I love Miley Cyrus

[The Johnny]

I read the first page of this thread, and I want to express my ideas before I get sidetracked with it, because its something I've been thinking of since the VMAs and now its triangulated with Wrecking Ball.

I denominate this aesthetic trend as "Awkward Sexuality" thru a perspective that everything is calculated and planned out in the entertainment business and that there are no coincidences, just well crafted publicists and marketers constantly trying to one-up each other.

What is this product that is sold thru the incarnation of Ms. Cyrus? The synchretism between the all-out "femme fatale" or sexual-woman that is manifested thru the likes of (pop culture police, ill reference what i know but im no expert) say Shakira, Beyonce, Britney, or Katy Perry in which the sex card is played straight and direct thru the manner of "I have a great body and i know how to use it, and here i come"... and the fusion with it's counter-part, which is girly-girl innocence, such as say, Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato, in which "feely, touchy" things take prevalence over a sexuated message or expression. So the extremes can be analytically categorized as "sexuality" vs. "innocence", and in such a market of extremes, somebody necesarily would come in and eat up the in-between market of them - enter Miley.

1st observation: VMAs... with the bloated budget and image consulting she undoubtedly has, the shorts she wore in the presentation were not a last minute wardrobe malfunction... I think there's an overwhelming consensus that she has a very healthy, young and attractive body, so her body image and attractiveness is uncontested and thus can get away with a bad wardrobe without tarnishing that consensus... but besides the wardrobe (and the transition from the 1st attire) another thing that managed to catch everyone's eye was supposedly her "trashy" moves, and the more introspective and observant managed to understand that it was not the "trashy" nature of it, because that's a common day to day sight, but rather how it made themselves feel... "uncomftable", "awkward", "shame"...

2nd observation: Wrecking Ball... yes, shes naked except for her boots, shes "riding sensually" the demolition ball and shes licking a hammer... but its a type of b-side sensuality, it does not come off right, it's not played out properly enough and one is given enough time to read between the lines, see between the cracks that it's a comedy, suspension of disbelief is broken...

And in this manner she gobbles up the market between the extremes, playing "badly" both extreme tropes, but in reality, it's a synchretism between the sexual femme-fatale and the innocent girl coming-of-age. I rest my case.

Now if you pardon me, I'll be drinking bleach thru one of my ears.

I could handle the first 'thru', but for some reason using both 'synchretism" and 'thru' in one sentence breaks my brain. I can't read this.

Maybe I could type it out in Spanish to make it easier for you to read it? I write better that way.

[The Johnny]

Or vice versa...What's being communicated isn't what's on the surface.  Which is a totally different thing.  If you know what I mean.

I think I do.

To be honest, I'm a fan of Bounce, so when I saw the VMA thing the first time, my reactions were: "Wow.  The sound mix is terrible.  She obviously can't hear the band.  What's with the tongue   Hm.  That's....that's not twerking.  She's just touching her toes."  And I more or less dismissed the rest as a failed skit.

I wasn't disturbed or outraged, but then again, I'm not really the target demographic here.  I also dismissed the haters, too.  But then, you all started pointing out the subtle things going on, and when I found out that her video was directed by the so-called king of the creepers, Terry Richardson, I got intrigued.  Now, though I can't say with any certainty what her inner motiviations are, her actions have certainly played out in a fairly seismic way, intentional or not.

But here's the thing:  The intention is almost irrelevant, even if she specifically planned this.  Or not.

The stage was set for the standard "20 year old dancing sexy for 40 year old creeps" (target audience).  Then the pedo bears.  Then the Beetlejuice thing.  Then the INSANELY GROTESQUE BURLESQUE, so to speak.  40 year old creeps do not feel show has delivered.  They don't understand it.  They start making monkey noises while banging on the keyboard about THAT SLUT, THAT WHORE, THAT DISGUSTING LITTLE TRAMP...As evidenced in the comments on youtube, facebook, etc.

Here's the really nasty part:  Rapists tend to say the same things about their victims, when they know or have observed their victims over a long period of time (as opposed to the far more rare stranger rape).  They do this to justify - mostly to themselves - their behavior.   She was a slut, so what they did didn't matter.

Then extend that just a tiny bit: 

1.  She's a SLUT AND A WHORE = "worthless".

2.  She's just another female shock act = "worthless".

There really isn't a practical difference.

What she was communicating - whether or not she intended to - was "All of my fans are disgusting 40 year old creepers, and I am aware of this.  NOW SO ARE THEY."

Beetlejuice and PedoBear are important things i overlooked, well noted 

[The Johnny]

And i gotta say i also fell a bit prey to the "lack-of-female-agency" trope, but i don't consider it a mysoginistic type bias, but rather my assumption that all pop entertainers are puppets.

(Regardless of their sex/gender)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And i gotta say i also fell a bit prey to the "lack-of-female-agency" trope, but i don't consider it a mysoginistic type bias, but rather my assumption that all pop entertainers are puppets.

(Regardless of their sex/gender)

A very important detail that I keep mentioning but that seems to keep being unnoticed is that this is the first project of hers of which she has had complete creative and business control. This is something she's mentioned in interviews in connection to the "We Just Can't Stop" video. She is making the hiring and creative decisions. On her own. Which means that ultimately, she is responsible for the product she is selling. She may be, as RWHN put it, a tool, but she is a tool of herself in an industry she chose to work in.

She is not a slave, or a possession. She has agency.

[The Johnny]

And i gotta say i also fell a bit prey to the "lack-of-female-agency" trope, but i don't consider it a mysoginistic type bias, but rather my assumption that all pop entertainers are puppets.

(Regardless of their sex/gender)

A very important detail that I keep mentioning but that seems to keep being unnoticed is that this is the first project of hers of which she has had complete creative and business control. This is something she's mentioned in interviews in connection to the "We Just Can't Stop" video. She is making the hiring and creative decisions. On her own. Which means that ultimately, she is responsible for the product she is selling. She may be, as RWHN put it, a tool, but she is a tool of herself in an industry she chose to work in.

She is not a slave, or a possession. She has agency.

I did read that you mentioned she has creative control, that's why i mentioned it after reading the entire thread in an apologetic way.

(Not sure if you are just re-emphasizing or saying im not noticing it.)

[Reginald Ret]

I read the first page of this thread, and I want to express my ideas before I get sidetracked with it, because its something I've been thinking of since the VMAs and now its triangulated with Wrecking Ball.

I denominate this aesthetic trend as "Awkward Sexuality" thru a perspective that everything is calculated and planned out in the entertainment business and that there are no coincidences, just well crafted publicists and marketers constantly trying to one-up each other.

What is this product that is sold thru the incarnation of Ms. Cyrus? The synchretism between the all-out "femme fatale" or sexual-woman that is manifested thru the likes of (pop culture police, ill reference what i know but im no expert) say Shakira, Beyonce, Britney, or Katy Perry in which the sex card is played straight and direct thru the manner of "I have a great body and i know how to use it, and here i come"... and the fusion with it's counter-part, which is girly-girl innocence, such as say, Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato, in which "feely, touchy" things take prevalence over a sexuated message or expression. So the extremes can be analytically categorized as "sexuality" vs. "innocence", and in such a market of extremes, somebody necesarily would come in and eat up the in-between market of them - enter Miley.

1st observation: VMAs... with the bloated budget and image consulting she undoubtedly has, the shorts she wore in the presentation were not a last minute wardrobe malfunction... I think there's an overwhelming consensus that she has a very healthy, young and attractive body, so her body image and attractiveness is uncontested and thus can get away with a bad wardrobe without tarnishing that consensus... but besides the wardrobe (and the transition from the 1st attire) another thing that managed to catch everyone's eye was supposedly her "trashy" moves, and the more introspective and observant managed to understand that it was not the "trashy" nature of it, because that's a common day to day sight, but rather how it made themselves feel... "uncomftable", "awkward", "shame"...

2nd observation: Wrecking Ball... yes, shes naked except for her boots, shes "riding sensually" the demolition ball and shes licking a hammer... but its a type of b-side sensuality, it does not come off right, it's not played out properly enough and one is given enough time to read between the lines, see between the cracks that it's a comedy, suspension of disbelief is broken...

And in this manner she gobbles up the market between the extremes, playing "badly" both extreme tropes, but in reality, it's a synchretism between the sexual femme-fatale and the innocent girl coming-of-age. I rest my case.

Now if you pardon me, I'll be drinking bleach thru one of my ears.

I could handle the first 'thru', but for some reason using both 'synchretism" and 'thru' in one sentence breaks my brain. I can't read this.

Maybe I could type it out in Spanish to make it easier for you to read it? I write better that way.

Heh, thanks for the offer. But sadly, that won't help. This is something I will have to work on, mea culpa.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And i gotta say i also fell a bit prey to the "lack-of-female-agency" trope, but i don't consider it a mysoginistic type bias, but rather my assumption that all pop entertainers are puppets.

(Regardless of their sex/gender)

A very important detail that I keep mentioning but that seems to keep being unnoticed is that this is the first project of hers of which she has had complete creative and business control. This is something she's mentioned in interviews in connection to the "We Just Can't Stop" video. She is making the hiring and creative decisions. On her own. Which means that ultimately, she is responsible for the product she is selling. She may be, as RWHN put it, a tool, but she is a tool of herself in an industry she chose to work in.

She is not a slave, or a possession. She has agency.

I did read that you mentioned she has creative control, that's why i mentioned it after reading the entire thread in an apologetic way.

(Not sure if you are just re-emphasizing or saying im not noticing it.)

Just re-emphasizing because it seemed to get glossed over, ignored, or just not believed in a lot of posts and articles.

[Cain]

-

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And i gotta say i also fell a bit prey to the "lack-of-female-agency" trope, but i don't consider it a mysoginistic type bias, but rather my assumption that all pop entertainers are puppets.

(Regardless of their sex/gender)

A very important detail that I keep mentioning but that seems to keep being unnoticed is that this is the first project of hers of which she has had complete creative and business control. This is something she's mentioned in interviews in connection to the "We Just Can't Stop" video. She is making the hiring and creative decisions. On her own. Which means that ultimately, she is responsible for the product she is selling. She may be, as RWHN put it, a tool, but she is a tool of herself in an industry she chose to work in.

She is not a slave, or a possession. She has agency.

Indeed, I noticed that as well.

I also think I read a brief bit of an interview where she made it quite clear she really disliked her earlier music work.  She was saying things along the lines of she couldn't even bear to listen to it any more (a position I can entirely sympathise with).

I would suggest this perhaps goes deeper than just the music.  It's the music + image + associated lifestyle that I would say she is rebelling against, by, like Johnny says, using an over the top synthesis of both usual roles of a former Disney girl, done in such a fashion that it almost seems to be parodying them.

Yes. Whatever she's doing, it's all hers, and it's upsetting people but good, which I approve of.

[The Johnny]

Not just derived from this, but theres a certain thing that both dumb and smart people alike do that really annoys me... false equivalences between things that arent, which are made thru simplyfying them... a certain stubbornness to apply the same and typical analytical categories ad nauseum, over and over and OVER, AGAIN...

At certain point of doing that you stop listening, you stop hearing and im guessing you stop thinking because "OH no need to look into it, i know what that is all about!"...

I know its cognitive heuristics and all that jazz of cost efficiency but FUCK.

[Reginald Ret]

Not just derived from this, but theres a certain thing that both dumb and smart people alike do that really annoys me... false equivalences between things that arent, which are made thru simplyfying them... a certain stubbornness to apply the same and typical analytical categories ad nauseum, over and over and OVER, AGAIN...

At certain point of doing that you stop listening, you stop hearing and im guessing you stop thinking because "OH no need to look into it, i know what that is all about!"...

I know its cognitive heuristics and all that jazz of cost efficiency but FUCK.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  Annoying as fuck.

Excessive repetition is a sure sign that no thinking is taking place.

[Faust]

Not just derived from this, but theres a certain thing that both dumb and smart people alike do that really annoys me... false equivalences between things that arent, which are made thru simplyfying them... a certain stubbornness to apply the same and typical analytical categories ad nauseum, over and over and OVER, AGAIN...

At certain point of doing that you stop listening, you stop hearing and im guessing you stop thinking because "OH no need to look into it, i know what that is all about!"...

I know its cognitive heuristics and all that jazz of cost efficiency but FUCK.

Yeah, repetition ad nausium is annoying as fuck.

[Faust]

Not just derived from this, but theres a certain thing that both dumb and smart people alike do that really annoys me... false equivalences between things that arent, which are made thru simplyfying them... a certain stubbornness to apply the same and typical analytical categories ad nauseum, over and over and OVER, AGAIN...

At certain point of doing that you stop listening, you stop hearing and im guessing you stop thinking because "OH no need to look into it, i know what that is all about!"...

I know its cognitive heuristics and all that jazz of cost efficiency but FUCK.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  Annoying as fuck.

Excessive repetition is a sure sign that no thinking is taking place.

Definitely, repetition is annoying as fuck.

[Reginald Ret]

Not just derived from this, but theres a certain thing that both dumb and smart people alike do that really annoys me... false equivalences between things that arent, which are made thru simplyfying them... a certain stubbornness to apply the same and typical analytical categories ad nauseum, over and over and OVER, AGAIN...

At certain point of doing that you stop listening, you stop hearing and im guessing you stop thinking because "OH no need to look into it, i know what that is all about!"...

I know its cognitive heuristics and all that jazz of cost efficiency but FUCK.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  Annoying as fuck.

Excessive repetition is a sure sign that no thinking is taking place.

Definitely, repetition is annoying as fuck.

People who restate their arguments are Annoying as fuck.
Especially if more than one person does it, bandwagoning at its worst.

[Cramulus]

people who restate