More on Miley Cyrus

boom boom clap
boom boom clapdeclap
boom boom clap
boom boom clapdeclap
Here is something you can do, if you're 5 or 82...

These are the lyrics, this is the music, that has had me all in a twist.  We are now the proud owners of our second Hannah Montana CD. While there's still a part of me that is cringing over my sweet little six year old, with her very prominent front tooth gap, lisping along to songs about boys, something occurred to me as I was lifting some sheets from the washer into the dryer the other night.  I was thinking about my recent birthday, which made me think about my friend Laurie who will celebrate hers in a few days, and I remembered how we spent our time, back when we were eight years old and nearly inseparable.

We went to see Grease in a drive-in theater, and then when Laurie got the soundtrack, listened to it again and again and again (this is pre-VCR days!).  I eventually got the record for my birthday too, and it was a prized possession.  We knew every single word to every single song, and not just the ones that many years later became popular and got mixed into various medleys... I'm talking "Beauty School Dropout" and "Hopelessly Devoted to You."  Every last word.

Do you remember the plot of this movie?   Let's see... a boy and girl reunite at school after a summer fling (so far pretty squeaky clean), the girl meets up with a girl gang that smokes and pierces each other's ears in the bathroom, and the boy hangs out with a gang who is clearly up to no good, which you can tell because they wear black leather jackets and comb their hair a lot. The lead bad girl, Rizzo, says she "feels like a defective typewriter" because she skipped a period.  There are lots of great songs and dancing, all very bee-boppy and malt-shoppy.  And then there's Greased Lightning.  You know... the song with the word "pussy" in it. They bleep it out when they show it on TV but it's in there.  And the moral of the story?  Well, the big happy ending comes when the innocent shy girl learns that she's really going to need to slut it up a bit if she's going to win and keep the attention of the young and skinny John Travolta.  Once she realizes that and learns to dress and dance like she's 25, complete with dangling cigarette, everyone's happy and celebrates at the all-school carnival.  Yay!

Now, you'd think that all that exposure to such harmful messages and images would have turned me into a girl gang member, a slut, or at least... a smoker!  But the truth is, it did no such thing.  I still love those songs, I own a copy of the movie, and I have great memories of laying on the floor, looking at the snapshots on the album cover with Laurie, singing along to every song, and trying to decipher some of the less appropriate lyrics. And yet, there's no way I'm pulling that movie out for my daughters to watch. Yet.

Why is that? Typically each generation becomes more liberal, more open and flexible than the one previous.  But on some fronts I think it's the opposite.  I watched Three's Company (you can find 80 kinds of inappropriate in one episode of that show), Grease, and Charlie's Angels. But I am so reluctant to let them view or listen to something that doesn't match up with what I want them to learn and be exposed to.

If you're starting to worry that I've gone all Amish, and our daughters are going to be uncool and sheltered, don't worry. Even though I fret over their hearing songs about boyfriends and watching TV shows where people call each other stupid, in my heart I know it's all a part of growing up. How can they learn to navigate a world of conflicting values and messages if they're never exposed to them? How can they learn that it's not cool to slap your friends if they don't see it happen on iCarly and have a chance to think about it? And how can they have great childhood memories if everything they're exposed to is manufactured, sanitized, and programmed to teach wholesome values?  I may not be ready yet to get out the Grease DVD, but as I mentioned in my last post, they've seen School of Rock, and they're digging their new Hannah Montana CD.
Come to think of it, it may be time to get a hold of Linda Ronstadt's "Blue Bayou."  Because when Laurie and I weren't serenading the beauty school dropout, we were singin the blues, every word, by heart...

I been cheated, been mistreated...
When will I...I... be loved
(duhgada duhgada duhgada duh....)