Miley Cyrus, Pedobear, and the Hollywood Spectacle

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm sure we've all heard more than we want to hear about Miley Cyrus. I'm pretty much Cyrus-neutral, I've never cared and have no reason to care. However, I did watch that godawful trainwreck of a performance.

When I watched the video I started at "Oh my god this is terrible and she can't sing, that poor thing" and then it just proceeded to get worse and worse, with her tongue hanging out in a way that was utterly unerotic and grotesque, and I was like "HOW IS THIS HAPPENING IT'S SO AWKWARD" and then it got WORSE and I wondered whether she was deliberately making a mockery of the music industry, and then she took off her whatever that was and revealed the hot pants and bra that somehow, SOMEHOW managed to be heinously unflattering on her 20-year-old perfect body, and suddenly, watching her dance with teddy bears and twerk at Beetlejuice, I didn't give a single fuck why or how this monstrosity came into existence, I was merely glad that it had. Well-trolled, young Cyrus, well-trolled.

The interesting thing is that if you view it without the cultural filter that anticipates sincerity, it comes across as a very effective weird and creepy parody of the Hollywood sex-sells ethos, right down to the blatant objectification of black women and what appear to be pedophilia references (Pedobear, anyone?) If that was intentional, it was beyond brilliant. If it wasn't intentional, it epitomizes everything that is grotesque about pop culture.

Either way is kind of a win, and that means that the VMA served an actual useful purpose.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Granted.

But that purpose was totally lost, on account of the sheer hilarity of the reaction to the event.

And the look on Will Smith's son's face.

My problem is, I can't tell if it's Poe's Law or not.  I can't tell if she was just trying too hard, or if she was taking the piss.  And this is what fascinates me...Not the message, but whether or not there was a message.

The pedo thing was pretty funny, given her problem with 40 year old male fans.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Grotesque is really the only adjective for it.

I have trouble seeing the positive in it, in part because but also because I don't think this is going to make anyone rethink their opinions on objectifying women and desperate attention whoring.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The disconnect here seems to be that while you are exactly right about this episode epitomizing the grotesque theatrics of American pop culture, that seems to have flown over the heads of tens of millions of people completely. Here they are all wrapped up in whole industries and lifestyles that revolve around exactly this, but when it loses the thin veil of civilization and they are confronted directly with a naked representation of everything they stand for, they are immediately repulsed and disgusted.

I wonder whether this reaction says more about Miley Cyrus, or about the awkwardly disguised self-disgust at the core of most of our pop culture. Were they were really that offended by Cyrus' performance, or are they just angry that she gave them exactly what they asked for but without that veneer of cheap gloss that separates "art" from plain old blind animalistic hedonism? Maybe the whole thing was too accurate a reflection of what they worship, and they couldn't escape the blatant depiction of their soulless gods.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Granted.

But that purpose was totally lost, on account of the sheer hilarity of the reaction to the event.

And the look on Will Smith's son's face.

My problem is, I can't tell if it's Poe's Law or not.  I can't tell if she was just trying too hard, or if she was taking the piss.  And this is what fascinates me...Not the message, but whether or not there was a message.

The pedo thing was pretty funny, given her problem with 40 year old male fans.

YES OH YES

I can't help but wonder if that what's-his-name, Beetlejuice, was chosen deliberately because he's so much older. And what is up with that suit? Dear lord. It was weird and wonderful and I DON'T CARE whether she was trying too hard or taking the piss, that video is going to be shown in sociology classes all over the world.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The disconnect here seems to be that while you are exactly right about this episode epitomizing the grotesque theatrics of American pop culture, that seems to have flown over the heads of tens of millions of people completely. Here they are all wrapped up in whole industries and lifestyles that revolve around exactly this, but when it loses the thin veil of civilization and they are confronted directly with a naked representation of everything they stand for, they are immediately repulsed and disgusted.

I wonder whether this reaction says more about Miley Cyrus, or about the awkwardly disguised self-disgust at the core of most of our pop culture. Were they were really that offended by Cyrus' performance, or are they just angry that she gave them exactly what they asked for but without that veneer of cheap gloss that separates "art" from plain old blind animalistic hedonism? Maybe the whole thing was too accurate a reflection of what they worship, and they couldn't escape the blatant depiction of their soulless gods.

I KNOW, RIGHT? People everywhere are all OH NOES SHE OBJECTIFIED BLACK WOMEN AND SHE WAS IN A SKIMPY OUTFIT AND SHE WAS IN-YOUR-FACE SEXUAL

...in other words, she did the Hollywood song and dance just like everyone else does. The only thing that was different is that somehow, she managed to show it as it really is; she broke the Hollywood glam filter, and she showed it as dingy and tawdry and exploitative and depressing as it really is, she peeled back the vinyl, and people turned away, sickened.

[Cramulus]

People are acting like this performance was outrageous... Personally, I fail to see how anything was transgressed.

there was nothing in that performance that you couldn't see on prime time television


But I guess the meaning of the event was not generated by Miley, but by us and how we talk about it.

"The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images." -Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle



I find it all very weird that this is even a cultural topic, but like Werner Herzog says - Do not avert your eyes!

"We should not be sitting in the library and studying it as an academic subject - a poet has to live a real solid pure raw life out there in life itself.... This is what is coming at us. This is what a collective anonymous majority wants to see on television...

It is a vulgarity on one side, but there is some sort of a new image, a new prototype of so-called beauty out there. A comic strip beauty. An utter vulgarity in complete deformities.

And it is very strange how the collective mind creates these kind of fantasies. We have seen ideals of beauty of course in antiquity, we have seen images of beauty in early renaissance time, wonderful Venuses...

[This is] strange and different from antiquity, I'd say... It creates bodies which are completely and utterly gross and deformed. And all of the sudden the deformity becomes the chosen ideal. Do not avert your eyes from it!"

herzog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kl2dFGshro

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Grotesque is really the only adjective for it.

I have trouble seeing the positive in it, in part because but also because I don't think this is going to make anyone rethink their opinions on objectifying women and desperate attention whoring.

Having seen the - what the hell do you call butt cankles? - hanging out of her outfit, I am now more inclined to believe this was a farce.

It won't make anyone think, regardless of whether or not it was supposed to do so.  But it's still funny.

Side note:  One time, I had the "honor" of taking all the other techs from Europe and the USA to a strip club up in Pickering, Ontario (Pickering is basically to Toronto what Whitechapel is to London).  Since I hate strip clubs, I just sat there and nursed a beer for a couple of hours.  One stripper was working the Texans like a machine designed to extract small bills.  When she noticed that I wasn't interested, she suddenly focused on me like getting me interested was a matter of honor or something. 

In short, she tried too hard.  Too much with the tongue out, and what were apparently supposed to be "come hither" looks.  At some point it became ridiculous, and I started laughing my ass off.  She called me a "fag", and led one of the Texans off to the VIP room where he was relieved of the rest of his money in exchange for a raging case of blue balls and an outraged sense of thwarted entitlement.

Lesson #1:  Not all over the top behavior is parody (intentionally), and

Lesson #2:  Texans are dumb.

[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.


Rhianna is deeply unimpressed.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

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.


Rhianna is deeply unimpressed.

1.  It's all part of the bit.

2.  Rhianna looks deeply amused, to be honest.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

At the root of it, Miley Cyrus didn't violate any laws against lewd behavior -- official, cultural or otherwise. She was as distastefully and overtly sexual as we tend to expect in these outings. American pop culture is a weird combination of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and Puratanism that allows for almost any degree of debauchery provided there is no risk of any of the peasants actually getting some of that. That is the chief cultural rule in America: There are Beautiful People, and then there is Everybody else. The beautiful people can do whatever they want, because they are gods. They are untouchable. They can even commit murder in some cases and while they technically may not "get away with it," they remain fixed in the constellation of the American pantheon of demigod celebrities.

The one thing a celebrity can do to fall from grace -- and this is what the current debate is about regarding Miley Cyrus -- is to engage in this kind of obnoxious behavior and fail to keep up the appearance of perfection while doing so. It isn't that Miley Cyrus insulted entire communities of people with her ass, or that she looked like she was trying to mate with anything within arms reach, it was that she didn't look good while she was doing it. She became, visually, a regular person engaging in behavior reserved for the gods.

This is dangerous to everyone. It is dangerous to the "beautiful people" class because it exposes this illusion of the enlightened, beautiful elite for the charlatans they are. And it's dangerous to the peasant class because it could make them wonder why -- if this oafish girl can be up there jiggling away in the national spotlight -- why must they resign themselves to a lifetime of mediocrity and labor supporting these so-called "beautiful" people? And it's dangerous to the entertainment industry because if there's anything an illusionist hates, it's when someone sees the god damn wires.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

At the root of it, Miley Cyrus didn't violate any laws against lewd behavior -- official, cultural or otherwise. She was as distastefully and overtly sexual as we tend to expect in these outings. American pop culture is a weird combination of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and Puratanism that allows for almost any degree of debauchery provided there is no risk of any of the peasants actually getting some of that. That is the chief cultural rule in America: There are Beautiful People, and then there is Everybody else. The beautiful people can do whatever they want, because they are gods. They are untouchable. They can even commit murder in some cases and while they technically may not "get away with it," they remain fixed in the constellation of the American pantheon of demigod celebrities.

The one thing a celebrity can do to fall from grace -- and this is what the current debate is about regarding Miley Cyrus -- is to engage in this kind of obnoxious behavior and fail to keep up the appearance of perfection while doing so. It isn't that Miley Cyrus insulted entire communities of people with her ass, or that she looked like she was trying to mate with anything within arms reach, it was that she didn't look good while she was doing it. She became, visually, a regular person engaging in behavior reserved for the gods.

This is dangerous to everyone. It is dangerous to the "beautiful people" class because it exposes this illusion of the enlightened, beautiful elite for the charlatans they are. And it's dangerous to the peasant class because it could make them wonder why -- if this oafish girl can be up there jiggling away in the national spotlight -- why must they resign themselves to a lifetime of mediocrity and labor supporting these so-called "beautiful" people? And it's dangerous to the entertainment industry because if there's anything an illusionist hates, it's when someone sees the god damn wires.

SOLVED.

[Cramulus]

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?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

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 this has to be his fault, somehow?   

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"Butt-cankles" 

That outfit was what flipped me over from "holy shit this is embarrassing" to "Is she trolling?" because how does a 20-year-old with a perfect body even FIND something that unflattering? Let alone one with the budget she has.

Also, she is perfectly capable of singing well, but that was terrible as fuck.