Too Young To Know

With the amount of impact the media and consumer culture has one people today, it's really a wonder if people can consider themselves as a 'unique individual' at all. Seeing as there are so many huge impacts on society, such as movies, books, ads, magazines, and many more, people's personalities are no longer, well, 'original'.

The novel by Debra Curtis, Girls' Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture is a perfect example of how media and consumer culture have such a massive effect on how people interpret they should be and act. In her novel, she did some field work in Nevis where she interviewed many young girls to see what sexuality and sex meant to them in their culture. Her findings came back that these girls looks to consumer culture, specifically American, to understand how to be sexy and to get what they want out of a relationship, whether it be things, like a purse, or sexual pleasure. Through music videos, romance novels and many other forms of media, these girls learned about oral sex, 'sexy' poses, and how to attract men. This massive impact from consumer culture on the young girls in Nevis is something that is not specific to that Caribbean culture - we can see it just as well at home.

(1)

I'll admit that I too have been affected by media and consumer culture. I constantly am online looking at magazines and famous celebrity dresses for style tips and how my make-up should be or what is seen as pretty or out of fashion. I can honestly say that I am old enough to at least acknowledge that media has an impact on me and who I have become and formed myself to be. However, sometimes this impact on media hits people when they are very young, specifically girls, and they get turnmean. 
ed into 'beauty' and sometimes even sexual icons before they know what those words even

A good example of this early consumer culture impact is from the show Toddlers and Tiaras; a show where little girls (and occasionally boys...but mostly girls) are put into beauty pageants against other kids who who are just as done up as they are. There is some controversy however, of how these girls are being made into sex symbols more than anything, and are being taught how to be "sexy" at such an early age...here's a clip of a overly-sexualized mom and daughter pageant practice...with body touching, bikini tops, the ripping off of clothes...the whole shabang. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLgoimu4nZE

(2)

This exposure to American media culture to young girls at an early age will (as stated by the elders in Curtis's novel) lead to and be the cause of promiscuous behavior in the future. Music videos, magazines, even Barbie dolls, all have a role to play in giving these girls unrealistic expectations of how a girl should grow up to look or to be. If these ideas of becoming sexual/beauty focused figure is all they focus on in their childhood, and if it is being supported as much as it is by people in society who watch the shows (also the mothers of the girls and their coaches), then their future of who they will become is inevitable: young, promiscuous girls/boys who focus so much on what media and society makes them feel they should be, when really they should just be, well, a kid!




Text
(a) Debra Curtis. 2009. Girls' Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture. Rutgers University Press.
Images
(1) http://blog.lib.umn.edu/vanm0049/psy1001section09spring2012/2012/04/toddlers-tiaras-eating-disorders.html
(2) https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&q=pretty+woman+toddlers+and+tiaras&oq=pretty+woman+toddler&gs_l=img.1.1.0l2j0i10i24l2.6694.12838.0.14419.20.20.0.0.0.0.169.2042.9j11.20.0....0...1c.1.40.img..4.16.1342.3-djaIKTwt0&biw=1024&bih=539&dpr=1&cad=cbv&sei=dixHU-CECcrB0gWyvoC4BQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=uAbPlOesqHc5SM%253A%3Bvk3rDILRv59pDM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fbrittanyeveleigh.files.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F10%252Fpost5-toddlers-in-tiaras.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fbrittanyeveleigh.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F10%252F28%252Fthe-ugly-truth-about-child-beauty-pageants%252F%3B540%3B720