Poll: Please to Give Opinion: Do you find this evokes Pedophilia?

[BloatedGuppy]

Hallo! These forums are light on controversy driven outrage, so I found a bit of controversy driven outrage I thought might make for interesting discussion. In particular because the focal point of the outrage is a music video with a reasonably unpopular actor in it, featuring interpretive dance, and these aren't really the sorts of things people here are typically found rushing to the defense of.

So...the video!


And the controversy:

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6429632/sia-sorry-for-pedophilia-concerns-over-new-clip-elastic-heart

While many have praise the clip for its art and emotion, some viewers took to social networks to declare their outrage over the intimacy portrayed by the actors. One tweeted, "The new Sia video is disgusting," and another wrote that the video would be "magic if her dancing partner wasn't 30 years old, looked like a child predator and was a good dancer." Elle Magazine tweeted that the video was "creepy".

Those wacky social justice warriors are at it again! Although really, society having a hair trigger when it comes to physical intimacy between adults and children is hardly a new, social media driven phenomenon. Simply sifting through the YouTube comments for the video will reveal a fairly pronounced split between "This is amazing art!" and "This is disgusting kiddie porn!". Child porn tends to fall well outside the "no harm, no foul" bounds, so people who think they've found some tend to be particularly vigilant about getting it dealt with, post haste.

Sia's explanation for the video paints it as an allegory for mental illness:

Also featuring Dance Moms' Maddie Ziegler, the clip manifests inner demons and the struggle of overcoming. "I thought it would be interesting if Shia was working with Maddie as if she's one of his self states, maybe his inner child or maybe one of his demons. We switch between her representing some of his self states," the singer says in a brand new behind-the-scenes featurette (below)

I'm not even going to say what I think of it, aside from the fact I adore the song itself, and I've always found the backlash against LaBeouf somewhat puzzling. Yes, he's an oddball, but he's a method actor. Method actors are oddballs.

 

[Phasmal]

I voted for being disturbed by diction. Because I think it's art, but I don't know if I think it's great art, and I don't think it's the least bit porn.

It's not porn. If someone thinks a child dancing in a dancer's leotard is porn, that's hella creepy and I suggest they seek some sort of therapy or something.

I'll admit, I didn't like Shia in the Transformers movies, but that's hardly his fault. I didn't like anything in the Transformers movies, but I still got dragged to each and every one of them by my boyfriend who is a massive Transformers NERD.

I did like his performance in this, and was impressed by how in shape he is. (Hahaha Sia LeBUFF amirite)
Also I think the beard makes him look a wee bit like Gerard Butler but that could just be me.

 

[Parasondox]

Seriously internet? SERIOUSLY!!!

Firstly she's 39 and Shia is 30 whatever. Yeah she has a small body but for fuck sakes do some people love to turn something, anything into something sinister and wrong. Child porn? REALLY? Its music video with two people over acting and being insane, fighting or whatever you can all it, in a bird cage. This is why some people just want to watch the world burn. Someone, somewhere, TUMBLR, for some reason need to make everything an issue.

Arrrrrrrrggggghhhh F*** that noise.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Seriously internet? SERIOUSLY!!!

Firstly she's 39 and Shia is 30 whatever.

That's not Sia in the video, btw. That's Maddie Ziegler. She's 12.

 

[Parasondox]

Seriously internet? SERIOUSLY!!!

Firstly she's 39 and Shia is 30 whatever.

That's not Sia in the video, btw. That's Maddie Ziegler. She's 12.

Thank you for the correction buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut not still child porn.

I just don't get this world anymore.

 

[Riot3000]

Ok will I bite for this one.

From what I know and I will say that about I don't think anyone here will condone actual child porn and this while a bit out there I do not see the pedophilia. It just comes off as weird performance art kind of deal. I was weirded out not because any of it came off as sexual just wtf is happening and trying to interpret was is going on.

And I agree I did not know people still hated Labeouf I thought that time passed and was over.

It's not porn. If someone thinks a child dancing in a dancer's leotard is porn, that's hella creepy and I suggest they seek some sort of therapy or something.

Yeah if it all it takes is a young girl in leotards doing high kicks and your mind goes sexual I got some bad news for there.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Thank you for the correction buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut not still child porn.

I just don't get this world anymore.

Oh I'm not arguing that it is. Just trying to alleviate a point of potential confusion. I'm sure Sia would be terribly flattered you mistook a twelve year old for her, though. =D

 

[DoPo]

Also I think the beard makes him look a wee bit like Gerard Butler but that could just be me.

Yeah, I thought so as well.

I did like his performance in this

I also like him here. Possibly compared with when I saw him in movies. It might also be related to the fact he doesn't speak here.

At any rate, I don't think it's pedophilia or at least I am not really sure what would people mean by saying that.

On a separate note, I don't seem to be the best person to judge dancing. I recently realised I am completely inept when it comes to rhythm, in particular BPM is something I seem to completely not get. I've been playing Crypt of the Necrodancer and Zone 2 is just impossible for me, as I'm supposed to move with the beats but I can't figure them out at all. As such, I believe it to be my fault for not really getting the dancing either. I looked up the other video with Maddie Ziegler (Chandelier) and I can't really say I get that either.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

I dunno. It's kind of a neat video, I guess, given Sia's explanation of it as an allegory.

Pretty much just a dance routine turned into a music video.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Bah, some countries should take "war on drugs" method and ban all children.

It is most surefire way to combat pedophiles and we will not have controversy such as this as well.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Yeah I'm not seeing the pedo in this, the only thing it made me feel was confusion. I think some people need to get their minds out of the gutter more often.

 

[Parasondox]

Thank you for the correction buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut not still child porn.

I just don't get this world anymore.

Oh I'm not arguing that it is. Just trying to alleviate a point of potential confusion. I'm sure Sia would be terribly flattered you mistook a twelve year old for her, though. =D

If she wants to be half her own age them she can have the compliment but 39 is still an attractive age. I know you weren't arguing. That bit was directed at those who this the video was that.

 

[VanQ]

Seriously internet? SERIOUSLY!!!

Firstly she's 39 and Shia is 30 whatever.

That's not Sia in the video, btw. That's Maddie Ziegler. She's 12.

I'm 25yo, for reference. If I dance with my 12 year old sister does that make me a pedophile? If I hug her does that make me a pedophile? Fuck. We've had playfights before where the physical contact was hardly different to the majority of the clip. Does that make me a pedophile?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm 25yo, for reference. If I dance with my 12 year old sister does that make me a pedophile? If I hug her does that make me a pedophile? Fuck. We've had playfights before where the physical contact was hardly different to the majority of the clip. Does that make me a pedophile?

Dude. Read a couple posts down from the one you are quoting and step off the ledge.

 

[VanQ]

I'm 25yo, for reference. If I dance with my 12 year old sister does that make me a pedophile? If I hug her does that make me a pedophile? Fuck. We've had playfights before where the physical contact was hardly different to the majority of the clip. Does that make me a pedophile?

Dude. Read a couple posts down from the one you are quoting and step off the ledge.

I know you weren't actually pushing the pedophilia angle. The question was aimed at the kind of people whinging about the clip. Quoted you because you clarified her age, which just happens to line up with my sister's age.

Frankly put, people on the internet are likely to be highly sensitive to anything involving the following:

-Women
-Children
-Things they don't like that somebody else likes

So forgive me if I'm not surprised that people are getting up in arms over nothing yet again.

 

[The Lunatic]

I kinda wanted to make a topic about this at the time, but, I decided not to.


Anyway, it's interpretive dance, or whatever. It's certainly not paedophilia, and if you're applying sexual implications to people dancing then, well, that's rather on you, I find.

Personally, I quite liked the video.

 

[Parasondox]

I'm 25yo, for reference. If I dance with my 12 year old sister does that make me a pedophile? If I hug her does that make me a pedophile? Fuck. We've had playfights before where the physical contact was hardly different to the majority of the clip. Does that make me a pedophile?

If you said that to a Daily Mail "journalist", yeah they will colour you a pedophile.

"You play fight with your 12 year old sister?!?! PEDO!!! SAVILLE LOVER!!!"

You know. The stupid peoples newspaper.

 

[Casual Shinji]

There's obviously some deliberate overtones running through this, but I think had the dude just been some random dancer people wouldn't have as much of an issue with this. Old man laBeouf has simply accumulated some weirdo points with his behaviour in recent times, so anything he does now will be put under extreme scrutiny. And ofcourse that hobo beard isn't helping much either.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Frankly put, people on the internet are likely to be highly sensitive to anything involving the following:

-Women
-Children
-Things they don't like that somebody else likes

When it comes to children, it's not just the internet. My girlfriend's father is an artist. He was sketching in the park, and someone called the cops because there were children playing nearby, and the assumption was that he was sketching them in a...fuck I don't know...sinister fashion? People are CRAZED about protecting children. Particularly their own children. It is an a-priori biological compulsion. I'm not even sure they can help it.

On the subject of the video, I'll play Devil's Advocate for a moment. They're NOT rough-housing. They're dancing. And they're not playtime dancing, it's an emotionally charged, somewhat sensual exchange. Which makes sense, given the context of the song and what the scene is an allegory for. So they're not behaving in a typical adult/child fashion. I'm not remotely surprised that there was outcry...not because "people are stupid", necessarily, but because if you put a child in a flesh colored leotard and a scruffy looking, emotionally unstable man in close proximity and have them touching one another in anything remotely resembling an intimate fashion, there are people who are going to lose their fucking minds.

I remember getting in an argument once with someone who claimed "Mad Men" was the most sexist show on television, because it showed period-appropriate sexism without any filter. There are people who only really do well thinking in straight lines. That the dance and their interaction could be an artistic representation of something else entirely never really registers. It's just a little girl and a grubby man, and they're extremely unhappy about it.