Prostitution, Past and Present

What do Nicki Minaj and Les Miserables have in common?

Nothing, according to my teenager and her friends.
Loads, says me.

See, in my inclination to expose my child and her culturally starved companions to some better-than-average music and acting, I arranged a movie night in my living room during which we would be watching the 2012 film based on the ever-popular stage production of Les Miserables. Of course, it wasn't until the film was well underway that I realized that there was a possibility I hadn't quite thought this choice of film all the way through--as the ragged poor and theatrically dirt-smeared prostitutes filled the screen, the uncomfortable shifting of my audience began. Not only had I not sufficiently prepared these youngsters for the gritty, historical realism that the film attempts, but I had also somehow failed to remember the quantity of protruding breasts, suggestive lyrics, and even an intensely icky scene where Anne Hathaway is shown underneath one of her patrons, enduring his rigorous intimacies with a pained expression on her face.

Oops.

Needless to say, movie night failed miserably, with a few teenagers even promising lifelong traumatization from their exposure to the dark underbelly of France's (Hollywood-inspired) past.

In my own defense, however, I couldn't help but point out a few minor (major!) inconsistencies between the "acceptable" forms of pop entertainment these young people consume daily and their revulsion when faced with a more realistic version of what I consider to be the exact same thing. One of the teens, I happened to know, has a slightly unhealthy obsession with pop singer Nicki Minaj, whose revealing wardrobe and suggestive lyrics and dance moves are startlingly akin to modern forms of prostitution--selling sex, just to millions instead of one lusty customer at a time.

Anne Hathaway as the prostitute Fantine

Nicki Minaj, modern prostitute?

To my feminist sensibilities, Minaj offends on every possible level, far more than a crowd of dirt-smeared, singing prostitutes ever could. While I would not hold up either as exemplars of female empowerment, I think that there is something just slightly more honest about the everyday street-walker than these artificial pop icons, shimmying their way into massive record sales and onto pornographic posters on teenage boy's bedroom walls.

The teenagers in this case did not agree, and probably never will. I don't blame them--after all, they are products of their environments, right? Does give one pause for the future of feminist movement in this country, though.