks more age appropriate and just like a normal, average young girl. Tweens look at this video and believe that she is just like them and her lyrics tell the listeners that she has “boy problem” just like the average young girl.