By Darah Protas
Staff Writer ’06
When Britney Spears posed on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999 in a push-up bra, boyshort underwear, and a sweater while holding a telephone and a Teletubby, many onlookers were shocked and even outraged that a teenager would pose so provocatively on a mainstream magazine cover. Four years later, Britney shed her top for the October 2003 Rolling Stone. Not so surprisingly, this seemed to result in nothing more than a few raised eyebrows and ecstatic teenage boys. In 2000, Britney’s red vinyl bodysuit in her Oops…I Did It again video received a lot of media attention for being so tight, yet when Christina Aguliera’s Dirrty video premiered only three years later, it did not receive half the controversy it called for. Even a spokesperson from Christina’s camp admitted that the video didn’t live up to the shock factor they hoped it would in order to kick off her new CD.
The only logical answer to these dulled reactions is that people have simply become jaded by sexual content. As Americans continue to adapt in favor of sexual tolerance, advertisers, recording artists, and movie and television producers search for the right way to shock audiences into attention with ostentatious words and images. They often push the limit right up against the illegal line.
Not only have adults and teens become more sexually tolerant, but children have as well; clothing has become very symbolic of this increase in modern acceptance of previously shock-worthy behavior. In the mid- to late 90s, the girls’ section of a department store circled around the style of overalls, matching shorts and tee shirt outfits, and Keds. If you walk into a department store now, the girls’ section features miniature versions of teenage clothing including miniskirts, tight jeans, halter tops, thigh-high boots, and tight, low cut tops. This is not such a big surprise, considering many belly-baring celebrities, such as Jennifer Lopez, have their own children’s fashion lines.
An outbreak in the popularity of tanning beds and belly piercings calls for the design of skimpier clothing so people can show off their tans and tummies (or perhaps it was the design of skimpy clothing that led to the sudden need to tan and have a decorated navel?) Either way, risqué celebrity style has rubbed off onto nearly everybody; teenagers have predictably been affected in their quest for hipness, adults attempt to look young and equally stylish, and even young children are jumping on the bandwagon in hopes of looking older and more fashionable.
It would be easy to blame celebrities, the media, or the internet for this flagrant promotion of sex. After all, celebrities do set the trends and sing songs worthy of the film industry’s NC-17 ratings. The media promotes these celebrities, and the internet has allowed for the universal exposure of anything and everything sexual—for free. Even when seeking online research for a paper, you’re likely to fall victim to racy popup ads of girls in string bikinis advertising home spy cams. In truth, this phenomenon is the result of several contributors, including of you reading this article, who, in one way or another, have become more sexually tolerant since the early 1990’s.
It’s hard to believe that fifty years ago television would not broadcast Elvis below the waist because he shook his hips. Now, with celebrities shaking anything and everything in our faces, we can only sit back and wait to see what will shock us.