Stupid is as "stupid girl' does
by Jessica Yadegaran Contra Coasta Times
It's hard to make tabloid for doing something smart," says Pink, whose CD and music video "Stupid Girls" laments the popularity of the "porno paparazzi girls."
EVERY ONCE IN a while, pop music does something for the better. This time, it has spawned a national discussion.
In pop star Pink's latest single, "Stupid Girls," and its video, the artist lampoons Hollywood's young starlets -- the ones who've become famous for partying, shopping, invoking cat fights or saying or doing mindless things.
Certainly, no one can forget Jessica Simpson's confusion over what actually is Chicken of the Sea, or that Paris Hilton, a relatively unknown model and heiress, soared to A-list fame only after her sex video accidentally blazed across the Internet. Or "American Idol's" Kellie Pickler scratching her southern-belle head at the word "ballsy." You get the picture.
On "Stupid Girls," Pink laments about these "porno paparazzi girls" who've built businesses -- empires -- out of acting less than bright and who often perpetuate the dumb blonde archetype, rather than use their brains and fame in positive ways, say, like an Angelina Jolie or Natalie Portman. The worst part? She says they are encouraging the behavior in other women.
"It's hard to make tabloid for doing something smart," Pink told Oprah on a recent show about the marginalization of women in pop culture. "I want girls to know sexy and smart are not oil and water. You don't have to dumb yourself down to be cute."
Add to the dumbing-down practice our culture's obsession with celebrities and materialism, and it's a recipe for disaster, says Ariel Levy, author of "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture." Levy calls the behaviors of younger women -- from the stupid girls to the rise in sweet-16 plastic surgeries and preteen dieting -- "a generational rebellion."
"If your mother was a 1970s feminist, performing in the raunch culture is a generational backlash," says Levy, a staff writer at New York magazine. "Same if your mother was an Evangelical Christian. It helps that you see materialism everywhere in the culture. You're not too young for highlights, makeup or implants. Looking beautiful is the hobby."
For her book, Levy interviewed Oakland teenage girls who said they spent the majority of their free time figuring out ways to "look hotter." She also spent spring break with "Girls Gone Wild," the popular videos that exploit risque behaviors of college women on vacation. They are often caught on tape in compromising situations while intoxicated, but always of their own volition.
"The lights hit these women, and it was almost a Pavlovian response," Levy recalls. "You take off your clothes and assume this arched-back porn position. ... The culture equates the selling of sex with sexual liberation. That's insanity."
Levy says her research indicated that girls sense this pressure as early as age 6.
"It takes a lot of maturity and backbone to resist an entire culture," Levy says. "You have to enable them as a parent. You have to tell little girls, we value you. You're not just cute."
Jeanne Elium, a parent educator and co-author of "Raising a Daughter," says it most definitely starts at home and in the preteen years, when youth are trying on different personas and figuring out who they are.
Talk to the youth themselves, and you'll get mixed opinions on stupid girls. But no one denies it goes on. Interviews with dozens of teenagers showed that, for better or worst, many girls twirl their hair and ask obvious questions as a flirting mechanism or to get attention.
"It happens mostly in my math and science classes," says Allison Sudderth, 17, of Walnut Creek. "They turn around and ask a boy a dumb question. Then they get a test back, and it has an A on it."
Vallejo High School psychologist Beth Majchrzak cites "Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America," a long-term study conducted by the American Association of University Women that confirms research indicating that girls are systematically, if unintentionally, discouraged from academic pursuits in math and science during their middle school years. This is also the time, Majchrzak adds, that self-esteem begins to drop in girls.
"The study showed that girls were subtly discouraged in classrooms, meaning that if the girl answered incorrectly the teacher would dismiss her and go on to the other person," Majchrzak explains. "But if a boy answered incorrectly the teacher would spend more time explaining why. The teachers didn't even know they were doing it."
Tierney Allen, of Walnut Creek, wrote an article on the subject for her high school paper. In it, she blasted society for giving less attention to girls for smarts than it gives to boys. She also touched on the subject of dating.
"When a girl is looking for a boyfriend, it's important that he's smart and gets good grades," Allen says. "But when a guy's looking for a girlfriend, he wants someone who's fun and has a bubbly personality."
Guys are mixed on the subject. "We like the feeling of being the helper," admits Grahame Herring, 17, of Walnut Creek. "It definitely helps that a girl is bubbly, because then when you're hanging out with your friends she's not just standing around all quiet."
Kevin Idnani, 14, of Walnut Creek, says brains are a must. "It's definitely at the top of the list. Brains and smarts. Someone I can talk to."
Either way, it seems that few teenagers consciously look to Hollywood's party elite as role models, or take them seriously at all. "I know they're just trying to make money," says Jose Tucker, 16, of Oakland.
And the girls? Sudderth echoes the sentiments of most girls interviewed for this story. "My family, friends and teachers are my role models. No one from Hollywood."
While they're not consciously choosing these figures as role models, experts say their influence does seep through.
"Girls will say that Hollywood isn't a mentor for them, but I think we're all really influenced by what we see on TV and in the movies and magazines," Elium says.
Irene Nexica teaches media-oriented classes in the ethnic and women's studies departments at UC Berkeley. She's also spent years mentoring youth and sees the influence Hollywood has on young people. She says it doesn't run very deep.
"My kids are definitely interested in grooming and different looks, but I don't see them wanting to emulate those Hollywood lifestyles," Nexica says. "They have lots of brains and resistance to tell you that when they hear 'I'm still Jenny on the block' they don't believe it."
And if that doesn't give adults hope, this will: Just last November, a group of Pennsylvania teens staged a national boycott -- or girlcott, as they called it -- demanding Abercrombie & Fitch ban the sale of T-shirts for young women with the message: "Who needs brains when you have these?" The girls of Allegheny County were encouraged by their parents, teachers and peers.
That said, Nexica believes we should take a closer look at the people behind the stupid girls and those who keep them in business.
"The audience that pays to see Paris Hilton's sex tapes are not the teenage girls who people are worried about being corrupted," she says. "They are these 40-year-old men who have daughters nearing the same age.
"So it's short-sided to blame Jessica Simpson or whoever for their image when it's really clear that there's another power dynamic not really getting explored," Nexica continues. "Wasn't it her dad -- who's also her manager -- that said he'd date her if she wasn't his daughter? I think that's far more harmful."
Jessica Yadegaran is a lifestyle writer at the Times. Reach her at jyadegaran@cctimes.com or 925-943-8155.
FURTHER READING AND LISTENING
• "I'm Not Dead," by Pink. www.pinkspage.com.
• "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture," by Ariel Levy. (Simon & Schuster, $25).
• American Association of University Women. Click on Research and then Girls and Education Series. www.aauw.org
• "Raising a Daughter," by Jeanne and Don Elium. (Ten Speed Press, $14.95). www.RaisingADaugher.net
QUOTES FROM LOCAL TEENS
• "The entertainment industry is just some kind of silly game rich people like to play. At the root of it all is an affliction of a sort of afflu-enza. People like Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and other stupid girls are really just afflicted with the need for more. And with all the money they probably ever want within their grasp, they need some other way to feel fulfilled."
-- Tomoaki Hirai, 17, Pleasant Hill
• "I think when girls act stupid in the media it's more of a business move. But in real life it's more of a personal decision you have to make. I used to be like that. You learn after a while that it's a waste of time."
-- Victoria Nguyen, 15, Walnut Creek
• "When people are stupid around you, you learn how not to act."
-- Neda Said, 16, Walnut Creek
• "Pink wrote the song to make money. If she really wanted to invoke social change she'd start a campaign or make speeches about it, not a video where she's showing just as much skin as the people she mocks."
-- Adalto Nascimento, 18, of Walnut Creek
• "I definitely notice when girls try to act stupid for attention. I think they're afraid of outdoing and being better than men."
-- Kristin Maher, 15, Bay Point
