An Amalgam of Articles

A friend of mine has a brilliant post up about sex and sexuality in teenage media. I also love the title, that being "Be Sexy. Just Don't Have Sex. But Don't Wait Too Long, Or Then You're Weird", partially because it brought up the specter interviews Amy Sherman-Palladino gave after Rory Gilmore lost her virginity at 19; namely that she (Rory) had to lose it sooner rather than later. Which seemed like an odd concept, that there was a timeframe within which one had to be devirginized -at least on television- and that Rory was rapidly reaching that mark by the end of her teenage years and not having sex after that point would make her a freak of nature.

I also like her point about sexualizing teenage stars through their admission of virginity and willingness to sport chastity rings.

Then there's this article about what Katy Perry's horrible song "I Kissed A Girl" has in common with Sarah Palin; and that is that they are both part of a trend of faux-feminism not meant to make feminism (or lesbianism) more acceptable to greater society but to instead take feminism and pervert it, gut out anything of value in it and then use it to shore up heteronormative behaviors and sexual interests.

I read an interesting article about teenage parents (tying in with my friend's post above), but this one highlights how successful teenage parents usually have a greater support system, and 'unsuccessful' teenage parents are ones who are generally of a lower socio-economic class and who were labelled failures even before they started -those teenage parents who would fall into Bill O'Reilly's "something wrong with it" camp given that at some point, society may have to step in and be a pseudo-replacement support system in lieu of the one they originally lacked. This 'successful' former teenage mom lists the things teen parents need in order to make succeeding easier.

And then there's the slightly less than reassuring news from FOX that they are standing behind Joss Whedon and his new show Dollhouse. Which I'm throwing in there because at the moment, I can't wait for January and its premiere, while simultaneously hiding under the covers because I can't shake the feeling it will be cancelled within the first two seconds of airtime.