Miley Cyrus, Pedobear, and the Hollywood Spectacle

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I don't get how the dude who is singing about date rape and wearing a Beetlejuice suit with her is getting virtually no flack for grinding up on a young woman.

why do you think he should be getting flack?

Because he's an asshole who is basically a walking rape joke.

so I spent like the last 20 min reading article after article about this song --- I was totally unaware of the amount of dialog surrounding it! Both Robin Thicke and the director had interesting comments. Yeah, what a dickbag!

still stuck in my head though

this quote kind of sums up my feels about it all..

There are other reasons why the performance makes audiences cringe: For some, the age difference--she's 20 and getting called a slut, while he's 36, has a family, and is mostly getting off the hook--makes their interplay feel exploitative, even if she's initiating. To others, the aggressive degree to which she did initiate contact seemed like less-than-consensual activity instead of a playful move to level the playing field. And then there's Cyrus's troubling appropriation of black culture that pervades her album's promotional campaign despite mounting criticism of it.

eh, I think their age difference would be relevant if they were having sex, but it's two of this year's pop stars dancing together. If it reminds people of some kind of irresponsible sexuality, are we angry at the performance or what it symbolizes?

My reading of this performance is more along the lines of a debutante ball




as for the appropriating black culture thing, I'm not on that page - in the long run, stuff like dance and music helps unify groups. We do that little service by treating shared experiences like private property. We can't take these living collective ideas and freeze them in amber and protect them with racial fences so they don't spread or change. Replication is the highest form of flattery, and in the long run, it's how the Other becomes something you recognize as similar to you.

I dunno, I can see why some people are angry at miley, but I do get this "she should act more white" or "she's acting too black" message in some of the dialog... I think it's getting carried away. Was Elvis racist? Would it really be better if white performers drew no inspiration from black performers? How should we define each race's limitations on how they should sing and dance? Who owns twerking and how does it get passed on? Can I get some of that? When will it be okay for me to twerk?

I need to know because I'm attending a wedding.

it's not that "she's acting too black"  it's that as a rich white girl she can put it on and take it off like a dress or whatever,  whereas the black feminists I have been reading suggest that playing at being "ghetto" or "ratchet" for Mildred Cyrus, it's exotic and rebellious but they would just be seen in a totally negative and racist light for doing the exact same shit.

that's the short form of the critique along the lines of cultural appropriation anyhoo.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What if it was satire?  Is it still wrong?

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

What if it was satire?  Is it still wrong?

if it was satire, then I'm cool with it. if Cyrus actually opens her mouth and talks about "blurred lines" and the satire of this performance, or the cultural appropriation concerns i'd feel a lot better about the whole deal.

Cyrus has been criticised for this before though, and there hasn't been a real response.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What if it was satire?  Is it still wrong?

if it was satire, then I'm cool with it. if Cyrus actually opens her mouth and talks about "blurred lines" and the satire of this performance, or the cultural appropriation concerns i'd feel a lot better about the whole deal.

Cyrus has been criticised for this before though, and there hasn't been a real response.

Personally, I hope she never says a word.  It's more fun that way...Tearing back the vinyl would ruin it.

Thing is, it's SO over the top, I have trouble believing it's genuine.  And, realistically, I can't see her agent letting her wear those briefs, unless this was INTENDED to be the end of her pop career, and the start of something horrible.

Plus, she completely upstaged Lady Gaga, which is no small accomplishment.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, consider this:  "Twerking" is RUINED FOREVER.

So is the standard parade o' bits.  Anyone who tries this stuff from now on will be compared to Miley Cyrus.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Because he's an asshole who is basically a walking rape joke.

But that was her spotlight. Not saying he doesn't deserve flack for his own artistic projects, but in what way is HE responsible for HER trainwreck, when he was a hilariously passive recipient? Even if it's 100% sincere, I am not liking the "WHY IS NOBODY FOCUSING ON THE GUY" sentiment people are expressing, because it really just wasn't  his show and it REEKS of unconscious paternalism. Why, he's 36 and male... she's just a lil ole 20 year old girl. No way a little thing like that came up with this trainwreck all by herself, he should get the blame too!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Like I said...

I don't get how the dude who is singing about date rape and wearing a Beetlejuice suit with her is getting virtually no flack for grinding up on a young woman.

Why would he? He was just a stage prop for her performance.

[AFK]

I think people are giving the manufactured Disney princess way too much credit saying what she did was satire. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't get how the dude who is singing about date rape and wearing a Beetlejuice suit with her is getting virtually no flack for grinding up on a young woman.

why do you think he should be getting flack?

Because he's an asshole who is basically a walking rape joke.

Pixie: Beetlejuice was Robin Thicke, and he IS getting a lot of shit for his video "Blurred Lines" which is also pretty horrible, from a "isn't this what America wanted" POV.

Yup. I'm saying for this particular thing, the focus seems to be on Ms Cyrus' butt.

This was an interesting article on it: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/was-miley-cyruss-vma-performance-a-failed-blurred-lines-criticism/279062/

interesting...

this quote kind of sums up my feels about it all..

There are other reasons why the performance makes audiences cringe: For some, the age difference--she's 20 and getting called a slut, while he's 36, has a family, and is mostly getting off the hook--makes their interplay feel exploitative, even if she's initiating. To others, the aggressive degree to which she did initiate contact seemed like less-than-consensual activity instead of a playful move to level the playing field. And then there's Cyrus's troubling appropriation of black culture that pervades her album's promotional campaign despite mounting criticism of it.

I stand by what I said earlier about her primary infraction being related to looking sloppy. Sure, she's being called all kinds of offensive names now, but that's because people in general (and popular media in particular) lack the eloquence and vocabulary -- not to mention the awareness -- to say what it is they're really thinking. Nobody objects to Miley Cyrus acting like a mindless sex robot. I mean really -- what do people think her job is in the first place? To be a singer? HA! Her entire purpose for existence within the context of pop culture is to be an unattainable, physically "perfect" hyper-sexualized icon of "what you should be but never will be."

No, she's being called a "slut" because that's what you call a prole who dares to have (or even suggest having) sex like a celebrity, not because someone somewhere thinks that she ought to act more like a "lady".

Not that this is any excuse for using that kind of offensive language. I just think the main difference here between the flak she's getting an the flak Robin Thicke isn't getting isn't her gender, it's her failure to pull it off glamorously.

And again, I think Vex nails it.

People aren't spazzing because her performance was racist, sexist, objectifying, or risque. Those are all expected parts of the Hollywood Spectacle.

It's that she looked too common.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

What if it was satire?  Is it still wrong?

if it was satire, then I'm cool with it. if Cyrus actually opens her mouth and talks about "blurred lines" and the satire of this performance, or the cultural appropriation concerns i'd feel a lot better about the whole deal.

Cyrus has been criticised for this before though, and there hasn't been a real response.

Personally, I hope she never says a word.  It's more fun that way...Tearing back the vinyl would ruin it.

Thing is, it's SO over the top, I have trouble believing it's genuine.  And, realistically, I can't see her agent letting her wear those briefs, unless this was INTENDED to be the end of her pop career, and the start of something horrible.

Plus, she completely upstaged Lady Gaga, which is no small accomplishment.

haha.  it's the problem with the OTT borderline Poe's Law nature of shit like this, it could be utterly biting commentary or a gargantuan fuckup. However the perspectives of the POC online community is something I will take notice of and link to/ attempt to sum up.

the Hannah Montana "she's gonna twist my kids forever" and "but role models" crowd can fuck off, though. if you are looking for role models in mainstream pop culture for your kids then they are looking in the wrong frikkin places. Teach kids about scientists and other people who have actually positively influenced thought and society rather than looking in the sewer. 

Like I said...

I don't get how the dude who is singing about date rape and wearing a Beetlejuice suit with her is getting virtually no flack for grinding up on a young woman.

Why would he? He was just a stage prop for her performance.

Ok, that's a fair point.

it was more the OMG SHES A MASSIVE SLUT and ignorance of the context of Thicke's track I saw in the everyday "she's ruining our kids" shit that bugs me most.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

btw, liked this article: http://kimboekbinder.tumblr.com/post/59490908152/miley-cyrus-is-brilliant

relevant snip:

Miley Cyrus doesn't want our acceptance, she only wants our attention. In this scene we are her parents and she is the rebelling teenager. She took the stage half-naked, but it was the kind of half-naked that has been sanctioned for young girls. The totally ok half-naked. Then, to be really shocking, she stripped to the other kind of half-naked - the half-naked that has not been sanctioned for young girls. And she danced with the most disgusting man she could find. The kind of man that her public (read: parents) would never approve of. And the whole show is so obvious, so badly orchestrated, so boring, that I can't believe that I am even writing this, but her show transcended its own mediocrity somehow to become the kind of spectacle it was trying so desperately to be. 

Growing up in public must be hard, because growing up is hard to do under any circumstance. Maybe Miley Cyrus is actually having a breakdown. And if she is, my heart goes out to her, but only a little bit. Because I have breakdowns too. But I don't get to monetize mine.

No, I don't think Miley Cyrus is hurting. And I don't think she's harming either. She's a brilliant young women using her sexuality in the exact way she has been taught to, to build a career and a life for herself in a world that only cares about how many clicks you're worth.

Yeah, saw that article earlier. Boekbinder is rad.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

haha.  it's the problem with the OTT borderline Poe's Law nature of shit like this, it could be utterly biting commentary or a gargantuan fuckup.

Either way, the net effect is positive.

She took the standard misogynist stage act and made it HORRIBLE FOREVER.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What if it was satire?  Is it still wrong?

if it was satire, then I'm cool with it. if Cyrus actually opens her mouth and talks about "blurred lines" and the satire of this performance, or the cultural appropriation concerns i'd feel a lot better about the whole deal.

Cyrus has been criticised for this before though, and there hasn't been a real response.

Nope. I don't usually go back and explain my trolls, either. 

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

btw, liked this article: http://kimboekbinder.tumblr.com/post/59490908152/miley-cyrus-is-brilliant

relevant snip:

Miley Cyrus doesn't want our acceptance, she only wants our attention. In this scene we are her parents and she is the rebelling teenager. She took the stage half-naked, but it was the kind of half-naked that has been sanctioned for young girls. The totally ok half-naked. Then, to be really shocking, she stripped to the other kind of half-naked - the half-naked that has not been sanctioned for young girls. And she danced with the most disgusting man she could find. The kind of man that her public (read: parents) would never approve of. And the whole show is so obvious, so badly orchestrated, so boring, that I can't believe that I am even writing this, but her show transcended its own mediocrity somehow to become the kind of spectacle it was trying so desperately to be. 

Growing up in public must be hard, because growing up is hard to do under any circumstance. Maybe Miley Cyrus is actually having a breakdown. And if she is, my heart goes out to her, but only a little bit. Because I have breakdowns too. But I don't get to monetize mine.

No, I don't think Miley Cyrus is hurting. And I don't think she's harming either. She's a brilliant young women using her sexuality in the exact way she has been taught to, to build a career and a life for herself in a world that only cares about how many clicks you're worth.

Yeah, saw that article earlier. Boekbinder is rad.

Kim's point about sexuality and clicks and such is spot on. people complain about music artists (especially young women) being too sexed up for the kids. But that is the way the game is rigged and I honestly don't see enough criticism of that tendency within the hollywood and mainstream music scene

I think people are giving the manufactured Disney princess way too much credit saying what she did was satire.

just because something is manufactured and such doesn't mean she's an eejit though.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

haha.  it's the problem with the OTT borderline Poe's Law nature of shit like this, it could be utterly biting commentary or a gargantuan fuckup.

Either way, the net effect is positive.

She took the standard misogynist stage act and made it HORRIBLE FOREVER.

YES! this is something to be positive about.