The Spice Girls and the
death of childhood
Purveyors of shabby consumerism and endless hedonism
By Gerry Bowler Special to ChristianWeek
First the guilty confession: I rather like the Spice Girls. Not their music–though it’s occasionally catchy, I left bubble-gum pop behind some decades ago. Rather, I am taken by their energy and the same lower middle-class English cheekiness that the Beatles once demonstrated to my generation. I’ll even confess to having a favorite: Geri Halliwell, or Ginger Spice, the blowsy red-headed runaway who made her first television appearance as a "hostess" on a Turkish game show. But however charming this group might be to a jaded, middle-aged historian, it is their appeal to young girls that makes them a menace to civilization.
For those readers who have been visiting relatives on a distant planet for the past year, the Spice Girls are five British women who were assembled as a singing group in the same calculated way that the Monkees were 32 years ago. These no-more-than-moderately-talented singers were then assigned nicknames (Posh, Sporty, Ginger, Scary and Baby Spice), corresponding personae (aristocratic, athletic, slatternly, bizarre and infantile) and sexy costumes whose total fabric content would not suffice to cover a single beach ball. Drilled in their music, choreographed in their routines and massively hyped by Virgin Records, they quickly became musical megastars and marketing titans with lucrative endorsement deals with Pepsi, Fabergˇ and Polaroid.
Prominent among their fans are pre-teen girls. Preteens, particularly females, are the demographic that is now eagerly cultivated by record companies, movie studios, clothing makers and cosmetic manufacturers as a powerful buying force with billions of disposable dollars to spend just the way they want. As commercial interests earlier colonized their teenage siblings, so now are smaller children intensely studied by marketing companies who sell their findings to media, fashion and junk food corporations. The culture that these companies then peddle to the young is the same sexually-charged, quick-cutting, illiterate and shallow entertainment that has proved so successful in attracting teenage spenders.
The Spice Girls, one of whose potato chip ads was banned from British daytime television for being too suggestive, are prime exemplars of a culture that is inappropriate for the young audience it deliberately targets. Their skimpy costumes, their gestures and dances, and their songs are all about a lifestyle that most parents would want to shield their children from. Do we really want eight-year olds treasuring the following lyrics from their first CD?
| Are
you as good as I remember baby? Get it on, get it on, ‘Cause tonight is the night when two become one I need some love like I never needed love before (wanna make love to ya baby) I had a little love, now I’m back for more (wanna make love to ya baby) Set your spirit free, it’s the only way to be |
Or: Do you think I’m really cool and sexy? And I know you want to get with me, Last-time lover, make me feel good, Lovin’ under cover like you should. Do you wanna be my last time baby, Could it be your first time maybe? Last-time lover, treat me right, Lovin’ under cover, all night. |
Childhood was once a time of innocence, a privileged period before the pressures and confusions of adolescence and adulthood; children were provided their own sort of literature and toys appropriate to their age and development. But that time of life is in danger of disappearing, as the lines between childhood and the teenage years are eroded. Children are now swamped by a culture that offers them a shabby consumerism, endless hedonism and sleazy adult products. The Little Princess gives way to Madonna; Anne of Green Gables is replaced by Ginger Spice. We are all losers in this, but our kids most of all.
Gerry Bowler teaches history at Canadian Nazarene College, Calgary, and is director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Contemporary Culture. He can be reached by e-mail at: bowlerg@cadvision.com
