<p>Or maybe they just didn’t think anyone would care, because this manufactured controversy is a steaming pile of right-wing social panic machine ********?</p>
<p>I’ll admit, I was a little curious about some ad where the girl is putting make up on her little brother. I think it was an ad for toothpaste. Not worried it would “make him gay”, just wondered what he’d feel about it when he was older. Presumably he is a two or three year old who was not pushing for a career in television.</p>
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<p>Unless I am looking at the wrong photo, it was the point of the picture. It was a mom and a little boy laughing over pink toenail polish, a posed family moment advertising the shirt the woman has and the nail polish. It wasn’t just a random clothing ad where the boy just so happened to be wearing nail polish.</p>
<p>“Or maybe they just didn’t think anyone would care, because this manufactured controversy is a steaming pile of right-wing social panic machine ********?”</p>
<p>And when these creeps who enjoy sexualizing kids show little girls in black garter belts and fishnet stockings?</p>
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<p>Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner. This is exactly why they did it. The ad agency certainly knew and, what’s more, hoped they’d generate this kind of buzz with their cute ad showing a little boy with pink toenails. I’m sure they’d say they wanted to start a discussion, but it’s all in the service of their brand and sales. Which makes me pledge never to buy anything from J. Crew, frankly (I hate being so obviously manipulated). Lest anyone doubt my edgy cred, I think the hysterical reaction on Fox was ludicrous. Especially since they acted precisely as J. Crew expected they would.</p>
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<p>I thought this was interesting, since I was interpreting the nail polish along the lines of costume or dress-up. Even though nail polish makes me feel sexy, that is not what I see when a child wears polish. Many children I know pretty much live in capes, tutus, crowns, face paint, nail polish (a different color on each nail), sticker tattoos, costume jewelry: super heroes, pirates, Egyptian gods & goddesses, wizards, ballerinas, princesses. At what point do we have a problem with costumes for children? When is it sexualization? Is it going to be in the eye of the beholder?</p>
<p>I do have trouble with the very idea of a child being used to sell a product. But clearly that is not a mainstream view.</p>
<p>alh: I have no problems with costumes and dress up for children, including whatever props they want to use (within reason). BUT… this is an ad. Who knows who is going to see it? This has gone way outside of the normal private family circle, and at that point, to my mind, it becomes more than a little creepy.</p>
<p>(I do have problems with sexy costumes for children. And sexy clothing to school.)</p>
<p>I made myself an I dream of Jeannie costume when I was in grade school.
Handstiched I believe. I know that her outfit was deemed " sexy" on television ( wasn’t there a todoo about her navel?), but I can’t imagine my version was sexual in any way.</p>
<p>I understand Dmds point, however weirdos( using this term loosely), take whatever material that fuels their agenda, it could be a newspaper article, a picture on someones blog or a snapshot- it doesn’t really matter & I don’t think we have to go out of our way to worry about them. I don’t think we should * court them, but I think we should live our lives knowing they exist but keep them on the periphery.</p>
<p>Now I don’t know what sort of magazines they are running the ad in.
I saw the shot in a catalog & I noted it, but didn’t have an issue with it.
( When D1 was in preschool, one of her friends wore girls pj tops to school & clippies in his hair- one of D2s friends loved pretend & would wear high heels, hats & earrings while carrying a purse. He is currently in the US Marine Corps)</p>
<p>Imitation of others is something children pick up young. Babies imitate faces, little boys put on their moms lipstick ( hopefully not on the wall), little girls wash the car ( but with gravel from the driveway?)
The shot I saw in the catalog was a nice photo of a mother & son sharing a fun moment. I don’t notice most ads- maybe that was the point- I remember that, but I don’t remember any of the other poses.</p>
<p>I have a suggestion for next months photo. Taken from real life when my youngest was about three or four. We were fishing on the dock using smelt. She was very curious about the fish & started using her fingers to probe them- she began by scraping their skin off & got down to looking at the bones & organs. But the money shot was when she put their heads on the ends of her fingers & wiggled them around like olives at Thanksgiving dinner. ( she has always been a marine biologist) :)</p>
<p>JCrew does have very lanky women( & men) modeling their clothes- but don’t they all? At least the women in JCrew look like adults, unlike some who appear to be 14 in other fashion/beauty ads/catalogs.
*Thats *what we should be concerned about IMO.</p>
<p>“(I do have problems with sexy costumes for children. And sexy clothing to school.)”</p>
<p>I’ll add to that: in addition what dmd said, I have a problem with children being exposed to toxic chemicals. Dress up is fine, but nail polish is not beet-colored water! Remember toxic play makeup kits from China? Even cosmetics marketed for adults have some things in them that I would not want a young, growing organism exposed to, like lead in red lipstick, for example.</p>
<p>However, I have no problems with boys dressed in pink if they wish so. :)</p>
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<p>Just so I understand what you’re saying, would your reaction be the same if the ad were identical with the exception that the child was a little girl with toenail polish rather than a little boy?</p>
<p>I object to the ad because I think it is exploitative of the child. There are plenty of people who will make fun of this boy for what his mom and JCrew did to him, and he is too young to understand why.</p>
<p>I finally looked at the ad and, well, how do we know it’s a boy? Because the child is wearing blue and white? Or because the child has rather short hair? Hmmm.</p>
<p>As far as nail polish on kids…oh, c’mon. They have short little nails that they like to paint. Kids like to paint anything and everything. Trust me, I know. I mean if they were growing their nails out and painting them, it might look a bit adult but there is nothing, IMO, provocative about stubby little kid fingers with a dab of color on them.</p>
<p>Any of you ever work the nail polish stand at an elementary school fun fair?? You would know that every kid in the building from kindergarten on up wants their toes, their fingers, and anything else they can figure out painted. 5th grade boys LOVE the black polish on their nails look, or better yet, the gold glitter nails!! ( I will add that we always put a 30 minute time limit on working the nail polish booth, the fumes soon became overwhelming!!)</p>
<p>DonnaL (how nice to see you! You haven’t been around in a while, or at least I haven’t seen you): yes, I’m just as old-fogey-ish about nail polish and makeup on little girls. I think the sexualization of children starts way too early. Maybe it’s because I was the target of several older men that my mother thought of as family friends (they always hugged me just a bit too hard and too long, and my mother told me I had to kiss them hello, and I hated it). There’s an Ursula LeGuin novel where children don’t find out what sex they are until puberty, and I <em>love</em> the concept.</p>
<p>Nice to see you too, dmd!</p>
<p>EPTR, if I remember the ad correctly, I think we know he’s a boy because the ad gives his name and refers to him as his mom’s son?</p>
<p>Thanks Donna, I only saw a photo of it online.</p>
<p>I agree completely that children are sexualized in subtle ways and I object to any and all of it. But I just don’t think the nail polish thing is a big deal. Little girls put bows in their hair, etc. Decorating the body is a universal form of self and cultural expression. It isn’t alway or even frequently intended to be provocative.</p>
<p>That Ursula K. LeGuin novel is The Left Hand of Darkness, and people all have a neutral sex, unless or until they enter a fertile phase and then they can take either sex (often depending on if they’re near someone who’s taken the other sex). A visitor from Earth (known as “the pervert” because he always is fertile - and male-) is crossing a frozen tundra or something with a neutral person on this planet, and well, you know what’s coming. Groundbreaking for 1969.</p>
<p>Anyway, none of my little girls had access to nail polish simply because of toluene. It’s nasty, toxic stuff - in any color.</p>
<p>When my son was little, maybe 3 or 4, he didn’t need any nail polish to decorate himself. He just drew all over his body with magic markers (or whatever the brand name was). And I do mean all over!</p>
<p>I had to do a google search in order to see the ad that has so many people up in arms. Good grief, is that it? It’s such a sweet and innocent image. Btw, pink looks just as good on boys as on girls. And and what’s so unnatural about a little boy to wanting to have his nails painted by his mom? </p>
<p>We were assigned LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness in one of my high school English classes, and it turned out to be a real intellectual milestone for many of us. It prompted a lot of thoughtful and intelligent discussion and really got us thinking about gender rolls and gender politics. It ultimately got us able to think past gender and examine instead what it means to be human. This was in the early 70’s in Virginia. It’s a wonder, thinking back on it, that it didn’t cause a major stink for either the school or our teacher at the time. But, I’m sure glad it didn’t! I’ll be forever glad I read that book. I suggested it to both my children when they began reading Sci fi. It won a Hugo and Nebula award, as I recall.</p>