According to one self-proclaimed spokeswoman for the mothers of America, Beyoncé is an imminent threat to female empowerment.
According to her post “Watching Beyoncé’s halftime show with kids raised eyebrows, questions,” Rachel Campos-Duffy, “Today Moms” blogger and former “The Real World” cast member, observed her children’s bewildered reactions to the Super Bowl halftime show and, rather than change the channel and ignore her kids’ questions like a normal adult, tried to make it a “teachable moment.”
“I nonchalantly said, ‘This isn’t very pretty or empowering. Too bad she’s wasting her talent.’ My 8 year old declared, ‘She looks weird.’ Indeed.”
Campos-Duffy said she then tweeted the following: “Tired of NFL & Obamas holding Beyonce up as role model 4 girls. Totally slutty halftime show. Thanks for ‘empowering’ our girls!” Campos-Duffy maintained that other Twitter moms echoed her concerns with the halftime show and that she is “not a prude.”
I have many issues with Campos-Duffy’s pearl-clutching criticisms, and not just that her only supporting quote is from her 8-year-old son (who is learning at an early age that it’s OK to mock women’s appearances if you don’t agree with their artistic choices).
My most pressing issue, however, is how this “concerned mother” so easily tears down Beyoncé’s indisputably powerful performance in fewer than 140 characters, yet didn’t mention the endless spew of Go Daddy commercials, which viewers have suffered through for years.
I don’t know what kind of moron is offended by Beyoncé’s muscular thighs but not 10-second bites of soft-core porn during every other commercial break.
How misguided can you be to let your kids watch a model play tonsil hockey with a pockmarked “nerd” and say nothing, but the second a wildly talented, successful female artist dares to wear a jumpsuit, your fingers get busy telling everyone how “slutty” she is?
Beyoncé has sold 75 million records and won 16 Grammys. Her thighs could crush a grown man’s head. She is at the helm of her own empire, and she could “do what I want” since she was 30, she told GQ in a recent interview. Her manic-perfectionist discipline with her career is nothing short of admirable. So why is she being reduced to a “slutty halftime show” by every mommy with a superiority complex and a Twitter?
Such is the nature of our “raunch culture,” defined by New York Magazine writer Ariel Levy in her book “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” about the rise of modern media’s cartoonish portrait of female sexuality and the men and women who both pretend to fight and contribute to it.
“Female chauvinist pigs don’t bother to question the criteria on which women are judged,” Levy writes. “They are too busy judging other women themselves.”
Female chauvinist pigs, women like Campos-Duffy who use their influence as “concerned mothers,” are not actually fighting for a “family-friendly” halftime show.
They’re contributing to a culture that vilifies women for being in command of their sexuality while ignoring the larger, tougher issue of men commanding women’s sexuality.
Beyoncé defies the raunch-culture model of female sexuality. There’s nothing cartoonish or contrived about her. After reading every magazine article and watching every TV feature, one can rest assured that the Beyoncé on stage at the halftime show Sunday was 100 percent Sasha Fierce. Unlike the Go Daddy commercials, there is no man in the background pulling the strings to sell a product. I will make a bold claim and say that, in the modern music industry, Beyoncé is the highest authority on female empowerment.
Perhaps I am, after all this, not qualified to pass advice onto a parent.
However, if you want to seriously educate your children on female empowerment, don’t persecute successful women who happen to use sex as art. Persecute those who use false ideals of female sexuality to sell technology services.
Chloe Finch is a journalism sophomore at UF. Her column runs on Thursdays. You can contact her via opinions@alligator.org.
