Mark your calendars. On Monday, June 2, 2014, pop singer Rihanna, 26, stepped out into Manhattan clad in little more than a smile and her vapid imagination. There, at the intersection of celebrity narcissism and plummeting standards, the Barbados-born hottie looked into the cameras. And she might as well have raised a silent middle finger to her adoring, young female fans.
At Lincoln Center to receive a Fashion Icon Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, RiRi failed to conceal two small but valuable pieces of personal real estate: her nipples.
She pranced into the spotlight looking like a poorly put-together streetwalker, wearing a sheer gown created by designer Adam Selman. It was decorated with 216,000 Swarovski crystals that left her areolas exposed, along with a backside obscured only by a thong, and revealing a good portion of her estimated 23 tattoos. In a roomful of women and men who looked as if they were clad by the Taliban in comparison, she was handed a trophy by Vogue magazine editrix Anna Wintour, who tacitly gave approval to a getup that, should my teenage daughter try to wear it, would result in her father and me locking her up until her 40th birthday.
Many of those who work in the rag trade have declared the sartorial catastrophe a triumph. But ordinary Joes and Janes, some of them parents, are appalled.
“She is a beautiful pop star and I think she has creative license,’’ argued Los Angeles-based designer Sue Wong. She said Rihanna, in a sparkly head schmatte, elbow-length gloves and clutching a faux (we hope) fur stole, was channeling 1920s screen siren Josephine Baker. “I think she looked drop-dead glamorous.’’
Rihanna “looked gorgeous — aside from her nipples showing,’’ said New York-based stylist Oksana Pidhoreckyj. “I think she got the attention she was looking for.’’
But Mike Peters, a Brooklyn father of a young daughter, spoke for dads and moms everywhere when he told me, “I think she looked slutty.’’
Female modesty and decency have been on the decline for years. Last week, Scout Willis, 22, the daughter of Hollywood royalty Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, walked through Manhattan’s East Village with bare breasts, which is legal in New York, to protest the decision of Instagram, the picture-sharing online social network, to delete her account. She said she was punished for posting a pic of herself in a sheer top and another of a jacket featuring two topless female friends. “I understand that people don’t want to take me seriously. Or would rather just write me off as an attention-seeking, over-privileged, ignorant, white girl,’’ Willis wrote on xoJane.com.
Hey, I didn’t say it.
Much has changed since the 1970s, when singer/actress Cher became the first woman on American TV to expose her belly button on CBS’ “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.” Not everyone remembers who won the 2004 Super Bowl in Houston, pitting the New England Patriots against the Carolina Panthers (New England did). But few who were sentient at the time can forget seeing halftime-show singer Justin Timberlake pulling at the top of songstress Janet Jackson — 143.6 million people saw at least part of the show on TV — revealing her bare boob, its nipple covered by a star-shaped shield. Timberlake initially called the half-second mammary antic, also known as Nipplegate, a “wardrobe malfunction.’’ The MTV-produced show, which aired on CBS, drew more than a half-million calls of complaint to the Federal Communications Commission. It sparked a national conversation about indecency in the media and drew a $550,000 FCC fine against CBS and its affiliates that was tossed out by the US Supreme Court in 2012. Today, the kerfuffle seems almost quaint.
At the tender age of 20, pop star Miley Cyrus grabbed at her crotch with foam fingers, stripped down to a Latex bikini and, with her tongue sticking out, twerked indecently against singer Robin Thicke, then a married man of 36, during last year’s MTV Music Video Awards show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. The disgusting display eclipsed a performance by pop provocateur Lady Gaga (who?), but ultimately was written off by our complacent society as just another perverse act performed by a needy star.
Finding good role models for our daughters, locating celebs who don’t think that removing their clothes or publicly humping live or inanimate objects, is nearly impossible.
Blame Rihanna if you will. I fear for the children raised in our anything-goes culture.
Big Apple doesn’t need Obama drama
Is President Obama New York-bound? He’s telling friends that when he leaves the White House, he’s considering bypassing Chicago, where he launched his political career, and Hawaii, where he was born and raised. Obama wants to move to the Big Apple, where he attended Columbia University in the 1980s, Politico.com reported.
He said on “Live with Kelly and Michael’’ that he craves anonymity. Seriously? Can you imagine the crowd he’d draw on a shopping trip to Zabar’s? We have enough celebs in this town.
Failing schools’ new xxxhibit A
Queens gym teacher Joy Morsi, 39, is charged with raping a boy, starting when he was 16, more than 20 times inside Grover Cleveland HS in Ridgewood — from the basement to the gymnasium — ending the sick affair two weeks ago when the student took someone else to the prom. The Massapequa, LI, mom was in court two days in a row this week, hit on Tuesday with 20 counts of rape and criminal sexual act, plus a count of child endangerment, for an affair that began a year ago. Then on Wednesday, she was charged with abusing a new 16-year-old, whom she picked up on the rebound, having sex with him twice inside the school basement last Saturday. If convicted in both cases, she faces up to eight years in prison.
Her dejected-looking husband, Hani, a science teacher at Grover Cleveland, followed his wife to court like a whipped puppy on both days. Here’s the final outrage: Morsi can’t be fired immediately. As a tenured teacher who earned nearly $81,000 last year, she’s been removed from the classroom, but suspended, with pay, as the wheels of justice grind on.
An outrage.
Jenny is a blockhead
Jet-setting pop star Jennifer Lopez, 44, played her first-ever show in her native borough of The Bronx Wednesday. But despite more than 25,000 available free tickets for the 90-minute show, less than half the expected number of fans showed up to see her promote her new album, “A.K.A.’’ J.Lo, who recorded “Jenny From the Block,” should try spending more time on the block, not running from it.
Bill, ‘hood tidings!
Mayor Bill de Blasio and his family are packing up their stuff and moving from liberal Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, a nabe that contains more Republican voters than any other Manhattan ’hood — up to 50 percent in one corner.
I hope Hizzoner learns to hate taxes as much as the rest of us do.