The Detroit Free Press published a column about our children as the target market for money-hungry media corporations. The articles also mentions the Girls Matter Conference in Oakland County.
Desiree Cooper writes (excerpt):
Then it dawned upon someone that children between the ages of 12-19 comprise the largest generation in the history of the United States — even bigger than the Baby Boomers. Someone figured out that by 1999, teenagers were spending $105 billion a year and influencing their parents to spend another $48 billion. Suddenly, childhood stopped being precious and became a market to be pillaged.
For boys, that has meant reducing them to sex-hungry, bug-eating, numbskull thrillseekers. Girls are being reduced to money-grubbing, narcissistic competitors for the sexual attention of boys.
Go to www.pbs.org and search for Frontline’s “The Merchants of Cool,” for an eye-opening documentary on how sex is being marketed to children. One of the experts in the show, media critic and author Robert McChesney, said it best: “You should look at it like the British Empire or the French Empire in the 19th Century. Teens are like Africa. It’s this range that they’re going to take over and their weaponry are films, music, books, CDs, Internet access, clothing, amusement parks and sports teams.
“They aren’t music companies. They’re money-making companies. And music is a weapon that generates money for them.”
This month’s J-14 (Just for Teens) magazine has a centerfold — yes, a CENTERFOLD — of heart-throb Justin Timberlake’s naked torso. No head, no legs, just a naked body. In the same issue, singer Beyonce Knowles discusses the downside of being “hot.”
“Man, if I had a dollar for every time that kind of guy says, ‘You’ll only get the cover if you take off your pants,'” she said, “I’d be a rich woman.”