CULTURE

G-strings for seven-year-olds! What’s a parent to do?

By Cynthia Peters

Nov. 2— Two major media stories last summer offer small windows into how mainstream culture views children, particularly little girls. Alarming stories about sexy summer fashion choices and alarming stories about innocent girls being abducted by sadistic strangers suggest strange ideas about how adults relate to children: first and foremost, it seems, we are simply alarmed — shocked by the harm that may come to them from out there. Our innocents are not safe. Malevolent forces such as Abercrombie & Fitch use glamorized teen nudity to sell low-slung jeans to 10-year-olds and stalkers steal vulnerable children from their bedroom communities.

In a recent ZNet commentary I wrote about the media’s exaggerated reporting on child abductions and the consequences of nonsensical parental advice that essentially keeps children under lock and key, renders parents confused and helpless, undermines community, and never addresses many of the real dangers children face.

Here, I will explore what it is that corporations are trying to sell when they promote clothes that make our little girls look like trussed-up sex objects, and how the media characterizes parental responses. That is, we are either accomplices or helpless ninnies standing on the sidelines wringing our hands in outrage and despair.

As with the summer’s abduction stories, the message to parents seems to be: you have brought your child into a world full of out-of-control forces with no particular origin. We are sorry about the maelstrom, but by way of comfort we offer slivers of advice to which you may privately cling.

When it comes to exaggeratedly sexy clothes for kids, however, there isn’t even much advice. Instead, the media reports on parents who are either gleefully jumping into the fray or turning their heads and holding their noses in disgust.

Summer fashions for little girls this year included G-strings and padded bras. “So many boys. So little time,” was the slogan on one fitted T-shirt sold by Next to 6-year-olds. Girls’ underwear features cherries, “wink-wink,” and “eye candy.” My daughter’s 10-year-old friend wears gym shorts with two hand prints on the back — one on each cheek — helping us zero in on the spot supposedly waiting to be grabbed, patted, or pinched.

Even the more “sensible” fashions for girls insist on splashing “Princess” or “Angel” in pink glitter across every top. Glitter is on everything — from jeans to eyeshadow. Pedicure sets for 7-year-olds are “flying off the shelves.”

On July 29, 2002, the New York Times Magazine dedicated 6 pages to full-length portraits of “Babes in Coutureland” — little girls who look to be between 6 and 10, striking sexy poses, dressed in adult fashions, and sporting big hair and “come hither” looks that create a jarring disconnect with their baby-fat cheeks and missing front teeth.

“Among the junior set,” the article says, “the I-wanna-look-like-Mom trend continues unabated.”
But fashion for girls has very little to do with what they want. The girls in this particular fashion spread are dressed up, made up, and manipulated by professionals who have something they want to sell and who want to project rigid ideas of femininity and sexuality onto a group that has no way of having its own say.

The same is true for boys, though they get a much different look. The three-page spread on the inside front cover of the same issue of the New York Times Magazine is an ad for Ralph Lauren Polo brand clothes for boys. Tough, unsmiling, mud-stained, and on the move, these boys look serious, disheveled in a cute sort of a way, and full of purpose that goes beyond what they are wearing.

“A lot of parents see their children as somewhat of an accessory to themselves,” says Erin Clack, market editor at Children’s Business, a New York City-based apparel trade publication. (The Houston Chronicle, August 04, 2002)

So is it parents who are guilty of using their offspring to create miniature versions of themselves, little vehicles for working out our own notions of feminine adornment and masculine agency? There is something about the NYT pictures of little girls in grown-up high-heels that seems to be trying to sell us some idea of ourselves. Let’s have the kids imitate us so we feel better about ourselves. The boys, too, in their almost comically sophisticated tweeds, betray how little these clothes are actually about the boys who are wearing them.

“Honey, I Shrunk Our Clothes,” reads the headline in the New York Times back to school fashion spread (August 25, 2002). Featuring everything from kid-size filofaxes to kid knock-offs of grown-up loafers, the article exclaims, “Now children can follow in their parents’ footsteps without missing a sartorial beat.”

And we wouldn’t want them to miss an ideological beat either. In case they don’t pick up on the proper cultural cues, we’ll just tell them how to interact with members of the opposite sex:

Light blue toddler-size “onesies” for sale at Macy’s department store feature a juvenile version of an adult personal ad: “Handsome future doctor seeks attractive female with wealthy father. Must enjoy peanut butter, toy trucks, and frogs.”

Oh, my, but isn’t patriarchy adorable? See how the little boys will have important careers and seek trophy wives who act as conduits for male wealth and share their husbands’ interests no matter how icky? (Frogs?! Yuck!)

What’s going on here? Aren’t there any grown-ups in charge? Who’s making this stuff? Who’s buying it? And how come the only people raising a ruckus are representatives of Christian non-profits, such as the American Decency Association?

Well, we know what the corporate grown-ups are after. They want to colonize the farthest reaches of our souls in order to better make money off of us. Sexuality is a potentially dangerous independent island nation — a rogue state that must be brought into service of the marketplace from a very early age. Teach 7-year-olds that sexual expression is a matter of accessorizing and you’ve secured a lifetime of purchases in the lingerie department. Disassociate sex from non-market feelings (pleasure, desire, intimacy) and associate it instead with consumable superficialities, and you’ll not only keep the rabble in line, you’ll have them lined up at the mall.

But what about parents? We’re the ones buying this stuff or allowing our kids to buy it. Some of us, apparently, are quite enamored of the fashions. “Make this in my size?” moms apparently ask as they shop for prom dresses and lace-up hip-huggers for their teens (WSJ, 9/30/02).
At the other end of the spectrum, parents are simply outraged or out of control. “Mom is about out of money, honey,” says one oppressed parent, loaded down with clothes, trailing after her 9-year-old during a recent shopping trip at Nordstroms (LA Times, 6/27/02). “I think it’s appalling, sexualizing these girls at 9 and 10,” says another. “It’s disgusting,” adds yet another. (Sunday Mail, 5/26/02)

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for a Christian non-profit warns that corporate marketing ploys have “little regard for the innocence of young girls.”
“They’re robbing the children of their childhood for a dollar,” adds the executive director of the American Family Association (LA Times, 6/27/02).

As with the hyped-up stories of child abductions and the subsequent barrage of ridiculous advice to parents, we are encouraged to see ourselves and our children as vulnerable souls in a world full of predators. But there is little mention of what we can control — or at least sustain, support, and nurture in our children.

For one thing, we can be mature, responsible sexual beings, and we can express this part of ourselves in diverse ways. Our children are always watching and learning. They should have plenty of evidence (from us) that corporations and brand names do not define femininity/masculinity/sexuality, but that those things are shaped by us — from within, in dialog with others, in community, joyfully, actively, responsibly, etc.

Additionally, we can seek ways to affirm our children’s sexuality. Adults do not have a monopoly on it, after all. Maybe our teens or even pre-teens are starting to think about touching and being touched in more sexual ways. Maybe hand prints on the rear end of gym shorts suggest something about this. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe not. But it’s not disgusting. Corporate colonization of powerful feelings may be abhorrent, but let’s be careful not to let the abhorrence leak over towards the feelings themselves.

Once again, it falls to parents to chart a sensible course with no help from the media or the advice moguls. Rather than standing around being outraged and afraid, let’s build towards a society that supports diverse, affirming, responsible sexual expression; undermines corporate power to determine how we express ourselves; and finds ways to support our children to embrace the world, themselves, and their own sexuality.

Source: ZNet

Copyright and music: a history told in MP3’s

By Madeleine Baran

“In truth, literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if any things, which in an abstract sense are strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science, and art borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known and used before.” — Supreme Court Justice David Souter

Copyright lawsuits involving music have been based on the largely mythical concept of originality. The process of making music necessarily involves recycling notes, chords, and lyrics. The attempt to carve out areas of ownership (chord progressions, refrains, a riff) within the finite musical landscape immediately gets bogged down in murky distinctions. Does borrowing a one-line lyric constitute copyright infringement? How about two lines? What happens when the songwriter wasn’t even aware s/he was copying another song? Is sampling legally different than simple imitation?

In the courts, judges abide by the standards of “fair use,” a set of guidelines codified in section 107 of the Copyright Act. Traditionally used for resolving disputes about written, academic material, the standards of “fair use” state that reproduction of copyrighted work is only permissible “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.” Applying this to the music business has been a difficult and contradictory endeavor. Most judges focus on whether the song in question comments on or criticizes the original. If so — and only if so — the work is legally protected.

In the copyright cases below, originality, tradition, artistic creation, and the law collide in an often confusing manner. As these cases illustrate, copyright law is every bit as capricious as it is complicated.

Gilbert O’Sullivan v. Biz Markie

Is sampling theft? When rapper Biz Markie sampled the melody of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s 1972 hit “Alone Again, (Naturally)” for his song “Alone Again” on his 1991 album I Need a Haircut, he was only following in the footsteps of countless other rappers. Unlike the others, however, Markie went to court. After O’Sullivan denied Markie the right to use his song, Markie used the sample anyway, and O’Sullivan filed suit. Ignoring the nuances of copyright law and artistic creation, Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy likened Biz Markie to a common thief, stating, “Thou shalt not steal has been an admonition followed since the dawn of civilization.” Upon rendering his verdict, which included an injunction against the future distribution of the album and the song, Judge Duffy referred the case to a US district attorney for possible criminal prosecution. Although Biz never served time for his alleged violation of the Seventh Commandment, the case did set the precedent for viewing unlicensed sampling as a crime.

Wire and the Stranglers v. Elastica

The British band Elastica, devotees of “77 English punk,” were sued for copyright infringement in 1995 by two of their idols. The art punk band Wire’s publisher sued Elastica for using the intro guitar riff from “Three Girl Rhumba” in the Elastica hit “Connection.” Elastica denied the charges. Shortly thereafter, the Stranglers’ publishers got into the action, claiming that Elastica used the riff from “No More Heroes” in the song “Waking Up.” Both cases were settled out of court for undisclosed sums.

Queen/David Bowie v. Vanilla Ice

Vanilla Ice used the main riff from David Bowie and Queen’s song “Under Pressure” for his 1990 hit “Ice Ice Baby.” Ice neglected to clear the sample or to credit Bowie/Queen on the album’s liner notes. Instead, he listed the song’s authors as himself, Earthquake, and Mr. Smooth. He was subsequently sued by the copyright holders of “Under Pressure,” and the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Rolling Stones v. the Verve

After sampling a few bars of “The Last Time” by the Rolling Stones, the Verve learned the hard way that you can’t always get what you want. Though the Verve received permission to use the sample, lengthy negotiations with Stones publisher ABKCO forced the band to cede the song’s copyright to ABKCO owner Allan Klein, and to give all royalties to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

The sample that started the confusion is only a small piece of the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” Verve member Ashcroft explained, “We sampled four bars. That was on one track. Then we did 47 tracks of music beyond that little piece. We’ve got our own string players, our own percussion on it. Guitars. We’re talking about a four-bar sample turning into ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ and they’re still claiming it’s the same song.”

Incidentally, Allan Klein is known in the industry for his tough tactics. He forced Janet Jackson to give up a portion of the rights to her song “What’ll I Do” because she sings the “Satisfaction” lyric “hey hey hey, that’s what I say.” He also squeezed George Michael out of some of his royalties for quoting the Stones’ lyric “You can’t always get what you want” in the song “Waiting for the Day.”

The Chiffons v. George Harrison

George Harrison’s subconscious landed him in serious legal trouble in 1970, when he was sued for aping the Chiffons’ “He’s so Fine” with his song “My Sweet Lord.” Harrison acknowledged his familiarity with the Chiffons’ hit but claimed that he wrote his song without any attempt to copy it. Judge Owen decided against Harrison, ruling, “It is clear that ‘My Sweet Lord’ is the very same song as ‘He’s so Fine.’ Under the law, this is infringement of copyright, and is no less so even though it may have been subconsciously accomplished.” Although the album featuring “My Sweet Lord” was number one on the Billboard charts for seven weeks, Harrison never received any royalties. About the suit, Harrison remarked, “I still don’t understand how the courts aren’t filled with similar cases as 99 percent of the popular music that can be heard is reminiscent of something or other.”

Roy Orbison v. 2 Live Crew

When 2 Live Crew parodied the Roy Orbison classic “Oh, Pretty Woman” in 1989, the band ended up in a major legal dispute. The hip-hop group had offered to pay a licensing fee and credit the song’s writers but were refused by publisher Acuff-Rose Music. 2 Live Crew went ahead with their version of “Pretty Woman” anyway, and Acuff-Rose sued. The case made it all the way to the US Supreme Court and marked the first time the standards of “fair use” had been applied to sampling. At the heart of the debate, according to the Supreme Court, was whether 2 Live Crew’s song “reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it to some degree.” Although sampling a small piece of a song to criticize or parody the original is generally legally permissible, musicians are not allowed to take the original and transform it into a new piece. So if 2 Live Crew had sampled “Pretty Woman” but had not made fun of it (or otherwise commented on it), the band wouldn’t have stood a chance in court. (See the Verve case for an example of the trouble artists get into when they create a new piece of music using samples.) In a landmark decision, the justices found in favor of 2 Live Crew. However, the Court ruled that parody should be viewed in only a very strict sense, giving 2 Live Crew the victory, but dissuading others from future unlicensed sampling.

Willie Dixon v. Led Zeppelin

When Shirley Dixon first heard Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” she recognized it as a song by her father, famed blues musician Willie Dixon. Although Dixon’s song “You Need Love” was popularized by Muddy Waters’ cover in 1962, Dixon had never received money from either Waters or Zeppelin. In 1985, he filed suit against Zeppelin, charging copyright infringement. The case was eventually settled out of court in Dixon’s favor for a large, undisclosed sum. With a newfound understanding of the music industry, Dixon founded the Blues Heaven Foundation, an organization devoted to helping blues artists recover royalties.

Source: Illegal-art.org