Miley Cyrus, Pedobear, and the Hollywood Spectacle

[Cainad (dec.)]

I had thoughts, but this entire thread said all of them, and much better than I could.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I loved it in every conceivable way. Whether or not she was trying to make everyone horribly, horribly , or not, that's what happened, and that's never not good, even when it's not.

If it was satire and she nailed it perfectly, good for her. If it was something else and she missed epically, good for her. That's fucking art.

The reason why 99% of all art sucks is that 100% of all art sucks, with 1% being something our sick, sad species is hungry for...and boy-fucking-howdy, were we hungry for that thing she did.

That being the case, it behooves the artist not to strive for creating something that falls into that 1% category, but to create every god-damned, god-awful, piece of suck they can possibly imagine, and play the numbers game in the very off chance that something sticks. I could guess at what she was going for there, but anything I could come up with is not nearly as glorious as what I know--she did a thing! She took creative control and pretty clearly didn't succumb to any of those weak-kneed temptations to nix any of her ideas...or even really evaluate them on merit. That in-and-of itself gets a FUCK-YEAH, from this observer.

Thread over.  NLDM wins.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I loved it in every conceivable way. Whether or not she was trying to make everyone horribly, horribly , or not, that's what happened, and that's never not good, even when it's not.

If it was satire and she nailed it perfectly, good for her. If it was something else and she missed epically, good for her. That's fucking art.

The reason why 99% of all art sucks is that 100% of all art sucks, with 1% being something our sick, sad species is hungry for...and boy-fucking-howdy, were we hungry for that thing she did.

That being the case, it behooves the artist not to strive for creating something that falls into that 1% category, but to create every god-damned, god-awful, piece of suck they can possibly imagine; to play the numbers game in the very off chance that something sticks. I could guess at what she was going for there, but anything I could come up with is not nearly as glorious as what I know--she did a thing! She took creative control and pretty clearly didn't succumb to any of those weak-kneed temptations to nix any of her ideas...or even really evaluate them on merit. That in-and-of itself gets a FUCK-YEAH, from this observer.

Allright, I agree 100% with this.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I had thoughts, but this entire thread said all of them, and much better than I could.

Finally watched the actual performance on YouTube.

If she's not trolling, then the end result was so trollish that it doesn't matter. There was nothing in that little spectacle that America wouldn't have gobbled up hook, line, and sinker if she hadn't made the whole thing so incredibly grotesque.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Deliciously, deliciously grotesque.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Deliciously, deliciously grotesque.

It really was, wasn't it? I found myself kind of loving it in the same way I love weird, horrible SubGenius shit.

[Eater of Clowns]

I have probably spent toooo much time thinking about this and watching Miley Cyrus videos and interviews...

Simple test: Was it more time than zero?

I've really enjoyed reading this thread, but the above is my general feeling on the subject.

Regarding Blurred Lines, I watched the video with my girlfriend a few weeks ago. My thoughts were that it was actually way less demeaning and exploitative of women than quite a few other music videos. They're naked, sure, but that's not in itself a bad thing. The important thing for me was that it looked like they were having fun. They were just dancing, and dancing to look like they're enjoying themselves instead of dancing in a sexualized manner. It's the polar opposite of what I was used to seeing in videos growing up, with people doing highly choreographed writhing and rubbing themselves for minutes at a time.

[Salty]

I am fascinated by your take on all this, PD.

But I have not watched this video and don't plan to.

Ive gotten rid of.plenty of my filters, I don't mind seeing Miley Cyrus through your seeping, cranky, red and swollen eyes.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am fascinated by your take on all this, PD.

But I have not watched this video and don't plan to.

Ive gotten rid of.plenty of my filters, I don't mind seeing Miley Cyrus through your seeping, cranky, red and swollen eyes.

Someday, you should watch it. Just because it's a real cultural experience. 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So far, the only post on Miley Cyrus that has not made me want to punch myself in the balls, apart from the ones on this site, is the one by Richard Seymour:

2) There are three types of reaction. The dominant reaction which is evident on Youtube, CNN, Fox, in the outrage of Robin Thicke's mother, and in endless commentary about how Cyrus's eroticised dance with Thicke was done despite knowing he had a 3 year old daughter and a wife, etc. (Innocence horribly shattered, irreparably stained, killed to bits.) And also, as Fox pundits insisted (protesting too much), this dance was "not attractive, Miley". Basically, the dominant reaction of the media was to "slut-shame" her.

3) The other types of reaction are, a) the denunciations of the "slut-shaming", and b) the leftist and anti-racist critique along the lines that Miley Cyrus should not be shamed, but her dance was a type of minstrelsy, a patronising and degrading appropriation of black culture which reinforced the traditional racist notion of the 'black jezebel'. (A good example of this here, although it specifically uses the term 'misappropriation'.)

4) The intriguing thing about the language of 'appropriation' is that it leads to a terrible logjam of incoherence. Since few want to explicitly buy into a racial metaphysics, and no one wants to believe that culture is neatly segregated according to 'race', nationality, etc., the claim of 'appropriation' cannot be sustained. Culture is an open-ended process of cooperative creation, not a thing with definite, imporous boundaries. Cultural forms are not coherent, and their edges are more like shifting weather fronts than the neat, static lines of maps. They do not have an author; far less could their author be a certain 'race' or nationality somehow embodied. Cultural forms do not have an origin, a once-upon-a-time, and the search for origins is a sure route to absurdity. (If you doubt me, check this out). The notion that a representative of one culture can appropriate from another, each corresponding to a certain racial belonging, seems implausible outside the framework of a metaphysics of race.

It's worth reading the whole thing, though.  He makes an interesting point, not raised here (I think - I read this along with my first coffee of the day) that there may well be a racial aspect to the rightwing reaction to the video.

This hits exactly why I find the argument against "appropriation" to be 10% good intentions and 90% bullshit. By telling someone they aren't allowed to behave in some way that's definitive or characteristic of a specific race (or gender, or religion, or sexual orientation, or whatever) -- as if that isn't offensive in and of itself -- that certain behaviors or lifestyles or fashions belong to certain groups, that those groups "own" those cultural expressions, and that you can't go blurring the lines (between black and white, say) because then you're "stealing." But really what you're saying is "you can't act that way, because if a bunch of white people act like black people, then it'll become too hard for me to pigeonhole black people."

More or less this.

What is "white" music? Pop? Michael Jackson was the king of it. Rock? Oh, that thing that used to be called "Race Music"? I mean, you could make the argument for Heavy Metal, I suppose, since England had a lot to do with that, but would you get all offended if you saw an all black person Heavy Metal band? Is this appropriating white music?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HbF3EAt3ck

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am fascinated by your take on all this, PD.

But I have not watched this video and don't plan to.

Ive gotten rid of.plenty of my filters, I don't mind seeing Miley Cyrus through your seeping, cranky, red and swollen eyes.

You are missing America.  With NO FILTERS.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I have probably spent toooo much time thinking about this and watching Miley Cyrus videos and interviews...

Simple test: Was it more time than zero?

YES

I LOSE 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Deliciously, deliciously grotesque.

It really was, wasn't it? I found myself kind of loving it in the same way I love weird, horrible SubGenius shit.

One of my coworkers subjected me to the whole thing the next day at work (like I said, I have 0 reason for watching the VMAs). My eyebrow was fully raised, and the word in my head was awkward, but talking about it here (something I never thought I would actually talk about other than IRL and in passing) does put it in perspective. Pretty sure it's a full on troll. I seem to recall hearing criticisms against her recently that she was "appropriating black culture." So, again, what is "black culture"? What's off limits to white people, on purely racial grounds? I think twerking (is that ass grinding twerking? I still don't know what twerking is.) is just twerking. Why is twerking something that's black? What make black black?

[Kai]

Okay, so I've been avoiding the Miley Cyrus Incident and Related. I just now watched the video, after reading this thread. And there is no way that she doesn't know exactly what she was doing and that it wasn't all intentional. I agree with the other comments herein. Whatever she did, it made a /real reaction/, it provoked something in people that wasn't just habitual. That's art. I found myself laughing, at how perfectly intentionally bad it all was, at how disgusting and, yes as other people said, grotesque. And how it was essentially sexed out pop music turned up to eleven in every single way. It was like watching Reggie Watts's Fuck Shit Stack music video, except more subtle. She mocked all of pop music in one fell stroke, better than Gaga. Well done.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

MEANWHILE, IN FLYOVER COUNTRY...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2403248/Here-Comes-Honey-Boo-Boo-Mama-June-downs-shots-grinds-bachelorette-party.html

READ IT.  FUCKING READ IT.

DON'T MAKE ME WRITHE IN HORROR ALONE.