Sorry – Cruz Beckham’s sexualised photoshoot is weird and creepy
Cruz isn’t an adult of 25 whose brain is fully developed – he’s not even an adult of 18 who can legally buy a pint or vote in an election
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Your support makes all the difference.On Monday, Victoria Beckham shared three photos on Instagram from her son Cruz’s latest photoshoot. The first post was captioned: “Big first day as a 17 year old! So proud”
The pictures, taken for i-D’s “Out of Body” issue, include a shot of a pink-haired Cruz Beckham shirtless and in a pair of white boxers, with his trousers pulled down around his ankles. Another shows a topless Cruz grabbing his crotch. He is also pictured in a string vest, pulling down his bottom lip to reveal a silver grill covering his teeth.
Nothing to see here, just Victoria Beckham hyping weirdly sexualised pictures of her underage son, taken when he was just 16, to her 29.5million Instagram followers.
It might be tempting to dismiss the whole thing as rich person silliness. The super wealthy (David and Victoria Beckham are reportedly worth a billion US dollars) inhabit a different world to the rest of us. We’re worried about things like soaring energy bills and having to make the choice between going to work when we’re sick with Covid and not getting paid, while rich people are worrying about which of their diamond encrusted, gold-plated yachts to take on their next space flight – or something.
Rich folks be weird, but Cruz’s sexualised photoshoot and his mum’s gushing promotion of it are especially so. It’s nice when you’re a teenager and your parents are proud of you, but it’s usually about stuff like, you know, how you got the exam results you wanted or how you’re flourishing into a caring and responsible young person. But apparently that’s the difference between our world and planet Beckham.
It seems Cruz Beckham’s life exists on a wholly separate plane of existence to, say, mine at 16 – like many teenagers, my capacity at that time for making decisions that would be good for me and my long-term wellbeing was pretty much zero. I was desperate to be seen as sexy and cool and edgy as a teenager, but my reach consisted of a MySpace profile – Cruz has magazines willing to put him on the cover, 1.9 million Instagram followers and famous parents facilitating him. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t have access to that kind of platform. I hadn’t figured much out and I was desperate to please and be liked – a very common experience for kids.
My point here is not that teenagers are stupid or they shouldn’t be able to express themselves. But Cruz’s i-D photoshoot does raise questions about safeguarding and the sexualisation of under-18s – children, in other words. Famously reticent supermodel Kate Moss has now spoken candidly about her experiences of posing topless for photographers like Corrine Day and Mario Sorrenti as a 15 year old, saying she felt “pressure” and “did not like it at all”.
This isn’t the 90s – we should have moved on and be taking the wellbeing of young people, in and out of the public eye, more seriously.
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Cruz isn’t an adult of 25 whose brain is fully developed – he’s not even an adult of 18 who can legally buy a pint or vote in an election. We don’t know how much input Cruz had in the way he was styled and posed for i-D – did he feel like he had control over the process? Or was he surrounded by adults pulling the strings, saying things like: “You know what will look really hot? If you hold your genitals for this one.”
There doesn’t seem to have been much point to Cruz’s i-D cover beyond the photos either, as the interview with him is fairly content-free. Cruz reportedly has his heart set on making music, but he hasn’t actually released any yet. The focus is on the photoshoot, which fans have already reacted to, calling them (and Victoria Beckham’s Instagram promotion) “sad” and “dreadful”. One commenter wondered whether Victoria would proudly share pictures of Harper Beckham posing in her underwear when she’s 16, too.
To me, the pictures of Cruz are weird and creepy. I would find them creepy if Cruz was an underage girl, and they’re just as creepy featuring a teenage boy.
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