You can’t blame the children if their thoughts were elsewhere. On a stage before them in a heated studio in Copenhagen stood five adults in bathrobes. There was a brief moment of silence, as faces turned serious. Having discussed it for days before in school, the children knew what was coming next. Mr. Schow gave a little nod, and the adults cast off their robes.Facing the children, and the cameras, they stood completely naked, like statues, with their hands and arms folded behind their backs.And so began a recording of the latest episode of an award-winning Danish children’s program, “Ultra Strips Down,” which is shown on Ultra, the on-demand children’s channel of the national broadcaster, DR. The topic today: skin and hair...Mr. Schow, 29, who helped develop the concept of the show after a producer came up with the idea, said the point was also to counter the daily bombardment of young people with images of perfect — unrealistic — bodies. The adults are not actors, but volunteers.“Perhaps some people are like, ‘Oh, my God, they are combining nakedness and kids,’” Mr. Schow said. “But this has nothing to do with sex, it’s about seeing the body as natural, the way kids do.”..Asked during the program on skin and hair why she decided to take part, one of the adults, Ule, 76, said she wanted to show the children that perfect bodies are rare and that what they see on social media is often misleading.“On Facebook or Instagram, many people are fashion models,” she said. “Us here, we have ordinary bodies. I hope you will understand that normal bodies look like this,” she told the audience, pointing at her naked self...“Ninety percent of the bodies you see on social media are perfect, but that is not how 90 percent of the world looks,” he said. “We have extra fat, or hair, or pimples. We want to show children from an early age that this is fine.”
The story continues at The New York Times.
And a tip of the blogging hat to reader Kolo Jezdec, who provides a link to the TV program's website in his comment. Four of the TV episodes are viewable there, but note that all the content is in Danish.
Dutch tv made a version of it as well. "Gewoon. Bloot." which in English aliterates better "Normal. Naked".
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good idea. Serious kid tv stuff.
Americans have a weird tendency of being very prudish when it comes to naked body parts, while at the same time not worrying about exploiting sex in every other form.
It makes no sense that the video of WAP is on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsm4poTWjMs), but Youtube refuses mothers breast feeding because one is about sex and the other isn't. Youtube has it backwards.
Facebook has banned Belgian musea for posting images of centuries old paintings by the Flemish masters that had a bot of nudity in it, and Viennese museums have started an Only-Fans website because they're done being banned on Instagram.
Fa soap plastered images like https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZbyYaPXgAU5R-f.jpg all over all bus stops in the Netherlands in the 80s, and in every freaking ad break on tv but Twitter now considers them "sensitive" and puts them behind a warning. https://twitter.com/jaapjandevries/status/1267559549508222976 all while having a very bog mouth about freedom of speech.
One of the most annoying elements of the current "free speech" debate on social media is that it's entirely held on American terms. And that means favoring hate speech, while shying away from nudity. IMHO, this is bullshit.
And one of the terrible side-effects of this weird situation is that children world-wide can only resort to porn to see naked bodies, and get a very distorted view of what naked bodies look like, and what sex is like.
Yes! You make such a good point! Being American, it can sometimes be hard to see until someone else points it out so clearly: free speech is defended for racism but ignored regarding human bodies. I wanted to get a book for my young son that showed and explained human bodies in an age appropriate way. I wanted him to understand the basic differences in male and female anatomy just as I want him to learn any other facts about life. Do you know how hard it is to find a book like that?
DeleteI think it's healthier to teach nutrition and fitness instead of accepting your unhealthy lifestyle, but at least this way weird childless old people get to force kids to see nudity.
ReplyDeleteThe United States has almost four times as many rapes per capit as Denmark. Which country has more of an “unhealthy lifestyle”?
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ReplyDelete"And one of the terrible side-effects of this weird situation is that children world-wide can only resort to porn to see naked bodies, and get a very distorted view of what naked bodies look like, and what sex is like"
Not sure why young children want to see random naked bodies, but if they do they are easily found on the internet without viewing porn:
A quick YouTube search brought forth several. Some examples
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TSpBxdJd-QU
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q2uXAp8ORk
I note those are blurred. QED.
DeleteWhat is it that you have proven?
DeleteI remember watching TV in the USA on holiday one time (I'm English): at 10:00am in the morning there was a movie with a guy killing everyone with guns, I switched over to see someone with a pixilated bottom. Is the bottom more offensive than the sight of death and violence??? Strange.
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