Saturday, February 21, 2009
Nymphet Fantasies - Boo!
Alright, so let me start by saying that I totally agree that child (and baby and probably teen) beauty pageants are warped and creepy and highlight the fact that our society needs to re-examine its view of what is beautiful and ok in this regard. But, honestly, this article was kind of a waste of time to read. Few comments throughout the article regarding society's view of the adolescent were squeezed in until the very end. If an article is going to make it into The CRITICAL Middle School Reader, I think it needs to be significantly more worthwhile than this one. At the very end of the article, several pertinent points are made. Pop culture should be seriously analyzed, kids and adults should learn to view pop culture critically and make decisions about what they will view and accept from a critical perspective, teachers should educate kids about how to organize social movements, etc., etc. These are all great points! Unfortunately, they come in the last page-and-a-half of an ultimately ineffective article centered around the child beauty pageant, with little information about self-esteem, self-image, and even less that pertains to the CRITICAL adolescent I would like to be learning more about. I nearly closed the book a page before making it to the meat of the article. I'm glad I finished reading but was ultimately disappointed in the end - not a useful article!
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I do agree that the article had some very good points near the end, I also thought that there was some very good points made in the beginning. For example, Giroux did a good job of pointing out that our construction of childhood innocence is largely one that we ascribe to white middle-class children (page 134). This is exemplified by the fact that, statistically, white victims of kidnapping are covered far more in the media and their stories are treated with much greater outrage than reports about children of color who are kidnapped. See this website for more information: http://blackandmissing.blogspot.com/2007/08/missing-people-face-disparity-in-media.html
ReplyDeleteNot unrelated to racialized images of innocence, in the first half of the article, Giroux also discusses how in a time of discussion about the need for "family values" in the 1990s, public policy was enacted (especially the welfare reform act of 1996) that did a great deal to hurt poor children, not help them. We tend to forget that when we enact public policy that is intended to punish welfare moms (and this, itself, is problematic and based on erroneous premises about their behavior), it inevitably punishes their children.
I agree, my highlighter almost dried out waiting for something interesting to catch my eye, but low and behold it wasn't until the end of the article that I was able to put pink(color of highlighter) to paper. Practically speaking, How does any of this play out in an actual classroom? I think what this book needs is less scholors selling theory and more teachers giving practical information.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly appreciate your comments on this article and I wish it had been more useful to you. However, I'm confused by this statement and wonder if you could clarify: "with little information about self-esteem, self-image, and even less that pertains to the CRITICAL adolescent I would like to be learning more about."
ReplyDeleteAre you saying you want to hear more about adolescents who are "critical"? What does "critical" mean to you? What topics are you expecting/hoping to see?
I'm curious as I obviously want to provide more of what students are looking for! Your feedback would be greatly helpful!
Amy, I guess I just meant "critical" as in more lengthy information regarding adolescents we will have in the classroom and more information about how to teach and understand these adolescents. I felt too much time was spent on children and beauty pageants and not enough on the more critical issue of how to help these adolescents understand pop culture's influence on how they view themselves.
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