To be bold and edgy while building character, young girls should spice up their lives with nudity, drugs, and maybe even a threesome – or that was the story in the April issue of teen girl magazine “Seventeen.”
The latest issue of “Seventeen” showed a smiling 23-year-old Ashley Benson modeling patriotic-themed clothing to a target audience of 12 to 19-year-old girls [1]. The cover read that the Disney star “opens up about her edgy new movie”– a movie which earned an R rating for language, nudity, drug use, violence, and a sex scene featuring Ashley Benson with co-stars Vanessa Hudgens and James Franco.
In “Spring Breakers,” [2] four college girls robbed a restaurant to pay for spring break vacation. After their arrests, a drug dealer bailed them out in return for some “dirty work.”
“Seventeen” Entertainment Director [3], Carissa Rosenberg Tozzi, introduced the interview with Benson by asking girls, “Ever feel like you want to try something different, but everyone else wants you to stay exactly the same?” The article sought empathy, relating how “It’s super-frustrating to be pigeon-holed like that – and Ashley Benson knows exactly how it feels.”
According to Tozzi, Benson desired to “branch out and try something edgier” in her new “Spring Breakers” role. She wanted to be “bold” because, in Benson’s words, “as long as you’re happy, that’s what’s important.”
While many of the stars boast a past of innocent Disney-driven careers, they “wanted to prove that we’re not just girls who play happy parts,” Benson tells “Seventeen.” Acting the roles became a “crazy experience” but also translated into “character-building.” Benson even put her foot down on certain scenes: “I was supposed to show a lot more than I did, but I didn’t want to go topless in my first film!”
When the subject turned to Benson’s parents, Benson mentioned, “I constantly have to remind them that it’s not really me – it’s a character I play!” in “Spring Breakers.” Even Tozzi contributed to the parent bashing, writing how it can be “super-frustrating” when “your parents and your friends weigh in with what they think you should do.”
Tozzi concluded the interview by questioning Benson about a Justin Bieber parody [4] she created at 4 in the morning in collaboration with co-star James Franco which – surprise, surprise – also features a threesome.
Between the parent attack and the threesome inspiration – along with other magazines that promote “cool” topics like strip clubs [5] – ladies’ magazines appear to endorse anything but traditional femininity by supporting stars who exemplify wild lives to their young fans.