Just an observation...

[logansrogue]

Hey gang.

Remember that big fuss over Katy Perry's boobages in that video she did with Elmo? If you search for it you the Toobs, you'll find it. Well, reading an article on it, it reminded me of something I used to giggle about when looking back at one of my favourite TV shows from childhood - Play School.

There was a presenter called Betina. She was *awesome*. I remember watching an animated film about wolf-dingo children that were doing stuff to Swan Lake music, but I don't know if that was a racially sensitive cartoon or not. Anyway, Betina was in it as the storyteller in the intro and I loved her.

On the show, Play School, she often went braless, and she would wear loose shirts. As is the way with Play School shenanigans, she and her cohost often went down on all fours and jumped around and did all sorts of actions to kids songs. And it was particularly funny when John Hamblin was cohosting with her, cause he'd pull faces when things got a little *adult* that the kids wouldn't notice, but the older people would be laughing hysterically over. Play School, like Sesame Street, was cool with the adult humour that went over the kid's heads.

I wonder how Benita's braless jiggling generosity would be recieved in the current American climate? As a kid, I never noticed Benita's boobs. I just saw her pretty curly dark hair and her big smile, and I laughed when John Hamblin pulled silly faces. It never occurred to me that she was exposing herself. Seeing a woman so at east and comfortable with her body probably did me a *lot* of good. Made a hairy, angry feminist out of me. Thank God for Benita and her free bosom.

Comments

[boomstick.livejournal.com]

Well, when I see Katy Perry's boobs strapped in and pulled up to her chin I don't really think about freedom :\ I just think about how the standards in this stupid country are so unattainable. Christina Hendricks, for example, is a gorgeous, curvy woman, but they still feel the need to wrap her up in impossible corsets and bras to give her the "perfect" hourglass figure. WHen she is dressed normally she looks totally different - still gorgeous, but more normal and less cartoonish.

As a child I don't think I'd see Katy Perry and worry about how my three-year-old body was curve-less, but I wonder if it would plant the seeds of doubt in my head anyway.

[hercircumstance.livejournal.com]

I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. Katy Perry looked as covered up as Cinderella or any other woman in a gown children are familiar with. When I heard about it I was expecting something way worse. a) kids don't notice b) there was nothing there to notice in the first place

As far as where the boobs should go...wherever the woman wants them to go. We all have our preferences.

[shantari.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of when I watched Oprah (I think it was) and they were talking about how Michael Jackson wanting to share a bed with a seven-year-old was horrible and wrong and absolutely not right, and me just thinking back to a children's show I saw as a kid where one of the adult women shared a bed with a little girl without any sexual under and/or overtones whatsoever. I just didn't get why it was immidiately sexual to share a bed with someone, and chalked it up to the different culture. Actually a lot of the tv-shows based on Astrid Lindgren's works probably would be considered too racy for an American audience. In another one two kids (boy and girl) are seen swimming and sunbathing naked together.

Although, it could be I'm just not seeing the forest here and Sweden really is more liberal than the norm about such things. Sharing the bed for non-sexual reasons doesn't seem so weird in this climate, for one thing.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Because, Jackson was perceived as likely being homosexual (whether he was or not), and a homosexual male is the number-one perceived sexual predator in our culture. Even moreso than a hypersexed straight male, yes. I'm not going to speak to the reasons for this being the perception, since that would take a sociologist or psychologist and I'm not either; I just know it is. As for comparing him to a woman doing the same thing with a same-sex child - the truth, again, is that women are not perceived as sexual predators, especially when it comes to children.

(I cannot stress enough these are not my reasons; they are perceptions I know from nearly 40 years of living in this country and being aware of things around me.)

[shantari.livejournal.com]

Ah, should have figured that it probably was that old double standard. Like when people are more suspicious of a guy wanting to work with childcare than a woman. (One of the more annoying extreme "feminists" of my country even went and made a big deal about not wanting a guy to change the diapers of her baby, because that's "suspicious".)

It's interesting how the one change in the view of gender and sexuality between us and the ancient Greeks is that back then women were considered too sexually needy which reflected how weak and below they were, but now that we don't consider such disadvantages as weaknesses, but rather it being a testament of strength to resist them, suddenly it's men who can't help themselves. Yay, pretend-progress!

[hippiegal22.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Benita would have caused a huge uproar if she was on American kids TV! *wink*

As a mom there are so many things to worry about in the modern world. Katy Perry's boobs is not on my parental panic list! :)

[apolla.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the Venn diagram crossover for 'people outraged by Perry's breasts' and 'people who devour pop culture which sexualises women constantly and without much variation' is. I suspect it's quite wide.

[greenforest-elf.livejournal.com]

o how I have missed u and these posts!!!! *goes to look up play school on youtube*

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim! *squish-hug* I've been in Love-Land for the past four months, but I'm getting back in the groove now. :)

I've also joined Hoyden About Town. I just have to get used to posting there. I'm a bit shy!