Offensive Beyonce

This billboard is somewhat related to what I think my final project is going to end up being about. It is an advertisement for Las Vegas radio station KWNZ that features music icon Beyonce clad in a bikini. According to this article, resident Pamela Keeney claims the billboard to be obscene. She says, "I have my two little grandkids coming over here, and they don't need to be seeing that. You can change the channel on the TV but you can't change that." Another resident, Ward Ryan collected 100 signatures on a petition protesting the billboards.

The other side of the argument comes from the radio station itself. Scott Seidenstricker, manager of KWNZ, said: "The billboards were taken from publicity shots and this is the way those people perform. So to show them in a jogging suit probably wouldn't be the right thing."

So, who is at fault here? Something as public as a billboard that can be visible by all, particularly people and their children from their homes, can't just be ignored. But is the entertainment industry also to blame (on a higher level) for forcing that sort of imagery into the mainstream in the first place? I think that this piece of rhetoric raises bigger questions, like why is it that Beyonce can't be pictured in a jogging suit? She's a beautiful, talented artist, but all we are allowed to focus on in the billboard is her chest and bare midriff. Are not only advertisements but the sheer existence of scantily clad women that appeal to younger generations of girls creating larger problems, such as forcing younger girls to confront issues like sex and body image before they are cognitively ready to handle them? I think that this billboard and the controversy surrounding it does an excellent job of raising these questions, which I hope to further explore in my final project.