Christina Aguilera’s latest video, Dirrty, certainly lives up to its name, but not just because she is prancing around scantily-clad in a boxing ring. This pop singer’s latest business stunt is beyond dirty; it’s despicable. She is trying to turn a profit by exploiting women and children who are victims in Thailand’s sex industry.
In this video (which has been banned from Thailand television), the 22-year-old pop star dances around a boxing ring wearing red panties, a bikini top and chaps, while a billboard next to her in Thai reads “Thailand’s sex tourism” and “Young underage girls.” Supposedly, the singer had no knowledge as to what these Thai billboards promoted, but whether or not this is true, as an international superstar, Aguilera has a responsibility to be completely aware of what goes into her videos.
This video completely disregards Thailand’s rich culture and may hurt the country’s reputation. In addition, it glamorizes the sex trade and pedophilia. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, however it often goes ignored by the police. The sex trade includes brothels, escort work, pornography, street prostitution and trading sex for favours. Girls as young as 12 are victims of the sex industry and poverty is the driving force leading these young girls into prostitution. This vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation deprives many women of the chance to live what we would call a normal life.
Female celebrities such as Christina Aguilera are always trying to outsell and under dress one another. At the same time, the consumers’ shock tolerance seems to rise along with the celebrities’ publicity stunts. However, consumers should not passively disregard Aguilera’s “mistake” and continue to buy her records, because this time, she is not only exploiting her own body, she is exploiting the millions of women and children in the world who are physically and emotionally violated. Aguilera is clearly more concerned about how little she can wear without being deemed officially “naked” than she is about the rhetoric she is promoting.
It is time for popstars to become less concerned about their flat navels and more politically aware. Intentional or not, Aguilera trivializes the objectification of women and children as she dances around in front of these Thai billboards. She even acts like it is fun to be sexually exploited. It’s going to take a lot more than a “sorry” from Aguilera to erase the harm done by this mistake.