ABSTRACT
“There is reason to believe that childhood is now in crisis,” writes law professor Joel Bakan in a 2011 New York Times op-ed. He lists a number of factors for his concern, beginning with a description of his teenage children, “a million miles away, absorbed by the titillating roil of online social life, the addictive pull of video games and virtual worlds, as they stare endlessly at video clips and digital pictures of themselves and their friends.” He is not alone in the belief that popular culture is at least partly to blame for negatively impacting childhood. “Pop culture is destroying our daughters,” a 2005 Boston Globe story declared, affirming what many parents and critics believe. The article, tellingly titled “Childhood Lost to Pop Culture,” described young girls “walking around with too much of their bodies exposed,” their posteriors visible while sitting in low-rise jeans. 1
