Description
On June 30, 2010, La Vanguardia noted a poll listing the top one hundred most influential newsmakers in the world. Among the group ranked were Taylor Swift (twelve), Miley Cyrus (thirteen), and the Jonas Brothers (forty). In the six years since the publication of the second edition of Kinderculture, the world has changed. Along with a sweeping tsunami of politics, religious influences, struggles, and advancing web 2.0 globalization comes an incredible phenomenon, kinderculture: Children and youth have become infantilized by popular culture, schools, and adults, and while being considered “too” young for almost anything, at the same time, they are being marketed to as seasoned adults. The result is a consumer public of little girls, for example, who wear chastity rings and hip-clinging jogging pants with “Kiss My Booty” in glitter on the backside. With one voice, adults tell kids to stay clean, avoid sex and drugs, go to Disneyland, and make vows of celibacy . . . with another other voice, the corporate side markets booty clothing, faux bling, and sexualized images of twelve year-olds. This edition of Kinderculture adds to the other editions by claiming that new times have created a new childhood. However, these new times are conservative and liberal, sexual and celibate, and innocent and seasoned. Evidence of this dramatic cultural change surrounds each of us, but many individuals have not yet noticed it. When Joe Kincheloe and I wrote the first edition of Kinderculture in 1997, many people who made their living studying or caring for children had not yet recognized this phenomenon. By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, more and more people had begun to understand this historic change, however many child professionals remained oblivious to these social and cultural alterations. Now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the notions of childhood and youth are more complex, more pathologized, and more alien to adults who educate and parent.
CONTENTS
1 Kinderculture: Mediating, Simulacralizing, and Pathologizing the New Childhood
Shirley R. Steinberg 1
2 Teens and Vampires: From BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER to TWILIGHT’s Vampire Lovers
Douglas Kellner 55
3 Is Disney Good for Your Kids? How Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age
Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock 73
4 Selling Subculture: An Examination of Hot Topic
Sarah Hanks 93
5 Queer Eye for the Straight-Acting Guy: The Performance of Masculinity in Gay Youth
Culture and Popular Culture
Dennis Carlson 115
6 FLUID: Teen and Youth Identity Construction in Cyberspace
Donyell L. Roseboro 135
7 Tween-Method and the Politics of Studying Kinderculture
Ingvild Kvale Sørenssen and Claudia Mitchell 153
8 From Miley Merchandising to Pop Princess Peddling: The Hannah Montana Phenomenon
Ruthann Mayes-Elma 173
9 Corporatizing Sports: Fantasy Leagues, the Athlete as Commodity, and Fans as Consumers
Daniel E. Chapman and John A. Weaver 187
10 Hip Hop and Critical Pedagogy: From Tupac to Master P to 50 Cent and Beyond
Greg Dimitriadis 201
11 McDonald’s, Power, and Children: Ronald McDonald/Ray Kroc Does It All for You
Joe L. Kincheloe 219
12 The Book of Barbie: After Half a Century, the Bitch Continues to Have Everything
Shirley R. Steinberg 249
13 HOME ALONE and Bad to the Bone: The Advent of a Postmodern Childhood
Joe L. Kincheloe 265