Schoolgirls: A class act?
Schoolgirls: A class act?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
By Gail Walker
What on earth are Methodist College schoolgirls doing on the front pages of all the tabloids? Sheer black stockings, micro skirts, high heels, pouts, er, school ties... jeepers.
Bad enough they totter around Belfast looking like a take-off of the old saucy schoolgirl joke, and delighting dads everywhere (except, one assumes, their own).
Oh, hold on. It's not Methody's finest, but Girls Aloud, tarted up as St Trinian's schoolgirls for a new movie. So, that's alright then.
But you wonder if those Methody girls realise just how celebrated they have become?
Absolutely everyone talks about them. Particularly men.
Protestant men like to get a gander, but Catholic men will assert there is the added frisson of them being - or at least a fair chance of them being - Protestant grammar schoolgirls.
"Peace process or not, it adds a nice wee edge to it," one told me.
(And before I get letters from outraged Catholic schoolgirls, saying 'what about us?', I hear the same thing from Protestant men about convent schoolgirls.)
The manicured grounds of Botanic Gardens? The fine looking Lanyon Building at Queen's University? The excellent choice of restaurants?
No, what leaves the greatest impression on visitors to the south side of the city is invariably the long, sheer-clad legs of a passing schoolgirl.
"What's that all about?" blokes ask. "I've never seen anything like it, though I'll be back on University Road around 4pm tomorrow - 4pm the best time, you reckon? - just to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me."
You wonder do these girls get away with it in the classroom.
Is it all a bit like the Police song Don't Stand So Close To Me, with hapless sirs beginning to shake and cough ("just like that bloke in that book by Nabokov")?
In the gym, is it just like Britney's Hit Me Baby One More Time video, where she cavorts, all doe eyes and glossy lips in her uniform?.
Or are they packed into the loos as the bell tolls for morning classes, rolling down the waistbands of their skirts, and slipping into a pair of clumpy flat shoes?
Of course, not all girls attending Methody attempt the 'hot babe in a uniform' look.
The vast majority of them just seem to wear their uniform as intended.
But - and correct me if I'm wrong - 10-denier stockings and high heels do seem to be a phenomenon peculiar to this school.
Yes, you always see a few girls from other establishments attempting to add a little oomph to the old navy or brown or maroon skirt and sweater combo, but it never ends up like anything on this scale.
Maybe it's because they seem to be restricted to heavy opaque tights, which while very fashionable this season, don't always look so great teemed with regulation shoes.
It's bewildering, really.
Teenage girls have always struggled to 'improve' and adapt their unflattering uniforms. But Girls Aloud, now all in their 20s, running around in stockings and suspenders and school-ties, with their hair in bunches?
What's that really all about?
It's a bit like the era of Baby Spice in the Spice Girls, another grown woman with her hair in pigtails, innocent and sexual at the same time, and all very dubious indeed.
It's one thing to be a harmless tonic for the dads, but where does this type of thing stop?
Nip into quite a few newsagents' shops and have a look at the top shelf.
There among the Playboys and the Razzles, will be Barely Legal or Girls in Uniform. (And, I don't think I am risking too much to hazard a guess that school uniforms often feature in that publication).
Is it really ok for a 40-year-old married man to be leering at schoolgirls on the street or pretend schoolgirls on the silver screen?
Undoubtedly, the new film will have the girls up to 'saucy' antics, which will fuel some anorak's sad fantasies.
But isn't there also a more sinister aspect?
In the same papers that featured Nicola, Kimberley and Cheryl in their uniforms under gleeful headlines like 'It Shouldn't Be Allowed', there are stories about young girls going missing with older men, and debates about bringing in Sarah's Law to keep an eye on paedophiles.
I'm sure it's all just coincidental.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
By Gail Walker
What on earth are Methodist College schoolgirls doing on the front pages of all the tabloids? Sheer black stockings, micro skirts, high heels, pouts, er, school ties... jeepers.
Bad enough they totter around Belfast looking like a take-off of the old saucy schoolgirl joke, and delighting dads everywhere (except, one assumes, their own).
Oh, hold on. It's not Methody's finest, but Girls Aloud, tarted up as St Trinian's schoolgirls for a new movie. So, that's alright then.
But you wonder if those Methody girls realise just how celebrated they have become?
Absolutely everyone talks about them. Particularly men.
Protestant men like to get a gander, but Catholic men will assert there is the added frisson of them being - or at least a fair chance of them being - Protestant grammar schoolgirls.
"Peace process or not, it adds a nice wee edge to it," one told me.
(And before I get letters from outraged Catholic schoolgirls, saying 'what about us?', I hear the same thing from Protestant men about convent schoolgirls.)
The manicured grounds of Botanic Gardens? The fine looking Lanyon Building at Queen's University? The excellent choice of restaurants?
No, what leaves the greatest impression on visitors to the south side of the city is invariably the long, sheer-clad legs of a passing schoolgirl.
"What's that all about?" blokes ask. "I've never seen anything like it, though I'll be back on University Road around 4pm tomorrow - 4pm the best time, you reckon? - just to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me."
You wonder do these girls get away with it in the classroom.
Is it all a bit like the Police song Don't Stand So Close To Me, with hapless sirs beginning to shake and cough ("just like that bloke in that book by Nabokov")?
In the gym, is it just like Britney's Hit Me Baby One More Time video, where she cavorts, all doe eyes and glossy lips in her uniform?.
Or are they packed into the loos as the bell tolls for morning classes, rolling down the waistbands of their skirts, and slipping into a pair of clumpy flat shoes?
Of course, not all girls attending Methody attempt the 'hot babe in a uniform' look.
The vast majority of them just seem to wear their uniform as intended.
But - and correct me if I'm wrong - 10-denier stockings and high heels do seem to be a phenomenon peculiar to this school.
Yes, you always see a few girls from other establishments attempting to add a little oomph to the old navy or brown or maroon skirt and sweater combo, but it never ends up like anything on this scale.
Maybe it's because they seem to be restricted to heavy opaque tights, which while very fashionable this season, don't always look so great teemed with regulation shoes.
It's bewildering, really.
Teenage girls have always struggled to 'improve' and adapt their unflattering uniforms. But Girls Aloud, now all in their 20s, running around in stockings and suspenders and school-ties, with their hair in bunches?
What's that really all about?
It's a bit like the era of Baby Spice in the Spice Girls, another grown woman with her hair in pigtails, innocent and sexual at the same time, and all very dubious indeed.
It's one thing to be a harmless tonic for the dads, but where does this type of thing stop?
Nip into quite a few newsagents' shops and have a look at the top shelf.
There among the Playboys and the Razzles, will be Barely Legal or Girls in Uniform. (And, I don't think I am risking too much to hazard a guess that school uniforms often feature in that publication).
Is it really ok for a 40-year-old married man to be leering at schoolgirls on the street or pretend schoolgirls on the silver screen?
Undoubtedly, the new film will have the girls up to 'saucy' antics, which will fuel some anorak's sad fantasies.
But isn't there also a more sinister aspect?
In the same papers that featured Nicola, Kimberley and Cheryl in their uniforms under gleeful headlines like 'It Shouldn't Be Allowed', there are stories about young girls going missing with older men, and debates about bringing in Sarah's Law to keep an eye on paedophiles.
I'm sure it's all just coincidental.
posted by soraya at 8:52 AM
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