Not long ago the media whipped the public up into a frenzy over a photo of Willow Smith lying across a bed while a young man without a shirt sat near her on the same bed. So loud was the frenzy, Child Protective Services allegedly began an investigation. Since the media and the public were so loud about that photo, where is the noise about
- the fact other people were in the room, since Willow and the young man in question (who weren’t even touching, by the way) didn’t take the photo?
- the probability that this has died down because CPS discovered (as I suspected all along) this was all NOTHING to begin with?
- our society’s tendency to sexualize something that was in no way overtly sexual?
- the lack of noise every time other girls are photographed anywhere near topless males (the beach, the pool, their own living rooms, the lawn, etc.)?
I called bullshit when the media frenzy started, and I am calling bullshit on the sheepish silence from the media and the public now. Jada Pinkett Smith was entirely right to angrily respond to reporters there was nothing to the photo, and they were projecting their own ugliness onto it. If I was in her shoes, I would have said the same thing, though probably not nearly as nicely as she said it.