Superbowl and Beyonce

Just after the Superbowl halftime show on Sunday evening, a commercial for Two Broke Girls was aired. The two broke girls were pole dancing in a sleazy version of their waitress uniforms.

Since my 12 and 14-year-old daughters were watching, and since they had just witnessed Beyonce’s halftime show, which sent me scowling away from the TV and into the next room, I had to act. It was lecture time.

Beyonce and her “entertainment image” and her black leather bathing-suit-like outfit were what sent me away scowling, and what prompted the lecture. She could have done those dance routines in something less, oh, shall we say, S&M-ish, couldn’t she? Sexy isn’t all about cleavage and leg, Beyonce, sexy is about charisma, sly winks and the promise of hidden secrets. I’d heard people calling her a “goddess,” but I don’t get that image from her.

Ann Powers of NPR said this in this article today: “When artists take on the burden of being role models, adapting themselves to an ideal, the pressure for them to be authentic increases a million-fold.” Personally, as the mother of 12 and 14-year-old daughters, I think it’s far less important whether a role model like Beyonce actually sings during a Super Bowl Spectacular (as opposed to lip-synching to her own, recorded self) than whether she is a positive role model.  She has a lot to offer young girls, as talented a singer and performer as she is. Why does she have to sleaze it up all the time, and make it look like her primary objective is to get all the men to drool? It seems to me, there are higher objectives in the mind of a true “goddess.”