The Media and Corporate America Continue to Sexualize Children

Another Disney star has had scantily clad pictures released to the public. You heard me right, I said Disney star. I didn’t say music pop star, I didn’t say teen comedy movie star, I said Disney star. For a company that takes pride in family friendly content, Disney hasn’t had the best PR lately.

First, one of the stars of the highly popular High School Musical series, Vanessa Hudgens, had raunchy photos released on the Internet. Now the star of Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, has done something similar by posting for scantily clad photos for Vanity Fair magazine!

Unlike some “news” websites, I’m not going to post links to any of the photos because that’s exactly what the magazines and stars would want me to do. In fact, I’m wary about writing about this in the first place because I don’t want to encourage this kind of behavior.

The worst part about these stories is that these are stars of shows aimed at little kids! We’re not talking about shows aimed at teenagers, we’re talking about kids ages 6-10 years old. Now for the record, Cyrus is 15 years old, and the High School Musical star, Hudgens, is in her late teens.

You’ve got two problems here. First, we’re talking about magazines, the media, and our culture sexualizing young teenage girls! Second, you’re exposing pre-teen kids to this kind of stuff because they idolize these television stars. This is a huge problem! This should outrage parents, families, and everyone in America who has any decency at all!.

Who’s to blame? The teenage Disney stars? The parents of the teenage Disney stars? Disney? The magazines that publish these photos? American culture out of control? I think it’s a little bit of all of the above!

You can’t place all the blame on the teenage Disney stars, because they are young and immature, but at the same time they should know better. Their parents and other adults that surround these kids should be ashamed of themselves for letting these little girls be sold as sexual objects.

Disney should share some of the blame as well. They should do a better job of picking employees of character and they should also punish these stars for this behavior. Why not set an example and fire Hudgens or Cyrus? At the very least they could suspend them from future productions. Why won’t Disney take some sort of action? The simple answer is Disney isn’t in the family values business, they’re in the entertainment business which is all about making money. The same can be said for the magazines that publish this stuff.

It’s a shame that parents are forced to discuss these mature topics with innocent children who shouldn’t have to think about sexual topics like this until they’re much older. Such is the world we live in. Our culture is at war that much is clear. Will Americans say enough is enough? Will we as a culture continue to stand for the sexualization of our children? One of the most valuable assets of any nation is children, for they are the future.

I think Walt Disney would be rolling over in his grave if he knew this kind of stuff was going on.