A friend sent me a link to this story on news.com.au today (- I've done research into the sexualisation of youth in the Australian media - they didn't just think I'd like to look at made-up girls in sparkly dresses.)
I opened the link, read the article, and yep, pageants are indeed fucked up, but the thing that really bothered me, that really made me stop and wonder at the state of the world, were these two images in the sidebar next to the pageant story;
Kids in detention and a child on the brink of death. Next to the pretty little darlings of the American beauty pageant circuit.
I'm not dissing the reporting of the pageant business, it's all news, and the asylum seeker and drought stories are being reported too - even if they are tucked away with yesterday's stories (I can't expect much more from news.com.au) - I'm simply saying that seeing these images together made me feel sick. That these events are occurring simultaneously in this wide world of ours put a lump in my throat that is difficult to clear.
That's all.
First thing in the morning can be a danger time - defenses down.
ReplyDeleteWe're certainly not as messed up as America. I doubt these pageants will have have an easy time of it here; and by raising the subject we start to scrutinise the more insipid sexualisation already present.
There will always be sickening news. I guess the time to really lose heart would be if we all stopped being sickened.
I'm surprised the pagents get the coverage that they do, and that questions are asked about whether they are fucked up. Of course they are. How is that even debateable?
ReplyDeleteThe world is all kinds of fucked up. I hear you.