Just when I was getting semi-used to how differently women are viewed here — they’re valued more for being mothers than workers, and chastity is prized even as many professional women here walk around in miniskirts, tacones and cleavage-bearing shirts — Quien magazine, a fluffy but respected publication in town (billionaire Carlos Slim was on a recent cover) has gone and put a 14-year-old telenovela star Danna Paola on its cover, announcing her at the top of its list of “beautiful girls.”
All the other women featured in the story are in their 20s.
As you can see above, Paola is wearing a bikini and a sexy expression, which is creepy and disturbing. Even worse is the video the accompanies the story, which has leering camera angles and moaning-ecstasy sound effects.
Executives at Televisa, which sponsors Paola’s show, Atrevete a Soñar, are reportedly scandalized by the magazine cover and are thinking about canceling her contract, El Universal says. Other websites are reporting that Televisa is demanding that Quien magazine turn over the photos. Also: Where were the girl’s parents?
Quien, for its own part, is portraying the uproar as a bunch of rumors, and Televisa as an overbearing company that’s squashing the success of a up-and-coming star. Paola felt very comfortable during the shoot, a story posted today on Quien’s website says.
I don’t pretend to know how hard it is to be a parent, let alone a showbiz parent, but what ever happened to the idea of teenage girls simply being teenage girls, and not sexualized creatures? In the U.S., a lot of the hot teen starlets right now are admired for their sweetness and innocence. (Unlike the Lohan era of five years ago.) Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, for example, have never been photographed stumbling out of a club or flashing their underwear at the paparazzi, and Selena was just on the cover of Teen Vogue. Not that I’m advocating for them to have perfect lives, but it’s refreshing to see them acting their age. Can you imagine the uproar if either one of them appeared in bathing suits and sexy expressions on the cover of a U.S. magazine?
I’m getting more worked up about this as I write, so maybe I should just stop here and go take some deep breaths.
There was an uproar last year when Miley Cyrus did a photo shoot for Vanity Fair and they had her posing with nothing but a sheet on. Her parents/managers claimed to have left the photo shoot as it was almost finished and that’s when the mostly nude shots were taken. And yes, there was quit the uproar.
I’m sure this was a conscious decision done to generate the publicity!
As an aside, there are many negative things I could say about how women are treated in this country, but one of the few positive things I’ve discovered is that this is a country where curves are OK and not a sign of failure. Only in the super-expensive European stores is it hard to find clothing above a size 4.
(And in the DF there are so many super-cool younger “rockr” girls with spiky haircuts, dark clothing, etc, that ignore all this B.S. I often wonder how they feel about their expected “roles” here, and what they grow up to be/do.)
At the same time, though, the images of curvy Mexican women in/on the media are usually very over-the-top, with huge hair, long nails, super-tight clothing, enormous amounts of make-up, basically this strange Fembot of a woman that must take hours to create. I’m thinking of your typical Mexican weathergirl.
When I go to NYC, women seem to idolize being very skinny and having fashionable clothes/haircuts, but are otherwise low-maintenance to the point of often looking masculine (to me). It’s so strange how these regional differences pop up.
Rach: Yeah, I remember the Miley thing. This seems so much more distasteful. At least Miley’s photos purported to be artsy. (They were taken by Annie Liebowitz.)
Joy: Really interesting point about regional differences among women’s appearances. I’d agree with you that in NYC, there does seem to be a lot of of emphasis on being skinny and fashionable. Whereas in Dallas, fashionable seems a lot higher on the ladder. Skinny is good too, but if you’re wearing labels, you suddenly have that much more social currency. It’s interesting.
I also think there’s a pretty big difference between 14 and 16, but both were creepy.
Like PC I agree, both were creepy. But even with just a sheet, Miley Cyrus was wearing more than this girl. And yes..what’s up with the video??? Just gross. Great point about all of the girls being 20-something and well…now way under. I don’t get it. Mexico’s TV channels and movie screens are filled with beautiful women well over 30.
P.S. I like how Televisa is playing the innocent card when they clearly have control of what this actress does and doesn’t do.
This magazine is published by Expansion. I say we start a campaign and make CNN kick it’s media partner/pervert.