follow up on britney and beyonce

Ryan, you've hit on a good point...I guess we need another 3 weeks of classes just to digest some of the material that's out there on mtv and vh1...the material that our students pay attention too, sing on their own time and absorb.

From an outsider on pop culture, I looked at the Britney Spears video first, mainly because she was a big part of my pop music life when I was growing up. I can remember back to the days of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" where "bringing down the machine" as cited in the movie half nelson, was nothing more than dancing in your catholic school girl uniform and just singing your groove. I looked back on the video to compare what has been done in the last ten years of britney's music career. the singing has gotten worse, the dance moves have gone from talented to highly suggestive in a sexual manner and overall the content of the song is just trashy. When the Backstreet Boys first came out, with Britney, Nsync and Christina Aguilera close behind, the music was really good, the dancing showed much talent, hell even the way the film makers shot the video was less suggestive. The focus was on their faces, the talents they had and the stories they were telling, not on how attractive they are (or aren't, depending on how you look at it).

Personally, I feel this is a bit too much for middle schoolers to handle. how many times have we heard of kids getting caught in the bathroom with someone else doing things they weren't supposed to in school? While we can't avoid the subject, I feel the content can be a little more censored and geared toward stimulating our minds in ways that don't involve sex.

On the contrary, I liked the Beyoncé video. After watching the Britney video first, I was hesitant to continue on and dig into this subject matter anymore. However, one of the biggest concepts I thought it showed was empathy. Recently in our Secondary class, Andrew and I have had the privilege to hear the students talk about their views on character education through the school district. One of the topics that is broadly covered throughout the curriculum during their middle school years is empathy. How do you think it feels when person does a harmful act/kind act towards another person/thing? Would you be able to do it differently? Beyoncé really takes care to put that sense of empathy at the highlight of her video, (as opposed to the unnecessary shots of naked Britney..) and I feel it leaves a good message...take care of each other! In a relationship, don't go through the motions for the sake of going through the motions. Realize that everything you do on a daily basis can and will be used against you (if that thing is a malicious, harmful, spiteful or selfish act), whether you're sleeping with that guilt or not.