Back Seat Freak?

I was a guest on Real Talk with Michael McFadden this week to talk about my new book, Ending the Blame Game. One of the first things he asked is what I thought about Bill O'Reilly's interview with Russell Simmons when he commented about Beyoncé's Partition video (which, like so many others, has strong sexual content), saying that she was not a good role model for young girls.

Usually people first start with parental responsibility. I agree that parents should be the ultimate role models for children even though this is often not the case for periods or not modeling the best behavior. Well, Beyoncé has been steadily upping and oozing her sexuality since about 1998 at the ripe old age of 16. Most of her career she was single, and her parents had a major say in her business deals and phenomenal rise in the industry-- her dad was her manager up until a few years ago! Now that she's a wife and mother in her 30's (in that order I will add), what's inappropriate for teens and tweens is not so inappropriate for her.

Yes, I get her strong man and advocacy with songs like Girls run the world and Independent Women, but she like most people is three-dimensional and has the right to show the many sides to her (physically and artistically). Do I personally agree with all of her cussing, gyrating dances and explicit content? Doesn't matter. She's not a gospel artist singing worship songs to Jesus in her lingerie. And her fans love her regardless-- the record crushing numbers with her unadvertised iTunes release are proof, so there's no reason for her to change her modus operandi.

Well I see that parents should be the biggest influencer their kids, you can't discount that pop and hip hop influence today. If you could, people young and old wouldn't imitate dances or gestures from music videos, wouldn't adopt slang or catch phrases into their vocabulary, wouldn't sing and dance in our bedrooms and living rooms, perform in talent shows or contests, wouldn't shop for clothes or jewelry to imitate celebrity styles or ask for hairstyles to look like them, and there would be no such thing as endorsement deals.

Need I go on?