Dec. 04--The folks behind the swearing princesses video are back, and this time they're tackling domestic violence.
They've added fake black eyes and fake bloodied lips to the little girls' costumes, and handed them such lines as, "We want a future we can dream about, not one we'll (expletive) scream about!" And, "Got a problem looking at my fake (expletive) face? Isn't one out of four women beaten the real disgrace?"
I sincerely hope this shtick doesn't stick around much longer.
As with the earlier video, intended to underscore the importance of feminism, the latest installment is meant to shock us out of complacency by imagining our social ills ravishing the minds and bodies of young children.
But they already do. We don't need to imagine what it would be like if children were being beaten bloody. It's actually happening every day of every week, and we can find the stories with ease. The Tribune's powerful, heartbreaking series on Illinois' residential facilities for troubled kids is a good place to start. Violence at home is what sent a huge number of those kids to the dysfunctional facilities in the first place.
We know the nonfiction version of the domestic violence narrative. It's Adrian Peterson's son, whipped bloody with a switch. It's Nadia Ezaldein, the young woman shot to death by her abusive ex-boyfriend last week at Nordstrom. It's Janay Rice, captured on video being dragged unconscious by the man who knocked her out -- the man she later married.
We don't need to play pretend here.
The video has found its share of detractors, which doesn't bother FCKH8, the company behind the skits.
"We want to keep speaking out for equality even if it ruffles some feathers," founder Luke Montgomery told Mashable. "Backlash doesn't bother us. Breaking the silence on the violence against women is more important. With one out of four women being bullied, beaten and bashed, and our sexist society acting as if it's normal, who has time to worry about backlash?"
I wish I agreed with him. I'm sure we're on the same page on the importance of gender equality and curbing violence against women and children.
But I deeply resent his methods.
I think a child's innocence, a fragile and priceless commodity, should be protected for as long and as vociferously as possible. I think we should talk to kids authentically and carefully about social justice and empathy and the greater good. I think we should do our best to raise responsible, kind humans who will improve the world.
I don't think we should terrify them. I don't think we should dress up a little boy, hand him a fake beer bottle and ask him to regurgitate a horrible joke, "What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing. You already told her twice." I don't think he should know that joke.
I don't think we should line up little girls and ask them to count themselves off as potential victims of future violence. I don't think we should encourage any child to imagine himself or herself being raped.
"We know we're doing the right thing, because people are going to listen," Lacey O' Connell, mother of one of the princesses, says to Mashable. "Whether it be your negative attention or your positive attention, we got your attention."
You got our attention by harming kids' psyches. That's not a worthy trade-off. And it's not the right thing. It's the opposite of the right thing.
I really hope this is the last of it.
hstevens@tribpub.com
Twitter @heidistevens13
