Rachel C. Weingarten muses on Marketing, Manners and Modness

The other day I walked past a store and noticed several flat screen TVs blasting the same concert footage from every window.  I’m not sure who the singer was.  From various angles it could have been Beyonce, Mariah Carey or Britney Spears or someone else entirely.  The honey skinned, blonde-ish sultry chanteuse in question was clad in a shimmery itty bitty bikini and shaking various parts of her anatomy much to the delight of the crowd.

I stopped for a moment, mesmerized.

Based on the size of the audience at the concert I’m guessing she was an A-List singer and a huge draw to potential shoppers.

Based on the fact that I could not hear her voice, but could see various, jiggling and exposed parts, I was incredibly sad.  Why should a talented young woman have to rely on dressing up as a stripper to gain attention for her vocal talents?

I’m not much of a TV watcher, but a few recent musical interludes further fueled my rant on musical exposure of  young women.

Ray Davies appeared on David Letterman last week clad in scruffy pants with a shirt that may or may not have matched.  His performance was sublime with nary a choreographed hip shimmy in sight.  Shakira, on the other hand, who appeared on the show earlier in the week, seemed too busy awkwardly contorting her body to concentrate even on lip syncing.

Lady GaGa appeared on the American Music Awards the other night clad in a pair of flesh colored shorts while draped in some sort of neon snake like body belt.  Think Elton John in his early days, only without pants or a shirt and you’re close.  Her fierce talent was eclipsed by her regularly exposed posterior.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a great live musical performance.  What I don’t love is the notion that it’s become the norm for young female singers to perform dressed as burlesque dancers or strippers to gain some sort of mass approval of their music.  There is enough pressure on women and too much emphasis based on the ideal of female beauty over the realities and struggles that most women face.

Two more pop culture references and I promise that I’m done.

1. Tween sensation Justin Bieber’s appearance at a mall recently set off a riot by over 3,000 screaming young girls.

2. According to The Wall Street Journal “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” beat out both “The Dark Knight” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” by taking in $72.7  million on its first day – the largest opening-day box office gross on record,

My point? Young girls have incredible buying power and clout and what they’re spending on and eager to see over all else is a squeaky clean barely pubescent boy and a film extolling the virtues of abstinence.  It’s only when women get older that they become less desirable and respected a demographic to music marketers and/or the film industry.  Somewhere in the middle of all of that, the more musically inclined amongst them are expected to primp and pout and shimmy while singing for their supper.

Rachel, who can’t imagine anyone asking Aretha Franklin to don a bikini for a photo shoot

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