Toddler Dancing to Beyoncé: Cute or Disturbing?

Alex

Thingamababy blog has a viral video clip - the original has over 1 million views - of a young girl named Arianna dancing to Beyoncé's Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It). She (Arianna) has the moves down pat, but is it cute or disturbing (or a little of both) to let your toddler watch MTV for its, um, videos of scantily clad pop stars dancing?

Link [embedded YouTube clip]


Disturbing to me. I'm not even a prude and you can bet your sweet ass I wouldn't put that on YouTube.

She shouldn't be watching that crap enough to know the grownup words or dance moves.
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My opinion here, which isn't really worth the two cents I'm giving, is that this is a three year old who sees something she thinks is really interesting and is just imitating it. Granted, she probably shouldn't be watching MTV at her age [not that MTV shows much music at all anymore], but at three, I don't think she fully grasps the meaning of what she's listening to or what she's doing.

Would I let a three year old listen and watch to Beyonce? No. However, it's not my choice on what little Arianna does. (:
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I just have issue with the term "scantily clad." She's wearing a friggin' leotard. Please... never go the the beach, or even attend a children's dance recital. Apparently, I too was "scantily clad" as early as two. My parents must have been horrible degenerates... Suprisingly, I didn't start selling my body at 16 :P
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It's disturbing that people, especially parents, don't think about television as anything more than entertainment. For a child, everything is new. Almost everything they hear becomes part of their reality because they don't have the "common sense" or old information to negate anything. The culture, language, imagery, everything on the television is absorbed. Television, and the world inside it, just becomes a fact of life. It sucks that kids aren't taught, but left to fend for themselves, knee-deep in a kaleidoscope of images. More and more people are growing up as children of the media, and life imitates art imitates life...

I'm not trying to say that television is the scourge of the humans, or that this girl has bad parents. But I mean, a house with the TV blaring all day just doesn't seem like an appropriate environment for the growing future leaders of the world.
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The girl is cute, don't think what she's doing is though. It's not nearly as bad as another video that won on America's Funniest Home Video.
It was of a little girl and her daddy, Beyonce once again playing in the background, daddy opens up the cabinet and out pops the girl that couldn't be more than 2 yrs old (if that)... and there she is in her diaper shaking her butt like a pro. It's NOT cute seeing toddlers shaking their ass like it's their job.
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I don't think that a dancing little girl is disturbing or sexualized, even if the dance is to Beyonce. All little kids imitate what they see if it grabs their attention, and I don't know of many parents that will sanitize their music because their kid might be around, nor do I feel that they should. I know I was singing and dancing to Zeppelin when I was her age.

What I find disturbing is that her parents would put it on YouTube where people who would sexualize it can watch it for their sick entertainment. Even if YouTube had been around when I was three, I can bet my big toe that my parents wouldn't want the world to watch their little darling screeching, "Squeeze my lemon..." no matter how innocent it was for me.
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I realize that scantily clad was in reference to Beyonce, however... she too is dressed in a leotard. One shoulder is left bare, while the other arm is in a long sleeve. Still, it's a leotard. Not exactly "Like a Virgin."
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I dont think this is disturbing at all I have seen much stranger and scarier things but this is just a little girl dancing. When I was in ballet class as a sweet little 5 year old I was dressed in a leotard dancing to my boy lollypop and the opening move was a line of us bent over shaking our bums to the audience. Maybe you only see it as sexual because the whole sex thing has been sensationalised and the media love putting out stories about peados so something that used to be innocent is now seen as dangerous
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Her goofing around in her own home isn't disturbing. Hell, I had a stupid show called 'Barenaked and Stylish' when I was little, which was basically a bunch of stupid dancing/singing while getting into my pyjamas.

The difference is that my parents didn't tape it and put it on the Internet.
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As others have said. She's just repeating what she sees, all children do that. And one more thing, Beyoncé’s thighs are huge! I'm hungry for some fried chicken drumsticks now.
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Disturbing...
What her parents have in mind?
The question here isn't what the little girl think or know about what she is doing, but her parents believes and values.
Sad! Quiet sad!
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A small girl of my accquaintance has been known to trampoline naked in the snow just for the fun of it. The neighbours don't give a hoot and neither do we. If she's still doing it at 16 I'll worry, but she's got a decade in which to learn a spot of modesty - which they generally do.

However - I didn't film it and put it on YouTube.
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She is dressed the same and I assure you that at that age, she does not know the difference. Arianna just likes to sing and dance just like Beyonce did at that age. Not disturbing at all. Practice young and often and you too could be a Beyonce some day.
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I doubt a pedophile would find that any more exciting than any other dumb videos of a kid moving around. Watched about 30 seconds of it: bo-ring.
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The act itself is cute and innocent. It's a little girl dancing to music.

The distubing part is that someone who KNOWS the content of the song/video she's dancing to (assumption: her parents?) and decides to tape it and put it on youtube. That person would have to be all sorts of nieve to not see the implications of putting such a thing ON THE INTERNET. Its not like it's on VHS for her grandparents to see. "Everybody knows that there are tons of 'bad people' on the internet."
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How do you even KNOW for a fact she was watching it on MTV??? Maybe she heard it on the radio and got the video off of cable? Most cable providers now provide music and music video channels that are specifically ALL music....
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I think it is disturbing that people watch MTV at all... much better things to do with your time.

We learn so much when we are young... much more than we are capable to as adults. The difference is that children don't have any life experience to decide for themselves what is COOL, right, wrong, innapropriate, intelligent, dumb... they look to the allowances, prodding, reaction etc of adults and others to decide for them.

I believe in positive reinforcement especially for our children. I don't look up to and would not want my children looking up to Beyonce.

I vote disturbing for most of the reasons listed above.

We don't have enough experience with this kind of TV (and certain video games for that matter) to see the magnitude of how it will affect future generations. So far I think that we can tell that it has destroyed many. At least it has limited the ambition of many and altered realities.

Look at the statistics of age groups (starting at 0 months) and how much time the spend watching TV daily.

Go read a book! Read your children books. Encourage positive behaviour.
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