Miley Cyrus, Pedobear, and the Hollywood Spectacle

[P3nT4gR4m]

FTR I find Robin Thicke funny as hell. People spazzing out and going "OMGZZRAEPCULTURE!!" are 90% of the reason. Watch the video. I mean actually watch it, not just sit there screaming "objectifying women!" at it until it goes away. What do you actually see? Those chicks are hot. Way hot. And they know it. And Thicke and his mate aint getting any of it but they're convinced they are. So much so the whole song is bragging about it. Cracks me up every time.

[Pæs]

They're still trying to figure out what happened. I love reading reviews of this from people who are just as involved in that Hollywood spectacle: Brooke Shields with "I think it's just a little desperate... trying so, so hard." HAVE YOU *SEEN* HOLLYWOOD?

[Pæs]

"That young lady who is 20, is obviously deeply troubled, deeply disturbed, clearly has confidence issues, probably eating disorder and I don't think anybody should have put her on stage. That was disgusting and embarrassing."

"That was not attractive. That was not fun. That was not funny. That was really, really bad for anybody who's younger and impressionable and she's really messed up."



So much of the criticism boils down to "This is NOT ART because it makes me FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE". I'm still interested in the criticisms of her running into some trouble with behaviour towards people of colour, but am also keeping in mind that (as far as the chronology of my exposure to criticisms) these issues were raised after the kneejerk "she's a slut" fell over.

[Cain]

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[tyrannosaurus vex]

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."

[Cain]

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[LMNO]

Yes, I felt it was a very succint rebuttal as well.

ICWHUTUDIDTHRR

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, I disagree with the "appropriation" criticism, while at the same time agreeing with the objectification of black women criticism. Because it absolutely did, to a pretty profound degree, and I have a hard time believing it was accidental. "Let's see, I think we need 20 black dancers with big butts to twerk in the background while being mounted by teddy bears" um...

The entire thing seemed to be about objectification. Not about having fun partying, which is what the song is (ostensibly) about. And the music video appears to be entirely a mockery of bad selfies party girls post on the internet.

Maybe I'm giving Cyrus too much credit, but I don't actually think she's dumb, and she has stated that this project is the first one she's had complete control over... and that she had a hard time getting the video funded, to the point where she stopped telling people what it's about in order to get the funding.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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

[P3nT4gR4m]

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?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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 

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I just can't take this performance seriously enough to get offended by any of it.
It's over-the-top offensive. It's FUNNY AS FUCK.
I'm not even sure GG Allin could have slammed that awards show any better.

[Junkenstein]

Not sure. Kind of want to see what face Will Smith makes when his kids are covered in shit though.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Not sure. Kind of want to see what face Will Smith makes when his kids are covered in shit though.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

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.