CHAPTER 11 Reviving Lolita ?

First, there was the book. Then there was the 1962 film followed by yet another filmic version in 1997 of Nabokov's (1958) infamous best seller Lolita. Simultaneously repulsive and fascinating mediated por­ trayals of young girls as inviting and willing participants in their own sexual exploitation have fueled many a male fantasy. Sexualized images of girls are not only found between the covers ofbooks. Rather,"under-aged sexual­ ized 'nymphets'" have provocatively posed in television programs, movies, magazine stories, and even more so, in advertising (Albright, 2002, para. 4). Even consumer products are named after the literary vixen and celluloid coquette: Lolita Lempicka fragrance, Lolita leggings in a recent Nordstrom catalogue, or playing on words, Nolita hair care products with the subheading "no limits, no boundaries:' Although not necessarily named after sexy stars, sexually alluring clothing has reached the prepu­ bescent crowd as well. Abercrombie & Fitch, for example, faced criticism over marketing thong underwear, with the words "eye candy" and "wink wink;' to the age 7to 14-year-old crowd. Aspokesperson for the company said, "The underwear for young girls was created with the intent to be lighthearted and cute" (Odell, 2002, para. 6). Similarly, a Fetish perfume advertisement raised a stink with the image of a young-looking girl with blackened eyes and the copy "so he can smell it when you say no:' The message from advertisers and the mass media to girls (as eventual women) is they should always be sexu­ ally available, always have sex on their minds, be willing to be dominated and even sexually aggressed against, and they will be gazed on as sexual objects. The increasing sexualization of children, in particular girls, in fashion advertising is a disturbing phenomenon (Kilbourne, 1999a). To examine this inclination, I apply Galician's (2004) seven-step media literacy analysis framework to illustrative magazine fashion advertisements. My central concern is fetishization of young girls' innocence and their vulnerability to physical and emotional violence as possible outcomes of sexualized representations in the media (Kincaid, 1998). Images cannot say "no:' Just as "eroticized gazes at the child-woman" are everywhere (Walkerdine, 1997, p.166), so too are sexualized portray­ als of women as child-like. In the media in general and