Stark Naked Souls

By the time Joe Jonas realized that the camera was there, he and Kevin were already exposed, shirtless. Rather than take the opportunity to flaunt the results of his daily workout, he was unnerved at the camera’s presence: like a deer in headlights, his jaw dropped and his eyes were wide open in shock. He quickly directed his bodyguard’s and older brother Kevin’s attention to the camera, and urged them to take action. With furrowed brows, Kevin grimaced as he swiftly threw a shirt to cover the camera lens.



The sibling pop group Jonas Brothers' first movie Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience has caused hysteria among millions of Jonas Brothers fans in multiplexes across the nation. Nearly a month since its release, it has sparked hundreds of copyright-infringing YouTubers to describe the aforementioned scene as “fantasy,” “beautiful,” and “the greatest seventeen seconds” of their lives.

Yet a close look at the boys’ demeanor in the film shows that they were not experiencing the same euphoria as their fans.

Joe, lead singer of the band, admitted to MTV News on February 25 that they had allowed the Disney cameramen to “film everything backstage,” but it “just happened to be our quick-change room and they caught us.”

"The thing is, we were in the midst of the show, so we were just continuing like a show," Kevin, backup vocalist and instrumentalist, explained. "So when we went backstage, we didn't realize they were there and we were changing ... we went, 'Oh my gosh! Wow! We might want to get them out of here.'”

MTV Shows

This is not the first time the media have overstepped their boundaries, exposing aspects of celebrities’ lives that they would have rather kept private.

The pop icon Britney Spears has had to deal with the invasiveness of paparazzi for almost a decade now. Her January 2008 single, “Piece of Me” reflects her distress: “I’m Miss American Dream since I was 17/ Don’t matter if I step on the scene/ Or sneak away to the Philippines/ They still got pictures of my derrière in the magazine/… I’m Miss bad media karma/ Another day another drama.”

American law upholds the basic human right of privacy, yet somehow we as a society feel entitled to deprive celebrities of theirs.

In her book The Repeal of Reticence: A History of America's Cultural and Legal Struggles over Free Speech, Obscenity, Sexual Liberation, and Modern Art, scholar and cultural critic Rochelle Gurstein explains that “Intimate matter… because of their smallness and fragility, needed to be tenaciously guarded against curious eyes lest they be deformed.”

Charles Eliot Norton leading American author, social critic, and professor of art of the 20th Century would have agreed. In the preface to Letters of John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton, he mentioned that he held “with those who believe that there are sanctities in love and life to be kept in privacy inviolate.”

As Norton further explained in his book, “[v]ulgar curiosity is, indeed always alert to spy into these sanctities [of private life] and is too often gratified as in some memorable and mournful instances in recent years, by the infidelities of untrustworthy friends.” When the Jonas brothers agreed to be filmed backstage, they were no doubt aware of the transparency and vulnerability that it would entail. Yet, nowadays, apparently, dressing rooms are no longer considered to be sacred, at least for the camera. If any individual were to be standing in a famous performer’s dressing room, they would swiftly be arrested and labeled a stalker. Yet these trusted cameramen were given license to violate common courtesy for the sake of the entertainment of the masses.

Gurstein makes clear that “[te]nderness teaches us to forestall overly searching glances and to neglect harsh observations, ensuring that we never view our loved ones distanced, as in a photograph, but through a sympathetic lens that enables us to situate shortcomings within the unfolding narrative of our shared existence.” Celebrities are, in fact, viewed from a distance, and as such are treated as commodities. They are no longer mere entertainers, but entertainment themselves. Yet, as Gurstein warns, we should reconsider the “shared existence” we have with these celebrities.

Our society needs to redeem a sense of discretion, which Gurstein defines as, “the sensitivity that enables us not only to respect another person’s secrets, but also to sidestep knowing something that the person does not want us to know or does not expressly reveal to us…It is discretion that permits us to render truth about our lives sensitively, making a home for ourselves and other who are always only human and therefore not deserving of the brutality of full disclosure.” But our disregard of the humanness of celebrities helps us justify our desire to exploit them for our own selfish desires.

The Jonas Brothers and other modern celebrities have exhibited—as English lawyer, judge and writer James Fitzjames Stephen writes in Liberty, Equality, & Fraternity—this truth: “[t]hat any one human creature should ever really strip his soul stark naked for the inspection of any other, and be able to hold up his head afterwards, isn’t, I supposed impossible, because so many people profess to do it; but to lookers-on from the outside it is inconceivable.”

Freaked Out Over Standards?

We’ve all heard about it. The infamous Russell Brand comment criticizing the Jonas Brothers and their purity rings.



(However, if you, like me––a college student deficient in spare time and available cable channels–– were unable to watch the VMAs live this year, well you’re in luck: MTV.com. has dedicated an entire page to get you up-to-date on the controversy.)

Nick, the youngest of the group, told People Magazine in June that the purity ring is “a personal choice.” And wondered, as if prophesying the Brand incident two months in advance, “Why is the world so freaked out that we have standards?”

Indeed, it has been a well-publicized fact that the boys have committed to stay pure before marriage, since they are hounded by questions on the topic in almost every interview.

The article in the August issue of Rolling Stone (of which the Jonas Brothers were on the cover) was no exception. In it, Jason Gay summarized the brothers’ views very well:

“If there is one subject the Jonas Brothers are tired of talking about, it’s their purity rings […]

“We’ve talked about it enough,” Nick says abruptly. "We’d rather focus on the music and the movie.”[…]

“Well,” Nick says quietly, “to us, the rings are a constant reminder to live a life of values. It’s about being a gentleman, treating people with respect and being the best guys we can be.”

Was it something you guys all decided to wear collaboratively?

“We all did it at one point in our life,” Kevin says, “On our own personal time.”

Russell Brand was not the first dubious critic of the boys and their decision. Back in March, Michael Buckley of the “What The Buck” YouTube show, poked fun at their virginity, claiming that the only way teenage boys and abstinence could be reconciled was if they were gay.

Conversely, many have also embraced the brothers’ counterculture attitude. In the same Rolling Stones article, Jason Gay claimed that at every concert he attended, fans were showing off their rings. In fact, a “spokeswoman for James Avery Craftsman, a large Christian-based jeweler, [told him] that sales of the company’s ‘True Love Waits’ purity ring are up 25 percent this year. ‘We can’t say for sure why, but it’s up,’ she says.”

But something tells me that these millions of supportive teenage girls may be likely to start practicing regular flossing if the boys chose to promote it. Elsewhere, however, other artists have followed the brothers’ lead. Among these, of course, is Ms. American Idol Jordin Sparks, who albeit in a more forthright manner than the boys, voiced out her view of promise rings later on that night at the VMAs, claiming that “[i]t's not bad to wear a promise ring, 'cause not everybody, guy or girl, wants to be a slut.”



Some may claim that Jordin may be biased, admitting on Hannity & Colmes on Wednesday evening that she herself wears a promise ring. But the real surprise came when self-proclaimed “gossip gangster,” Perez Hilton, defended the boys, expressing his view that “those Jonas brothers are good kids, and we shouldn’t be making fun of them for promoting good values.”



Deep down, I don’t believe that individuals are actually contemptuous towards those who have chosen to abstain from sex until marriage. It’s just that no one can deny that such a goal in the context of our sex-obsessed culture seems quite impossible. Tila Tequila once shared with Fuse the pressure she had to deal with as a teenager:

“I didn’t have my first kiss until I was 15, which was very embarrassing for me, because I had to lie to all my friends…I knew everybody at school and I had guys…that had crushes on me, but I had never made out with anybody, and my friends... were already having sex and stuff, so I was like “Of course I have!” And I was like "Oh my God! I gotta start practicing!”

As undoubtedly inappropriate as Brand’s comment was, I can honestly say that I am thankful that the incident happened. Furthermore, I am ecstatic that it happened on a platform as far-reaching as the VMAs. There could not have been a better place or time, in which such a pervasive issue was allowed to surface before the very audience struggling with it the most. As reflected by most movies, television, and music leading up to the present time, having sex before a lifetime commitment was considered not simply a cultural norm, but more like an unavoidable and inevitable reality. At least now, thanks to the Jonas Brothers and likeminded young stars, there is at least some possibility of an alternative.

P.S.
See Brand’s forced apology here. ;)