So Disney is all upset over some slightly saucy photographs of 15-year-old Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, but it seems in their haste to toss out accusations (Disney spokeswoman Patti McTeague told the New York Times that “a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines”), the company neglected to consider the appropriateness of using obviously under-aged girls on their underwear billboards in China.
From Slate:
Reading McTeague’s comment over coffee yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but think of an advertisement I’d seen a few months ago while on a reporting trip to China. I was walking from my Beijing bed-and-breakfast to a nearby subway station when I was stopped in my tracks by a billboard that made the controversial 1990s Calvin Klein underwear ads look artistic by comparison. Staring down at the throngs of shoppers on Beijing’s Xinjiekou Nandajie Avenue, a busy commercial thoroughfare about a mile west of the Forbidden City, was a white girl who looked all of 12, reclining in a matching bra-and-panties set adorned with Disney’s signature mouse-ear design. In a particularly creepy detail, the pigtailed child was playing with a pair of Minnie Mouse hand puppets. In the upper left-hand corner was the familiar script of the Disney logo.
Not believing my eyes, and on an assignment that touched on images of Westerners in the Chinese consumer’s imagination, I snapped a photo:
After reading of the Cyrus flap, I e-mailed my photo to Disney’s McTeague. I was curious: How did the company square its position on the Liebowitz photo with its risqué billboard in China?
McTeague passed on commenting and forwarded the image to Gary Foster, a spokesman for Disney’s consumer-products division. He called me from a business trip (to China) to disavow the ad. “It has caught us totally by surprise,” Foster told me by phone from Guangzhou. He explained that Disney contracts with a host of licensees, who produce and market products for the Disney brand. Foster said that licensees are contractually bound to clear all advertising with Disney’s corporate offices. “We have literally hundreds of licensees making our products. They are supposed to submit any kind of imagery to us before it is used, but it’s hard to enforce that sometimes,” he said.
Disney responded by pulling the billboard. Whoops.
Mickey Mouse Operation [Slate]
(Photo: Daniel Brook )
More From Consumerist
-
Netflix Woos Disney In Deal To Show New Releases Starting In 2016
-
Disney Agrees It Shouldn’t Contribute To Destroying The Jungle For Paper To Make ‘The Jungle Book’
-
New Disney World Visitor Tracking System Raises Privacy Concerns
-
Dress Up For Your Visit To Disney And You Probably Won’t Be Allowed In
-
Disneyland Hikes Ticket Prices As Much As 30%
That is a very disturbing photograph. [Normally I'd ask if it's 'Shopped, but these days...sigh]. These guys need a sitdown with Chris Hansen.
All girls are programmed to be whores by all our media outlets from birth. Until that changes, this behavior is par for the course. No wonder the number of pedophiles has skyrocketed.
[www.esreality.com]
pffft. what about the vanessa hudgens vadge pics? too much fucking ado over hannah montana.
haha, that pic is priceless…its in the interwebs now, sorry disney.
Reason no. 5 trillion-and-one I’m glad I was A] Born male and didn’t have to deal with that creepiness growing up and B] ain’t trying to raise a daughter.
That billboard is pervy.
Translation: It’s OK if WE do it, and if we’re caught we’ll act all innocent.
@Bay State Darren: You only see the bogeyman behind every corner if you “want” to.
Hmmm… Although Foster was travelling in China, he knew nothing of the above pictured ad. I smell a rat. I can only say that I am very happy that I have a child who does not watch High School Musical and every other horrible Disney princess movie. We have never been to Disneyworld and have no intention of going. Disney is an evil empire and they know damn well what they are doing marketing to our children. I can see the children falling for it, but it is the adults that seem to love it so much and allow the children to succumb to the marketing that I worry about.
@AnneofAndover: Aww…not letting your kids have fun so you can make a stand really IS what parenting’s all about, huh?
“It has caught us totally by surprise.” I just ran that in google translate and it came out “We are taking it very seriously.”
I’m sure the kid in the picture is just taking a break from sewing the stuffed animals together.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen little boys in their underwear in the Sunday circulars. How is this any different?
Mickey, why don’t you have a seat right over there.
@Pro-Pain: “No wonder the number of pedophiles has skyrocketed.”
Wait, it has? Says who?
(I don’t know where you’re getting the numbers, but I hope you’re not confusing reported cases or arrests with actual number of incidents)
FWIW, I thought the Annie Liebovitz photos were purdy in a non-porn-y, creepy way (though yeah, it might have been a wee bit too suggestive for a 15-year-old). It wasn’t anything like Britney’s lolita pictorial for Rolling Stone (that David LaChapelle is a perv, I tells ya).
@jjason82:It’s not so much the item of clothing or the skin exposure, but the suggestiveness.
I’m guessing those boys weren’t wearing anything that could be classified as lingerie, and they weren’t in typical lingerie ad poses.
HAHHA, that sarcasm for you
@jjason82: She appears to be wearing a push-up bra. You usually don’t see 12 year olds in push-up bras in the circulars.
@Bay State Darren:
Indeed. I’ve been talking to my wife about the possibility of us having kids… I want to be a dad, but frankly, the idea of raising a girl in these times scares me. I worry I’d end up being one of those super-protective dads that it’s cool to hate.
@WraithSama:
It occurred to me that if I asked my (8 yr old) niece what she thought about the controversial Hannah Montana Pics, she’d have no clue what I was talking about. She likes Hannah, but I think even if she saw the pics she’d be clueless about what they “mean” and just think they are weird.
@stacy75: Also, if there weren’t so much tabloid freakout and reprinting, how many pre-teens would see a copy of Vanity Fair?
Having worked at one point for a very large company that targeted to children and did international licensing, I hate to say it, but I can believe that Disney corporate didn’t know. You can think you have every single i-dotted and t-crossed, and suddenly you find out one of your licensees misrepresented themselves, and it’s taken just long enough to get back to corporate for it to, for example, hit the internet.
I wonder if the Disney rep’s business trip to China was directly related to this issue. This is the kind of shit they’ll call somebody about in the middle of the night and shove them onto a plane. Maintaining image for such companies is exhausting.
@pro-pain: Someone has to teach the girls to be whores. Thank you media outlets. (but wait till they are 18)
Don’t see how this is any different than the pics in the undergarment section of the Sears catalog when I was a kid.
How is this worse than a similar aged kid wearing a bikini at the pool? It isn’t.
Americans and their puritanical values. Associating the beauty of the human body with sex. Have you ever been to a beach in France, Denmark, Norway, Germany, St. Martin?
@spinachdip:
Thank you. I like when people are rational.
It is sure to hurt sales of the Hanna Montana line of bikini’s
[disneyshopping.go.com]
Having seen the Vanity Fair site, and the pictures on there, just forget it already. Any given Calvin Klein ad is more suggestive than that, so Miley is hardly going to be the poster child for pop-tarts. My daughters love Miley/Hannah, and the best way to deal with this is ignore it.
There were professional photos by a world-renowned photographer. Maybe she went a little farther than she should. But far short of the topless phone shots like Vanessa. Give her a break and let it die.
I’m sure Dov Charney has something to say about this.
@capturedshadow:
It’s a dead link…did they pull it already?
In Disney’s favor, she wasn’t wearing a thong, and the underwear was of the non-edible variety. At least on that billboard.
But the two Minnie puppets: does that mean she’s a budding lesbian?
And, I wonder if the Chinese would have allowed a Chinese prepubescent girl to appear in her underwear on a billboard.
@MissPeacock: You’re right, that is a push-up bra. On a child.
Ew. Ew. Ew.
I don’t really understand the controversy regarding Hanna Montana; her back is showing and that’s it. Other than looking like she could benefit from putting on a little more meat on her ribs, there’s nothing really risque or “embarrassing” about her Vanity Fair photos.
This Chinese Disney billboard, on the other hand? Absolutely disgusting. I don’t care what other cultures might think, your company is based in the United States, where this kind of image is unacceptable for pornography, let alone advertising a children’s theme park. What were they trying to do? Attract pedophiles to Disney?
@karmaghost:
so you are saying that the only culture that counts is the one in the US ?
Or shall i follow your logic the other way round. I am from Austria, a country where you can go to a public pool as a woman and bathe topless or lie in the sun topless and nobody gives a damn.
So The next time when i am in the US with my gf she has the right to do the same thing as she does at home since we are austrians, and your culture simply doesnt count for us ? or did i get something wrong here.
As the dad of an 11-year-old, my best guess is the kid on the billboard is 11 at most. Probably closer to 10.
Which makes it worse.
I swear, officer, she told Mickey she was 18!
Have you ever noticed that when a company such as Disney gets caught doing something this stupid and tasteless that it’s always a “rogue employee” or “unauthorized use” of the company’s image ?
Now this is from the same company that all but stands over our kids in third grade to make sure that they don’t doodle the mouse ears logo on their notebook without paying a royalty fee.
The picture above is about as suggestive as they could make it THIS TIME without a major backlash . (You can bet that they never thought that this pic would circulate in America)As fro the HM spread in VF- They knew exactly what was going on and when. And I just about gagged when I read that Ms. Cyrus wasn’t happy with the pictures. She posed for them. What the hell did she think they were going to do with them ? They’re in business to sell magazines.
Just don’t step in the bullshit as you navigate this “controversy”…
“a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell hannah montana paraphernalia”
@LUV2CattleCall & @capturedshadow:
Here is a photo still on Disney’s server of the Hannah Montana Bikini they (used to?) sell. The style looks like something out of the 50′s.
[as7.dsi.go.com]
@swedub: You have to love the plunging neckline.
Only perverts see perverts everywhere they look. Maybe other parts of the world aren’t as concerned as our fine christian retard protectors of western decency.
@Redwraithvienna: Of course the culture in the US is the only one that counts. As I recall, Austria is the land of “lock your daughter in the basement and have sex with her for decades”, right? Don’t make us spread some Democracy over there (as soon as we’re through liberating the Middle East, of course).
I remember in the olden days (1960s n such) That catalogs such as Sears & Robuck, JC Pennys and others would have children modeling underwear. Why do you think it was fine then and not now?
Just trying to start a discussion….
@SacraBos: “There were professional photos by a world-renowned photographer. Maybe she went a little farther than she should. But far short of the topless phone shots like Vanessa. Give her a break and let it die.”
THIS.
Seriously, has anyone ever been to Abercrombie and Fitch? THAT’s borderline kiddie porn. The Miley Cyrus photos were not, and you’d have to have a really, REALLY dirty mind to think otherwise. Leave the girl alone.
@Snarkysnake:
…I read that Ms. Cyrus wasn’t happy with the pictures.
Where did you read that? I read the article. Sounded like she liked them. Said they were “artsy,” and besides she was “covered in a big blanket.”
Frankly, I see nothing wrong with them. They are artsy. You see worse things in a Klimt painting.
@citybuddha: The billboard, on the other hand… it’s not so much the fact that it’s kids modeling kids underwear, which sort of makes sense, but why would you put that up on a billboard? It just seems… unnecessarily pervy. Sure, in a catalog, fine, but it just seems strange on a billboard. Is there an untapped children’s underwear market out roaming the streets of China that they want to seize? They’re selling underwear for goodness sake. Who gets that excited about underwear? 3/4 of the people who see it are going to be businessmen on commute. Uncomfortable.
It’s not that big a deal, really. It’s just that OMG DISNEY IS A CORPORATION AND NOT THE MAGICAL HAPPY LAND OF ICE CREAM WITH INNOCENCE SPRINKLES seems to surprise people every day.
@Bay State Darren: @WraithSama: It makes you both awesome for being concerned while having Y chromasomes.
@AnneofAndover:
Why? Is it some kind of intellectual superiority thing? I can see not wanting to spend $200 on a day at a Disney theme park or not wanting to be a walking Disney advertisement but the movies are a lot better than most of the other garbage you see peddled as “family entertainment.”
Of course, I have to admit I rather like all of the “I Love Troy” merchandise that HSM spawned. You should all buy that stuff.
@lightaugust:
“I’m sure the kid in the picture is just taking a break from sewing the stuffed animals together.”
Now THAT’S funny.
It is what we make it.
Only thinking makes it right or wrong.
@lightaugust:
Double that funny!
How old is this picture. Think she’s 18 now? Is she single?
/ducks
Seriously, this whole thing is bullshit, they so own Hannah Montana and it is beyond me to think that those pictures hit the press without someone from Disney giving the ok, ok.
@citybuddha: See my comment and Spinach Dip’s above. She is wearing a PUSH-UP BRA. Whether she really has breasts or not, there is a distinct outline of her right breast. She is posed in a traditional lingerie pose. Etc. Etc. Etc.
@WhirlyBird:
Damn you got me there … but on the other side as far as i remeber the USA are the country of “Hey lets start a ploygamist sect and force 14 year old to marry much older men and have as many kids as they can” right ?
I do think that both countries have their fair share of sickos … so i really think we shouldnt take those into account.
@citybuddha:
I do think that it simply wasnt a thing in the 60ies … or in other parts of the world.
When i was a kid, me and my cousin ran around naked at the pool until we were i dont … 6 or so ? At least where i live there is nothing sexual associated with that (at least not in the mind of non pedophiles).
But from what i am reading here it seems to me that in the US everything automatically sexual as soon as there is a kid running around naked, in underwear, in a bathing suit, whatever. Isnt there something gone wrong in the thinking of the “normal” people when everything you can think about when you see a half naked child is “omg sex!”
The Disney add is well … in my eyes something i would rather be pissed about as parent cause my 11 year old daugther will now cry so long until she gets disney underwear and not the normal, not branded kind. But it doesnt have any sexual content.
@AlexDitto:
Why is it good in a catalogue but not on a billboard ?
I mean a pedophile will sit at home and wank to the catalogue. He cant do that to a billboard on the open street.
And honestly … i doubt that a pedophile will even then use teen underwear as a wanking tool … i mean come on … he probably has a computer and the internet.