Kids, media, and their own insights |
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Kids in South Africa talk about thier favorite pop music idols - Shakira video by Peleka |
Peleka: I've worked with children, here in Durban, South Africa, for a year and a half and I've noticed that the situation, representation of beauty by media, is getting worse. Everyday they would boast (amongst themselves) what they have, whether it be new shoes or a Barbie doll. All the talk was about materialistic things like cars and that someday they would like to marry a rich guy. It's not too late to change this though, because the children are aware that some of things they see in the meida are not real. |
Kids in South Africa talk about thier favorite pop music idols - Kelly Clarkson video by Peleka |
Dianne: My only question is...why is an All-American, girl next door the favorite of a boy in South Africa? Western, or better said, American media has a hold of more than we think. |
Happy to Be Nappy and Other Stories of Me Documentary short produced by HBO 2004
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Dianne: There is much that adults can learn from the words of kids. They are innocent. Race, ethnicity, religion, and gender are foreign to them. Everyone is valued as a friend and all are treated equally (until adults interfere and teach them prejudice). Children are honest and they speak from their hearts. |
Depressing pageant clips set to a song that sums up fake fame, not aimed at the kids but obviously their parents. Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen Documentary produced by HBO in May 2001
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Dianne: I do not believe young children actively decide they want to compete against other children in beauty pageants and if they do, the parents must work to correct that inappropriate expression of prepubescent sexualization of their children and not allow participation in the inappropriate eroticization of childhood that is the underlying tease of those sorts of pageants. I amazed by parents who press their children into beauty pageants because there is an embedded perversion in wanting to help create an idealized image of a mature woman in the body of a five or six-year-old child. |