Entertainment
Miley Cyrus photo scandal latest example of 'The Lolita Effect'
Washington | May 11, 2008 10:22:20 AM IST
The racy photo shoot of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus has been dubbed as "The Lolita Effect" by an Indian-origin professor from University of Iowa. Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa has slammed the media for circulating damaging myths that distort, undermine and restrict girls' sexual progress. The sexualization of teen girls, which she dubs "The Lolita Effect" in her book of the same name, is part of a larger, marketing effort to create cradle-to-grave consumers. While writing in Dalhousie University's Nabokov Online Journal, Dr. Durham said that since the publication of Lolita more than 50 years ago, it has become the favourite metaphor for a child vixen, yet that perception is a misreading of Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel. Indeed, Lolita does nothing to attract Humbert Humbert's devouring and doomed passion. The latest edition of Nabokov Online Journal brings forth the cruelty of the world thereby making people aware of the present scenario. "With Lolita, we are entering the mind of this pervert. So it is about the cruelty of this world and is written like that precisely to alert us," said Yuri Leving, assistant professor in Dalhousie's Department of Russian Studies and editor of the Nabokov Online Journal. "Lolita is disturbing and it is meant to be," he added. Dr. Leving posted the first edition of the Nabokov Online Journal last summer on Vladamir Nabokov's birthday. The contributors to the journal include experts like Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd to some of the students from Dr. Leving's third-year class, simply called Nabokov (RUSN 3820). Dennis Kierans, for example, contributed a music video inspired by Nabokov's works, and Ashley Moran outlines the rules for a board game she created called Nabokov Dozen. "We have tried very hard to make the journal accessible, which I think scholarship should be. So that's the big reason for publishing online," said Dr. Leving. (ANI)
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