Viral High School Video About Dress Codes Slammed For ‘Over-Sexualizing Teen Girls,’ Principal Issues Apology
Marcus High School has come under intense scrutiny after a video posted by one of their seniors has gone viral. The video was produced by the school, aimed at teaching their students what they can, and what they cannot wear. Catherine Moring, the senior responsible for sharing the video with the world, explains her accusations of it “over-sexualizing teen girls.”
“This is oversexualization. We’re not okay with this, we’re not going to just let it happen and sit on the sidelines. They were zooming in on girls’ legs in the video. They were showing up close of the girls in shorts. They were doing this at the same time saying shorts were too sexual too be worn at school.”
It didn’t help that the soundtrack to the video was M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls.” The chorus is “Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well,” and includes other lyrics like “My chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the dashboard.”
Moring has been responding to many of her commenters on Twitter. One woman asked, “Maybe you should talk to your classmates about why they agreed to be in the video???” to which Catherine responded, “they had to be in the video as part of their student council duties! they’re all smart, educated girls who don’t agree with the opinions shown in the video [heart emoji.]”
Today my school was shown this video. So sad how ONLY girls are shown as the violators. I understand why my school has a dresscode, but what about the boys who wear shorts, or show their shoulders? It’s 2018…Why are we still over-sexualizing teen girls? pic.twitter.com/fCXymYAIEG
— cat (@catmoring) August 16, 2018
The student also pointed out that it’s not fair for the video to feature girls only, completely disregarding the guys’ dress codes. The minute-long video features some girls wearing oversized shirts that make it appear as though they’re not wearing any shorts. One girl was briefly shown wearing a crop top that exposed her midriff.
The song stops as a teacher sends all of the offenders to a “Dress Code Violators” room. The girls are then seen reciting in union, “I will not wear athletic shorts. I will not wear athletic shorts. I will not wear athletic shorts.”
At the end of the video, a teacher says, “So in summary, we’re going to stick to jeans and leggings and we’re gonna save those athletic shorts for the weekend.”
The uproar on social media led the principal, Will Skelton, to issue a straight-forward apology to parents. He also pointed out that the process was behind filming and producing the video was flawed. It sounds like Skelton may not have personally signed off on the video, and cites lack of oversight.
“I’m a firm believer that when you make a mistake, you own it, you apologize, and you make it right. Yesterday we showed a dress code video that featured only female dress code violations, and was accompanied by a poor song choice. Please accept my sincere apology for not ensuring our video achieved its intended purpose — to remind ALL students of our dress code expectations.”
It’s unknown who actually produced the video, if it was a teacher, staff, or fellow students. Regardless, social media users all have many strong opinions about the potentially sexist and over-sexualized nature of the video.
