Katy Perry has caused quite a stir of controversy recently, after her appearance on the iconic preschool program Sesame Street. Initially released via YouTube, the video features Katy dressed in her “dress up” clothes, and playing with Elmo whilst singing a variation of one of her latest hits. The outfit was deemed too revealing for some parents taste. As a result of the comments received, the song segment was pulled from the TV show, demonstrating the influence of informal online comment and the convergence of television with online media. The story of the initial reaction and the video itself went into viral overdrive, as discussions about whether it was in fact questionable raged.
Catherine Lumby and Duncan Fine (2006, p. 57) define moral panic as “a hyperbolic fear that distracts people from the real issues and real solutions, by suggesting that things like drug abuse, violence and child abuse are the result of a single monolithic external cause such as television”. Similarly Karen Brooks (2008, p. 3) suggests that “listening to the media and other reports circulating, you’d be hard pressed not believing that our kids are just one doll, song, website, TV show, film, Muppet or outfit away from being sexually corrupted or, at worse, abused.” This moral panic also relates to the notion of the disappearance of childhood, due to Perry and her alleged controversial attire being promoted to children at such a young age. As Media Scholar David Buckingham (2000. P.27) asserts: “...children are escaping into the wider adult world - a world of dangers and opportunities, in which the electronic media are playing an ever more important role… We must have the courage to prepare them to deal with it, to understand it, and to become active participants in their own right”. When I showed the excerpt to my own children, who are the target audience for Sesame Street, they commented that they thought it was “silly” and it was “so funny that she was singing the song from Masterchef”. They had no other association with Katy Perry, other than a family cooking show. They did not comment on her attire, whereas my husband did. It is evident from this example that such media texts can be read on different levels.
It is important that we encourage our students to take a critical perspective to their television viewing by engaging in such discussion in the classroom on these issues, particularly in the areas of technologies, in regard to media convergence of television and online media, audiences and gender representation.
Elizabeth Heck.REFERENCES:
Brooks, K. (2008). Introduction : The Toxic 'Truth' About Our Tots, Tweens and Teens in Brooks, Karen, Consuming innocence : popular culture and our children, St Lucia, Qld Aust: UQP, pp.1-10.
Buckingham, D. (2000) After the death of childhood: Growing up in the Age of Electronic Media. United Kingdom : Polity Press.
Lumby, C. & Fine, D. (2006). TV villains: media panics. In C. Lumby & D. Fine (Eds.), Why TV is good for kids: raising 21st century children (pp. 55-96). Sydney: MacMillan.
