Hey, Little Girl: Beautiful and the "Sexualisation of Youth"

Hey, little girl, is your daddy home? Did he go away and leave you all alone? I got a bad desire (Bruce Springsteen, “I’m on Fire”) And it’s no surprise, little girls hurt sometimes (Icehouse, “Hey, Little Girl”) Beautiful has been commonly read as an exploration of the darkness that lurks beneath pristine images of middle-class suburbia. I argue, though, that it is more intellectually and politically useful to situate this film within the context of recent Australian anxieties about the so-called “sexualisation of youth”. I argue that Beautiful is significant because it endorses arguments against this “sexualisation” and also parodies the stereotype of youthful innocence that lies at the heart of these arguments. In doing this, the film provides a multi-valenced perspective on young people, sexuality and representation.