News channels and parenting blogs have been on fire the past few days over a video of 8-year-old girls dancing to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” during a dance competition. The girls do a lot of gyrating and are dressed in bikini-like dance costumes.
ABC interviewed one set of parents who justified the dance by saying the video wasn’t meant to be seen by millions of people, and that these are well known pop songs (so get over it). The real problem, they say, is everybody else: The video is being viewed “out of context.”
Well, let’s view it in context for a moment… Young girls in a dance competition. Many of us have been there. I’ve done a lot of dance in my life, beginning at 7 years-old. Dance can be a beautiful and expressive art form, and I’m aware that dance costumes are by necessity designed for movement and to enhance lines and effect.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
Sign up to get Crisis articles delivered to your inbox daily
That said, this is one of those moments when you realize just how bad things have gotten. How any parent could think it’s appropriate for 8-year-old girls to perform a routine like this is beyond me. They somehow fail to see that this kind of thing sexualizes their girls, robs them of their innocence, and makes them potential sexual objects for depraved people.
Â