Disney's Kiddie Lingerie Billboard Advertises Hypocrisy

The Walt Disney Corporation was nothing short of outraged when its billion-dollar-a-year child star Miley Cyrus appeared in Vanity Fair wearing only a bedsheet, as shown in the rightmost image above. Said a spokeswoman at the time: "A situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines." But check out the Disney billboard pictured on the left, snapped by Slate's Daniel Brook in Beijing, China. The model, who looks barely pubescent, is being used to sell a matching bra-and-panties set. Brook said the billboard made "the controversial 1990s Calvin Klein underwear ads look artistic by comparison." And it's not the work of Chinese intellectual property pirates; it comes from a legitimate Disney licensee pledged to clear all ads with Disney corporate. What does Disney say? Controlling child exploitation is hard! Also, Chinese people have certain... tastes: More »