Sugar and Spice Not Always So Nice
By Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com
My wife and I live in a lovely suburb of Minneapolis. Good schools, lots of parks and lakes, plenty of restaurants . . . nice. The other day, I went to a nice coffee shop in our nice suburb and saw a picture on the wall that wasn’t so nice. The photo showed approximately 20 young women in silky tops and shorts, no shoes or socks, with looks on their faces that screamed “come and get me.”
The caption on the photo in large, flame-like letters: FEEL THE HEAT!
Although the photo was out of place in this nice little coffee shop, it wouldn’t have bothered me if it was featuring the Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders. It wouldn’t have bothered me if it was a promotional photo for a movie. Or a television show. It could have been any number of things causing me to give it no more than a passing glance.
But this photo asking us to “FEEL THE HEAT” wasn’t for pro cheerleaders, movies or anything that portrayed adults. It was for the local high school girls varsity soccer team.
A bunch of 14 to 17-year-old girls. Are you feeling the heat?
You didn’t need to look at the picture more than several seconds to realize these young ladies weren’t selling soccer.
As a father of two daughters, I was appalled. If we can assume an adult, or several of them, thought this was a good idea and ultimately signed off on it, the photo is even more outrageous. It’s embarrassing and shows a complete lack of awareness that these girls are kids. Not women, kids.
A young girl working at the coffee shop said to me “well, they’re supposed to look tough . . . don’t you kind of think they look tough?”
No, those girls didn’t look tough.
They looked like the women I use to see walking 8th Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Seconds after I expressed that thought, two adult women in line and no less than a half-dozen patrons sitting in the shop vocally agreed with my assessment. Loudly.
It was another version of high school kids doing a fundraiser by washing cars. 99.9% of the time, there are girls in bikinis standing on the street corner next to the stop light waving their car wash signs. I’m all for the fundraiser but the “bait,” as it were, to lure you in is questionable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen young boys on the corner. Now why is that?
I’m not that old or out of touch to understand the difference between good taste and bad. More importantly is the issue of what’s right and what’s wrong. And this picture was as wrong as those girls ”selling it” on a corner for the good of the car wash.
It’s not that the girls were scantily clad in the photo; they weren’t. But to suggest this was anything resembling a team picture begs the question what sport they played. What’s next for this high school – a soccer-sweetie of-the-month calendar?
Did one of these young soccer players, or the entire team, come up with the photo idea and sell it to their coach? A school administrator? Somebody who was ostensibly in charge? Or did an adult dream this up and think nothing of the fact the photo portrays what I assume are largely good kids from good families looking just this side of cheap?
And what of the parents who signed off on it? Did they think this was a good idea? I took a random survey of friends of mine who have daughters. This included colleagues in the media, friends I’ve known for more than 30 years and others I know through our church. I explained the picture in great detail without the least bit of embellishment. Before I could get the question out of my mouth, every one of them said they’d have been all over the school’s administration and the team’s coach explaining why their daughter would never . . . never . . . be in that picture.
We live in an era where pedophiles make a living off of the innocence and ignorance of youth. Often times, however, many potential sitautions that might carry disastrous, if not tragic, consequences can be avoided by adults knowing better. Adults being mindful they’re there to protect kids. Adults not trying to be a kid’s best friend.
It all begs the question whether or not adults have the spine to stand up to young people and tell them in a situation like this, respectfully but firmly, “This isn’t appropriate. We’ll take a picture that makes you look like soccer players.” I don’t ever recall the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team doing a team photo quite like this one.
Another gal working at the coffee shop said to me “maybe they did it as a joke.” A joke? There’s nothing funny about the photo. There’s nothing cute about it. If it was done to raise money, wasn’t there a better way to sell their product?
Here’s a thought: Sell the sport. Sell the pride you have in wearing your school’s uniform. Sell the joy you have of being an athlete. Just don’t sell out.
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