Georgia Jagger Controversy: Should Teens Ever Appear Topless In Ads?
Posted by: Leonora Epstein
Filed in:
style
12:30PM, Thursday July 23rd 2009
Agency Spy is taking issue with Hudson Jeans’s latest ad campaign, featuring 17-year-old Georgia Jagger, daughter of rock god Mick and supermodel Jerry Hall. Appearing topless (minus nipple action, however), the teenager models the jeans as she lounges in a seductive position. Agency Spy denounces the photo because young girls “are off limits when it comes to sexual references in advertising. This kind of work perpetuates the notion that children and sex somehow fit into the same category, which they clearly do not.”
Agreed with the latter, yet to say that underage females are off limits in sexualized advertising is untrue. Should be off limits, yes. Clearly, this is not a happy reflection on the way American marketing operates, but in practice, consumerism has long profited from the blatant exploitation of young women. Particularly in the fashion world, teenaged models (some as young as 12!) constitute a sizable portion of the industry, routinely appearing in “risqué” campaigns that expose their bodies, or characterize them as dark, highly sexual beings. This is not to say that the trend is morally correct, but it exists regardless.
Is it simply because Georgia is the daughter of a celebrity that this advertisement is being called out? Do you think people should shut up about this campaign? Or that nudity for underage models should start to be regulated, period? [Agency Spy]
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
DancerNinja
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 11:39 am: [report]
American Apparel and Abercrombie come to mind. I have a hard time believing all their models are 18 or older. How can they lash out at Hudson Jeans when precedent has already been set? But I DO think under age nudity should be regulated.
bogart4017
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 11:45 am: [report]
No child pornography period!
Lilypie
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 12:26 pm: [report]
They are profiting from sexually provocative pictures of a child. Wrong no matter how they try to justify it. And shame on the parents as well.
Ms.NGuerrero
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 12:42 pm: [report]
Im with Bogart4017, anyone under 18 like this should be considered child pornography, because I bet if a sex offender had downloaded it onto his computer, hed still be charged with child porn. its too thin a line…
Coral
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 12:50 pm: [report]
I really don’t see the huge problem with this..I do think there should be an age minimum, however 17 year olds like Georgia surely know about sex and the provocative society that we live in. I am not saying that young women should be promoting it, but we also shouldn’t be keeping them in hiding as if something is wrong with showing a bit of a suggestive and sexual side.
shannac02
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 12:54 pm: [report]
It’s ads like these and the permissiveness that they entail. These ads make it easier for young girls to act and move in a provocative way, therefore giving pedophiles and sex offenders overall a justification for the acts that they commit. Typically offenders will try to blame their actions on the women or children that they victimize, let’s not make it easier for them to make justifications.
slider113
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 01:17 pm: [report]
child pornography to my understanding is a child with someone else involved. if its modeling style and of no harm to the teen, I don’t see any harm in it at all. sorry if this pisses alot of you off. my opinion.
robertsmithshairspray
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 01:30 pm: [report]
Lol, funny this should be posted: the other day I was at a band’s photoshoot, that had almost naked models in it. I knew one of them, I know she’s 17. The whole thing was a farce, and I reckon they’re going to regret it soon enough. Just another bad decision, I guess.
becktasm
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 02:31 pm: [report]
17 years, 11 months, and 29 days? Oh, no no no. But the day she turns 18, she’s fair game. Most 18-year-olds are still in high school, and our culture sees no problem in fetishizing them. I’m moving to Antarctica.
alleigh25
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 06:30 pm: [report]
There isn’t anything magical about turning 18 that makes it change from unacceptable to okay, it’s just an arbitrary age. The age of consent varies between states but is usually 16 or 17, so it’s somewhat odd that child pornography is defined as under 18. I personally think the laws need reevaluated and updated.
Regardless, there’s nothing particularly inappropriate about this picture, and it isn’t like this is a new thing or an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. There does need to be some regulation, certainly, but a seventeen year old who is technically, but not blatantly, half naked shouldn’t really spark controversy…unless, of course, her parents are famous.
Of course, one consideration: even though she isn’t showing much in the photo, she WAS half naked during the shoot, though modesty is pretty much moot in modeling, anyway, and had she been dressed she probably would have changed in front of people, so that may be slightly less significant than it initially seems.
writergirl
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 06:56 pm: [report]
This is an OLD debate…..
When Brook Shields did the Calvin Klein adds in 1980 she was 15. Now, granted she wasn’t topless, but for the time, those adds were pretty provocative. Especially the one I just saw on YouTube that had some guy who had to be in his 30s talking to her like he was trying to seduce her. Cree-py.
I STILL remember the outrage of my parents and grandparents and the adults over the “Nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s” add. And my family doesn’t exactly fit the definition of prudes.
Those old adds of Brook’s are tame compared to what’s above. But the action of using teen models under the age of 18 in provocative poses isn’t new. And I don’t even find the above add offensive. I think as a society we’ve become that immune to such adds.
Young girls will always be used as sexual references in adds because a sexy teen model in the latest hot jeans SELLS to other teens who want to be sexy in those name brand jeans. The teen girls buying the jeans aren’t objectifying the models; they want to BE the models.
_jsw_
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 07:09 pm: [report]
I realize that nothing magical happens the moment someone turns 18, but it’s good to have a specific age or else it’ll slowly slip younger and younger. Of course, what should or should not be allowed is the big question to answer. And that is a very difficult question to resolve. I do think that the resolution should be national, not left to the states, so you don’t have to be aware of 50 different interpretations of “acceptable”.
I - and every time this happens, it causes me to re-evaluate my entire outlook on life - agree with Phil In Reno in that the standards and punishments are ridiculous when it comes to kiddie porn. I am absolutely and completely against the sexual exploitation of children by adults, but I think it’s wrong to consider any and all nude or partially nude or potentially suggestive pictures to be pornography, and I think that cell-pics kids send to one another are typically a stupid thing but shouldn’t be criminal. Some 40-year-old guy who molests a 10 year old girl is horribly wrong. What shouldn’t be the case: couple have been having sex for years but, the moment one of them turns 18, that person can be charged with statutory rape and sentenced to a lifetime of being a registered sex offender.
I think we, as a society, have a long way to go in learning how to protect our children from things that can truly scar them and yet stop criminalizing behavior which hurts no one. Likewise, we should find a way to slowly criminalize some things with age, as opposed to saying “today, you can have sex with your girlfriend, but tomorrow, it’ll land you in prison.” Luring kids in and drugging them to take naked pics of them? Seriously horrible. Girl sending naked pic to her boyfriend? Stupid, in general, but shouldn’t be criminal. 17-year-old couple having sex, then one of them going to jail on his or her 18th birthday? Wrong.
This pic, the subject of the article? I wouldn’t want my daughters posing like that, but I don’t think it’s actually wrong. A bit slimy, yes. But not really wrong. I’m not comfortable with it, but I don’t see why some would want it to actually be illegal.
_jsw_
wrote on July 23 2009 @ 07:18 pm: [report]
Hmmm. I just went to the Hudson Jeans site. While the picture above doesn’t strike me as all that bad, I very much disagree with some of the images that zip by quickly when you go there.
Still, as unacceptable as I find them, I don’t think they should be illegal. Probably.
Ogbu
wrote on July 24 2009 @ 08:00 am: [report]
Obviously, child porn is disgusting.
But really, what is the age when someone’s innocence, gullibilty, and exploitivity is no longer existent to the point where taking naked photos is acceptable?
There is no hard and fast rule because you never really know an individual. She could be turning 18 tommorrow, would she magically posses an “adult” mentality over night? Probably not.
Basically, the controversy is kind of silly. She isn’t being raped, she is posing semi nude for a professional photographer, not in some sleazy back alley. ONOZ!
shannac02
wrote on July 24 2009 @ 08:06 am: [report]
It’s not the photo itself that is the problem, it’s the message that the photo sends. If men are being bombarded by images of young girls half-naked, then why should we be surprised when young girls are being raped and tortured? I mean, the media says its okay, so who are we to argue?
Little Lamb
wrote on July 24 2009 @ 12:46 pm: [report]
The thing is, there has to be a cut-off point. A law with no gray-area. And for this particular item, I believe 18 is not too old for someone to decide if they want to be photographed without clothing (whether breasts, or butt, or a full frontal). Really, were the majority of us mature enough at 16 to realize how something like this could affect us??? I wasn’t!!!
Alexa
wrote on July 25 2009 @ 08:23 am: [report]
@slider113, “child pornography to my understanding is a child with someone else involved. “
No, sadly, that’s not true. Even simple nudity gets flagged as child porn under federal law. There have been many instances of parents being charged with child porn simply for taking nude photos of their young children (i.e., in the tub taking a bath).
wild-ting
wrote on July 27 2009 @ 08:17 pm: [report]
I guess I am desensitized. Check out youtube or any video site. There’s a whole lotta nude teens showing and shaking every thing. Wasn’t Brooke Shields like 12 when she told the world “nothing becomes between me and my Calvins” for Calvin Klein jeans? Wasn’t she topless or something??
allisnotlost
wrote on July 30 2009 @ 02:54 pm: [report]
yes it would appear that some aspects of child porn are acceptable. As long as child porn is socially acceptable, as long as children think they are socially acceptable to show more and more skin, it will not stop. Showing topless teens in adds is the same as showing topless adults. As long as someone is topless and cool, children will find it cool too.
When I was a minor, maybe I lacked role models, but I thought that showing off my body was cool. I thought it would get me friends and a great life. This was until I realized that showing off my body would only attract people who were more interested in my body than my brain or who I truly am as a whole. At that age, I didn’t care about my health, I didn’t care about my education as much as I cared about being accepted and being beautiful. The thing is, there is more beauty missed every day because we all begin to think beauty is a 17 year old girl whose body has not stood the test of time.
You know what I think is beautiful now? Wrinkles! They are becoming more and more rare these days. You know what else I think is beautiful? Shyness! Adds mystery! Mystery is beautiful. Don’t ban anything though, just shift focus to something else! Clothed people reading books! That’s so nerdy! but it should be cool…