A photo of thirteen year old Willow Smith (daughter of Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith) recently sparked a great deal of controversy. The reason? Not because she was scantily clad, nor because she was engaging in behavior inappropriate for a thirteen year old. No, the photograph in question showed Smith lying on a bed, fully clothed, with shirtless 20 year old “Hannah Montana” star Moises Arias.

Many expressed their distaste of the photo and of the situation, to which Jada Pinkett Smith (who rarely comments on her family) replied by telling a TMZ reporter  “There was nothing sexual about that picture or that situation. You guys are projecting your trash onto it. You’re acting like covert pedophiles and that’s not cool.”

While Arias and Smith are not even pictured as touching in the photograph, most are unable to agree with Smith’s conjecture that nothing seemed sexual about the photo, and the reason is simple (it’s not because we’re all covert pedophiles): social stigmas, while frequently unfair, are powerful factors in our society.

Had Smith and Arias been in the same position while occupying the floor of a library, the reaction almost certainly would not have been the same. Had Arias simply put a shirt on, had the two been smiling in a cheese-like fashion at the camera, and had Smith been about five years older perhaps the general public wouldn’t have been so perturbed by the situation.

But the photo was on a bed, Arias was shirtless, and there is a seven year age gap between the two friends. So is that our problem or theirs? Should society be faulted for responding to certain social stigmas, or should those who violate them be subjected to the interpretation of others?

The answer to this question is not black and white, and Willow Smith and Moises Arias are certainly not the first to raise it. To say that society should bow a collective head in reverence to every existing social stigma would be a grave error, but consider this: were Willow Smith and Moises Arias unaware of the stigma attached to the symbol of a bed? Likely not, and awareness of a social stigma means the violation of one is rarely accidental and almost never unnoticed.

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Val Dunham

Val Dunham lives in southwest Virginia with her husband, Matt; son, Declan; and daughter, Jemma. She enjoys sports, music, reading and writing fiction, and reminding everyone that she is originally from New England.
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3 Comments

  1. I’ll *maybe* cut Willow Smith a break that she, at 13, was not aware of the implications of being photographed in bed with a shirtless man — although 13 years old today is not the same as 13 used to be and like you I’m a little skeptical. Arias, though, no way. He’s 20. He’s been a “teen idol.” He knows how people who see him in his bed without a shirt and with a girl are going to view that image.

  2. This reminds me a bit of the Miley Cirus VMA’s controversy. The thing I find surprising about both is that the headlines are about Miley and Willow. Shouldn’t the men be the one’s being (strongly) criticized?

    Both situations are potent reminders of persistent gender inequality; the social machine these girls/women operate in – what it encourages them to be in order to be successful – and then the lashing they receive when they end up being the very thing society wanted.

  3. I appreciate how you bring up stigma; its something that has always and will continue to inform human cultures. Our broader culture has no consistency in how it deals with stigma. It’s okay to stigmatize people for having the wrong beliefs, like opposition to same sex marriage. But it’s not okay to stigmatize economic dependency. Everyone wants to be free from stigmas, except when they don’t. We should all be free to express which kind of stigmas are desirable and helpful, and which are harmful. But most folks never seem to openly question what our stigmas should be.

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