Back in high school, I and a small group of girls marched down to the principal’s office and demanded the right to wear pants. Prior to that impromptu meeting, all female students were required to wear dresses to school.
Looking back on that episode, I recognize that it was an era in which young people were steeped in media images of activism: students were protesting the Vietnam War; African-Americans were marching for their civil rights under the guidance of Dr. Martin Luther King; women were burning their bras in gestures of solidarity with Gloria Steinham and other feminists who insisted that women deserved equality under the law.
Surrounded by these images, is it any wonder why we were inspired and emboldened to challenge the authority in our own small corner of the world? Not only did we confront the school’s authority, but we won the right to dress as we pleased. Within months, both male and female students were wearing faded jean bell-bottoms complete with rips and fraying hems.
Fast forward to this week—ironically, the week of Gloria Steinham’s birthday and an era when feminism is considered by many to be an f-word.
Apparently, a furor has erupted over the online game Miss Bimbo. Aimed at girls aged from 9 to 16, players start with a naked virtual character and then, compete for “bimbo dollars” to give their virtual dolls facelifts, breast implants and a regime of diet pills to keep their weight in check. For instance, breast implants sell at 11,500 bimbo dollars and net the buyer 2000 bimbo attitudes; thus, making her more popular. In a game where the aim is to be the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world, bagging a billionaire boyfriend becomes the pinnacle of success. In France, the game has 1.2 million subscribers only a year after its launch. A month after the site opened in Britain, it had attracted over 200,000 members.
When questioned about the game on Canada AM this week, Merryl Bear, Director of the National Eating Disorder Information Centre in Toronto, made the comment that Miss Bimbo was just an extreme example of the kind of image which we see in the media all the time. Rather than ban the game, she suggested that it should be used as a teaching tool and stated that there was a need to teach media literacy to young people. This comment echoes that of Amy Jussel, the Executive Director of Shaping Youth, who wrote in her blog that it should be used to “open new dialogue on new ways to counter-market this crud” and that she plans to use it “to get people brainstorming on how to teach critical thinking skills.”
They make a good point. I can’t help but wonder whether my teenage self would have been able to hear the messages of King and Steinham had they been trying to communicate through the din of today’s media.
In fact, I would suggest that a challenge for public libraries, and specifically for those of us in the FIMS program, is to empower today’s youth through media literacy so they, too, will be inspired to make an active difference in the world.
“Miss Bimbo website promotes extreme diets and surgery to 9-year-olds” TimesOnline
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3613881.ece
“Bimbo Bait: Is Silence or Outrage the Solution for Digital Drek?” Shaping Youth Blog
http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=1280
