Hi.
I wasn't sure where to post this or even to post it at all. However I know the band TATU have been mentioned several times on the board so I wanted some feedback, comments from people who may have talked about them before.
As I said, I noticed the band mentioned here on the board a while back and went to check out the linked web site. I wasn't over impressed but thought the lyrics to the song "All the things she said" were ok. and I didn't think much more about them.
Until I started to notice articles in the press.
Not so much about the band but about the manager Ivan Shapovalov. And I began to feel very uneasy.
It has taken many years to remove the connection between paedophillia and homosexuality and I think on the whole this has been successful, the idea "All poofs are paedophiles" has to a great extent been erradicated from the general populations way of thinking.
What is happening with Tatu is taking the connection to a new nastier level. Not as perpetrators of paedophillia but as the objects of paedophile attraction.
Perhaps if their manager was standing up damning and objecting to this connection I would feel a little easier. However this is not the case. In fact the total opposite is true. He openly admits to this as being his marketing strategy. He has researched and found a niche and markets the band specifically for it. The "Paedo Pop Market"
From the London Evening Standard Newspaper :-'"Laughing all the way to the bank is Tatu's creator, Ivan Shapovalov, who shamelessly admits that he set out to exploit such a distasteful market.
The former child psychologist who admits to visiting child porn websites said yesterday: 'It was five years ago that I decided to do this underage sex project in Russia.
'Why underage? Because I wanted it and found it funny.
'People visit porno sites above all others. I analysed it and found 90 per cent of people using the Internet go to porno sites first.
'And of this 90 per cent, nine in ten are looking for underage entertainment. This means there is big interest as well as some dissatisfaction - their needs are not being met.'
Shapovalov revealed he also manufactured the lesbian aspect of the duo to meet those needs. 'Why did I choose this image?' he asked. 'Because I saw it in the girls' relationship. You see it with all girls - this element of lesbianism exists.
'It happens very often with girls, when a kind of border between friendship and love evaporates. They can sleep together, kiss each other.' "
MTV comments :-"Their racy image has been carefully crafted by the group's producer and manager, Ivan Shapovalov, who makes Lou Pearlman look downright virtuous. A former psychologist and advertising executive, Shapovalov glanced out at a sea of suggestive teen pop and experienced an epiphany. So he put together Tatu and tried injecting a stagnant genre with new forbidden fruits, pushing buttons and ruffling feathers, but stopping just short of being outright lewd.
"Our producer is a very good psychologist, and that's why he can feel all the feelings that we have," Katina said.
The two met in the children's pop group Neposedi. She and Katina were then contacted by Shapovalov, and led to the world of softcore lesbian pop.
Of course, selling sex is nothing new. But there's some question whether Tatu actually ascribe to the sapphic lifestyle they project: While management has eagerly released titillating details to the press — such as how the girls insist on a double bed in their hotel rooms — none of the group's representatives will affirm that Volkova and Katina are the genuine article. And while the girls might love to kiss, they're not about to tell.
"Every song is about our life," concluded Katina. "Everybody thinks we are lesbians. But we just love each other." "
What seems to be complicating the issue further is the confusion over what certain people and newspapers are asking to be banned.
To object to the band because they are young lesbians would be wrong.
The song is inoffensive.
But what about the video? Who is this aimed at? should it be banned from kids tv only shown on The Box or MTV?
Kids aren't paedophiles, adults are.
As a lesbian I don't have a problem seeing pictures of young lesbians kissing.
Or I didn't.
Just reading that statement in conjunction with the comments by Tatu's manager, makes me feel incredibly uneasy and I have worked long and hard to be comfortable with my sexuality.
So I am angry and disturbed.
Angry that two young women, who may or may not be lesbians are being used to fill a "niche in the market"
And disturbed and angry that I have been made to feel uncomfortable and uneasy about myself.
Your feedback and comments would be greatly appreciated.
Jill.
Thanks to Xita for taking time to read through this first.