Pop Duo Accused Of Promoting Child Pornography ("Daily Mail" UK) Time of publication: 29.01.2003 |
By Nicole Lampert, Daily Mail
29 January 2003
They are a phenomenon that manages to degrade marketing and music at the same time.
Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, the Russian teenagers who make up Tatu, are bound for the number one spot in Sunday's charts.
Their single All The Things She Said sold 21,000 copies on Monday alone.
Tatu: accused of 'paedo-pop'
Whether their lesbian image - the name is supposed to mean 'This girl loves that girl' - reflects the reality of their lives is irrelevant.
With their raunchy body language and their claim to have been lovers when they were barely in their teens, they are the latest and most blatant example of what is being called 'paedo-pop'.
Other acts with undoubted appeal for the paedophile market include the pre-teen band S Club Juniors, Britney Spears, who has appeared in a schoolgirl outfit, and Charlotte Church, who even had a website devoted to counting down the hours until she became 'legal'.
Laughing all the way to the bank is Tatu's creator, Ivan Shapovalov, who shamelessly admits that he set out to exploit such a distasteful market.
The former child psychologist who admits to visiting child porn websites said yesterday: 'It was five years ago that I decided to do this underage sex project in Russia.
'Why underage? Because I wanted it and found it funny.
'People visit porno sites above all others. I analysed it and found 90 per cent of people using the Internet go to porno sites first.
'And of this 90 per cent, nine in ten are looking for underage entertainment. This means there is big interest as well as some dissatisfaction - their needs are not being met.'
Shapovalov revealed he also manufactured the lesbian aspect of the duo to meet those needs. 'Why did I choose this image?' he asked. 'Because I saw it in the girls' relationship. You see it with all girls - this element of lesbianism exists.
'It happens very often with girls, when a kind of border between friendship and love evaporates. They can sleep together, kiss each other.' The girls themselves claim in interviews that they have been lovers for years.
'We are so close you wouldn't believe,' 17-year-old Lena said to one interviewer. 'Do you want to hear that we are ******* every night? Of course we do.
'We love each other, we are even living together. It has been love for a long time, we have been together about four or five years. We work together and we sleep together.'
Back home in Russia, however, it is widely thought the whole lesbian image is manufactured.
Sixteen-year-old Julia's grandmother, Elizaveta, claimed that on a recent visit her grandaughter brought a boyfriend.
'He was tall and respectful - a businessman - and he drove a Mercedes,' she insisted. 'She also used to go out with a boy called Anton Khrulev.'
Both girls have also been seen at a Moscow nightclub with men who described themselves as their boyfriends.
And Julia has admitted: 'Thinking about life in ten years, we're both dreaming about normal families and kids.'
Last night Michele Elliott of the child protection charity Kidscape said: 'Record executives have targeted the young market and the old market, now they seem to be aiming for the dirty old man market.
'This latest band really does defy description - it is totally pathetic. Child pornography is not funny and should never be laughed at, it is disgusting. I am very sad this song is going to be No.1.' |
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