So...I'm sure by now you all have heard the news story and seen the attendant video of the cheerleader in Lakeland, Florida who was lured into a "friend's" home and then severely beaten by that friend and other cheerleaders. All of this for basically talking smack over MySpace (cyberbullying?) about those friends. So what we have is a vivid depiction of six girls who carefully coordinated (with two male lookouts and everything) a vicious attack (to where she suffered a concussion and fell unconscious) on an unsuspecting girl at a home where no parents were around...and where she was detained with no freedom to leave...and where the violence was recorded for the purposes of uploading it to YouTube and MySpace.... Then she was taken in a car, dropped off at some random location, and threatened with more beatings if she went to the authorities.
Points to consider:
1. What is the deal with these girls being so horrifically violent? Is this not out of the ordinary, but seems so because the recording has so starkly shown us the hostility and aggression of which some girls are capable? Is it possible that girls are actually *just as prone to violence* as boys (not withstanding testosterone and so forth) but have been constrained by social acceptability...but perhaps those standards are eroding or fading or being diluted as the years go by?
2. Is our culture being desensitized to female violence? For example, you turn on The Real World on MTV and we are seeing more frequently verbal violence and even physical violence among girls.
3. Were the girls playing to the camera...performing, if you will? Were they, to some degree, looking for their 15 minutes of fame by recording themselves in this video?
4. What were the girls thinking, in terms of escaping identification, apprehension, and punishment, with the recording of the criminal assault?
5. Are the parents at fault?
6. Has anyone seen the MySpace postings, as I'd like to consider their contents?
7. Has anyone figured out how to download flash video, because I'd like to archive those videos linked from that site to show others?
Article and unedited video here.
5 comments:
On point 7, if you download Real Player I believe there is a way to save many videos you view online. I went through this during the winter when trying to archive copies of stuff I needed for some of the road shows I've been doing. When I followed your link to the video they start to play and a "download to Real Player" icon appears by the video window.
On the other points...are "these kids today" more violent, deviant, stupid, cruel, etc., based on this or anything else? Are they more fill-in-the-blank or is such conduct more evident and easily shared with the world? Is this new/expanding conduct, or simply technology that archives the conduct youth have engaged in for years?
Performing to the camera...you bet. That's the point of recording. But they are still teenagers, impulsive, and stupid, so they somehow think the only one's to see their "brilliant" revenge will be friends, not parents, cops, school officials, or the entire western hemisphere.
Dunno how you can put the parents at fault short of evidence one had prior knowledge.
Excellent questions, Pap. Thanks for posting this.
Did you all hear that the girls are set to be tried as adults?
This episode makes me even more anxious for our piece on teen girls and online victimization to come out....something tells me there will be sustained media and public interest in teen girls' use of technology and violence over the coming months...
This is unbelievable:
"Suspects in Video Beating Could Get Life in Prison"
Life in prison?! Come on.
Don't tell me that sex/gender doesn't come into play here. Can you imagine a group of teen boys facing a life sentence for this same scenario? I don't think so. No matter how "animalistic" the attack was -- and I'm not suggesting it wasn't horrific, because it was -- this type of behavior isn't an affront to established sex/gender roles when it is perpetrated by boys. But when girls do it, it's potentially worth a life sentence? I don't even know what to say. Of course I understand that the suspects are facing felony kidnapping charges, but the whole "they could get life behind bars!" thing reeks of: (a) overly-zealous punishment in an effort to make an example of these girls, and (b) a reaction more to their non-conformity to traditional gender roles with respect to violent behavior. I agree that the fact that they videotaped the beating adds a whole additional level of depravity to the whole thing....but a life sentence? That's just absurd.
Whoops -- here's the link:
Suspects in Video Beating Could Get Life in Prison
Hmmm... I disagree with HnK on this one. I really believe that if these were boys we would still here the rhetoric of the possibility of life sentences. I find it really hard to believe that they are being treated differently (both by the media and by the courts - at least so far) because they are girls. Clearly that makes it more shocking for some, but I doubt they will get a harsher sentence because of their gender.
It will be interesting to see the punishment they actually get. They will not get life in prison. Believe me - I just don't see that happening.
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