Of Turtlenecks and Tube Tops

So there’s this totally stupid article in the WaPo best described as This Year’s Alarmist Crapport about Teen Girls Dressing as Sluts, some version of which has undoubtedly appeared in the Post every year since its 1877 inception.


“Have you seen Gertrude’s daughter’s bustle?
One could nearly discern that she had an ass.”
“Oh, Mildred—you have given me the vapors!”
Now, for a thoughtful analysis and discussion of this article, see Jill at Feministe and the associated comments thread. (Amanda, too.) I, on the other hand, will focus on two specific passages employing the perfunctory “celebrity comparison” device, and will use sarcasm and mockery to call attention to the overall comprehensive uselessness of the piece. First, we’ll start with this little gem:

Even famous people can be modest. They don't have to be Britney Spears. Take Audrey Hepburn, who has no counterpart today. Part of her allure lay in the way she embodied humility and modesty. Yet she also conveyed spirit and originality and a strong sense of self.

Audrey Hepburn has no counterpart today? I mean, if all we’re talking about is a woman’s ability to keep her tits and ass-crack covered up while conveying style and self-esteem, I can give you a list: Liv Tyler, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, Queen Latifah, Renee Zellweger, Penelope Cruz, Björk (goose dress notwithstanding), Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Angela Bassett, Ashley Judd, Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Connelly, Charlize Theron, Monica Bellucci, Uma Thurman, Tina Fey, Ziyi Zhang, Kirsten Dunst…

A whole international list of women who project confidence and style without being regularly photographed with bare midriffs and thongs hanging out the waistbands of their jeans—and none of them ever consented to star in a film with Mickey Rooney doing an embarrassingly insulting impersonation of a hideous Asian stereotype, either.


Speaking of modesty…
Anyway, we move on to the next quote, which not only employs the perfunctory “celebrity comparison” device, but also includes the obligatory-since-1985 Madonna reference:

Have we come a long way, baby? The Lennon Sisters and Gidget of girlhoods gone by are light-years from today's Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. The bridge between these two generations of stars was Madonna -- before she had children and cleaned up her act.

Someone needs to do a little pop culture reconnaissance, methinks, unless this signifies a cleaner act than boob-cones:


Madge Vag.
My point here is not to dis Audrey—or Madge, for that matter (that’s her husband’s job)—but simply to illustrate a few basic facts…namely, that Audrey wasn’t the world’s last fashion-forward iconoclast, and that Madonna can still give any teenage trash a run for her money, even after kids and Kabbalah. (And good for her.)

Which brings us to the moral of this story—we can do away with these stories from now on, because there always has been and always will be some girls who wear turtlenecks in the summer, and some who wear tube tops in the winter, and everyone else in between. And it doesn’t matter, because Madonna’s the world’s biggest whore. Or something like that. The End.