FRANK RICH, CULTURE WARRIOR:

America Tunes In for the Money Shot (Frank Rich, 11/30/03, NY Times)

[W]holesale wallowing in pedophilia is no anomaly. Dozens of Web sites are devoted to counting down to the 18th birthday of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, twin kid stars of a 1990's sitcom who are now branding their emerging sexuality to move a merchandise line. We are only just recovering from the marathon bookselling tour enthusiastically taken by the parents of Elizabeth Smart, the abducted Utah 14-year-old. (The "money shot" everyone was looking for in that case was succinctly summed up when Oprah told the couple, "I think we all assume your daughter was sexually assaulted.") Still going strong is R. Kelly, the R & B singer due in court tomorrow on 21 counts of child pornography involving a 14-year-old girl. His new CD debuted at No. 1 in Billboard after he was charged. He also collaborated with Mr. Jackson on the one new song (titled "One More Chance," if you please) on the singer's compilation CD — just as he has with Britney Spears on her new CD.

Ms. Spears, her ex-beau Justin Timberlake and her rival Christina Aguilera were all first spotted as pubescent sex symbols when converging as mouseketeers on the Disney Channel's "All New Mickey Mouse Club" in 1993, the year of the last Jackson sex scandal. The media assembly line moved her along from chaste child star to Lolitaesque jailbait in record speed; her trajectory is nothing if not an Internet-time version of Mr. Jackson's progress since his early days as a child star. By 16, Ms. Spears was wearing a Catholic school uniform in the video for her hit ". . . Baby One More Time." Her image, a fusion of sex and dewy ersatz innocence out of the Jackson family playbook, was bought not only by kids who might not know better but by the parents who shelled out for her merchandise.

It's hard to imagine many Americans complaining about Calvin Klein ads anymore. Perhaps pedophilic chic is growing because in a porn-saturated nation, it's the one taboo left (and barely at that). Perhaps it's because of our culture's ever-increasing panic about growing old, as manifested in our favorite new spectator sport, plastic surgery, for which Mr. Jackson is the unfortunate poster boy. Whatever the explanation, this phenomenon is worthy of far more debate than the jurisprudence surrounding the singer's legal fix. After all, that debate is over; he's already been declared guilty by the court of public opinion. Aside from Elizabeth Taylor, who would so much as entertain the notion that Michael Jackson might be the innocent victim of a hysterical "Capturing the Friedmans" scenario? Only those prudes who would pour cold water on the nation's most popular erotic pastime.

What exquisite irony to see Mr. Rich make precisely the kind of slippery slope argument--from the midpoint of the slope no less--that he would deny to others. Remind us again how the social acceptance of deviant sex isn't leading us to the point where paedophilia will be seen as just another lifestyle.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 30, 2003 6:06 PM