(Give credit where it's due, I got inspired after reading this brilliant take by my Twitter acquaintance @Merc80)
Two things come to mind. 1) Chris Rock's riff about fathers' only job in life is keeping their daughters off the stripper pole. 2) Nas' classic song "Black Girl Lost" which I thought about two weeks ago when Lindsay Lohan went to jail.
This isn't a chance for me to blame Laurence Fishburne for not doing his job - although the irony of him being the ultimate Black movie dad Furious Styles in "Boyz N The Hood" isn't lost here. This is just sad for both of them, especially Montana who cited Kim Kardashian as her "inspiration" for doing this.
Montana's decision is not only an indictment on her poor logic but also society in saying that nobody is safe from your hypodermic needle filled with lies, not even the daughter of a successful, classy father.
I've wondered for years what's gonna happen to our youth when they are being overfed hyper-sexualized images in music/television/movies/pop culture. We said that we could always tell when a pop star was becoming a woman by the amount of clothing she slowly started taking off. Now girls can't tell the difference between art and reality.
Look at hip-hop, who was the last female MC to get famous for her style not her sex? Missy Elliott and Eve probably. Lil Kim and Foxy Brown started the whole trend and now look around and see girls want to be like Nicki Minaj, who's following Kim's handbook.
But it's bigger than hip-hop. Girls have been told to sell sex to be popular for years. Way before Lupe Fiasco did it, girls were told to dumb it down so that they'll be more attractive to guys. Groupie chicks started in the days of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley way before the 60's and free love.
The worst trend of the last 5 years is the TMZ-ification of this being broadcasted everywhere. If Hollywood starlets aren't partying hard, doing drugs, having sex, being caught in compromising positions, they aren't famous.
Everything sells more if women are involved but what exactly are we buying into? An ideal that girls are buying into younger and younger, something I watch and pray against with the girls I tutor and watch at church.
Montana Fishburne is a sad reminder of this. Somewhere along the line, she failed to see herself as a strong woman with a good name and instead saw her body as a meal ticket. That's not power. She forgot who she was and instead chose a get-rich quick way that's going to only screw up her mind and confuse her fragile mind even worse.
And worse, she drags her father's name with her. Like Rock said, when a woman sells her body, it's the father who feels the pain the worst. His reputation takes a huge hit and his family name becomes tainted the same way the Hilton name is.
Wouldn't be surprised if she ended up on drugs, hating men, being some rapper's jump-off or writing a book exposing her relationship with her Dad as less than perfect.
It's a sad reminder that the only road this path will take for girls is destruction and pain. I wish we could do more to show this side of "paradise" to deter others thinking this is any more than a fantasy gone wrong, instead of women like Kat Stacks being a sad example of the route to fame.
We need more of Serena/Venus Williams, Scarlett Johansson, Danica McKellar (aka "Winnie" from Wonder Years). We need more songs showing women in a positive light. And we need to do it soon before this slippery slope claims more blind victims. Little Girls Lost.
This was a great post. A lot of people doubt moral decay in our society, but it's hard to believe they could miss shocking examples such as this. My hope is that negative press reaction will change her mind, but it's a faint hope. Education is also important; kids need to be shown from an early age that some ways of life simply aren't rewarding as the media portrays them to be.
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