Sunday 29 November 2009

Suri Cruise: A perfectly wholesome obsession

Do you enjoy looking at pictures of three year old girls on the internet?

Do you find yourself pouring over what they're wearing (gosh! heels again, how grown up!), searching for clues as to where they might go to school when they're older, their favourite foods, and what they do for fun?

Is rating the 'cuteness' of 3 year olds and comparing them to other tots your idea of a good night in?

Are you comfortable using words like 'precocious', 'cuddly', 'traffic stopping', 'cute', 'impeccable' and 'beauty' to describe other peoples' children, and do you delight in signs of grown-up behaviour like wearing nail varnish, styling their hair like their mother, sipping coffee, and working out? Is describing the 'thick dark hair and wide eyes' of a 2 year old acceptable to you?

Do you watch very young children from afar and wish they were your own, to the extent that you find yourself condemning the parenting of perfect strangers and making snide remarks about their appearance? You'd take such better care of the little ones yourself, wouldn't you? It's only natural to question the childhood of other people's kids. Twice. If only you could say, 'Hey! Don't put her in heels, she'd look ultra-cute wearing these instead!' That's perfectly acceptable, not-at-all-creepy, totally unintrusive, healthy behaviour isn't it?

If you answered 'yes' to any of the above, don't fret that others might label you 'disturbingly strange', or worry that newspapers with a history of tacitly supporting vigilantism against paedophiles might shun you and describe you as sick. You will be pleasantly surprised to learn that the ever liberal, inclusive, understanding and compassionate Daily Mail will cater for your every whim, helpfully stalking, photographing, and writing about toddlers for you! A lot!

Who wouldn't want to read about Suri Cruise's 'bare legs' or how 'She was happy stroking the silky trim on [her] hooded coat' or her 'pretty pink dress', and who wouldn't hope, like Mail reporter Charlotte Spratt does, that 'Suri will find her own feet with fashion and can then advise her mother not to wear a black bra with a sheer white T-shirt'? Who couldn't resist all of that?

They may hate homosexuals, immigrants, women, and foreign people, but rest assured you're on safe ground with the Mail if you have an appetite for long-distance candid photographs of very young children. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

12 comments:

  1. It is getting really creepy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I submitted yesterday "I'm beginning to worry about this "news"paper's obsession with this little girl."

    It didn't make it past the censors but I felt better in myself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It has actually gone so far beyond 'creepy' that i don't really know how to describe it. Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why is it that British tabloids have such a weird obsession with anything child-related? I've long ago thought that far too often they verge on the paedo. They may "dress it up" with vigilantism, or gossip, or whatever, but it's deeply deeply fucked up.

    Again, reminiscent of insular, provincial, wickerman-like or texas chainsaw-like communities where you get slain for being homosexual or foreign but where bestiality, pederasty and incest take place galore. That's the world of UK tabloids.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I feel very unsettled by all of this...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good to have you back, you've been far too quiet lately!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mmm, sorry about the absence. I see you've been taking on the tabloids recently though, spiffing work!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, the tabloids do like their girls young don't they?

    whether it's printing a pic of 15 year old Charlotte Church, then awarding her "rear of the year" at 16, or a 13 year old princess Beatrice in a bikini, the tabloids speak "nonce-sense" all the time..

    I wonder if Paul Dacre or Dominic Mohan share DNA with a crab? (Spot the Brass Eye reference)

    ReplyDelete
  9. The most disturbing thing is that I considered emailing this article to several women I know who read the Daily Mail, then realised they would have absolutely no problem with it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The pervs. And this is journalism? Yeah right.

    ReplyDelete
  11. @Dr Quail: not constructively...TMG is more of an abstract thing with no purpose at all. It's like a remix of the news. Genuine targeting of tabloids gets thrown your way, not unlike a newspaper tossed from a bicycle.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Is that guy in the far background the same guy in Heroes?

    ReplyDelete