"Are you a hot mom?" To find out, we were told to ask the teenage boys in the neighborhood. That was the lead for an article announcing an audition for a new proposed reality show, “Hottest Mom in America.”
This is what greeted me as I tried to ease into the news my usual way by first reading the features section.
This is sick.
What was most surprising was the fact that Emma Bovary was listed as one of the ten “hot moms” (along with Mrs. Robinson) and described as “Flaubert’s classic heroine (and mom) [who] wanted to walk on the wild side.” Mr. Kloer, the author, either did not read the novel or fell asleep in class, or maybe he has some twisted ideas about what a “hot mom” is.
Emma Bovary has extramarital affairs with two men who use and abuse her. She is hardly presented as a “heroine” as she dies an excruciating death after eating arsenic. She also neglects and abuses her young daughter as she searches for an unrealizable romantic fulfillment with two cads.
We have a fascination today with the over-sexualized female delighting in casual sexual escapades, whether the teacher with her young male student, or the second-grade girl dressed provocatively. The seductively posed stocking-ed leg of Mrs. Robinson of the 1960s movie about a young man’s affair with a middle-aged married woman lured readers to the announcement of the audition.
Motherhood is no longer sacred.
It began with a New Jersey girl taking on the name of Madonna and flipping the term that held so much meaning for Christians with her provocative acts in clothing once reserved for honeymoon nights or the burlesque club.
Madonna’s brash sexuality was taken as a symbol of the new female empowerment. Academics followed suit by writing papers on her. Today, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s sexual trysts as holding profound meaning in regards to female empowerment are debated by professors at conferences. Sex—extramarital sex--is promoted in our theaters and airwaves.
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