I love Miley Cyrus

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yep.
Methinks the public doth protest too much. 

[Faust]

Finally found my notes on the video.

I still maintain this is a horror movie video, especially with the rapid cut up shots and staring which is common in horror movie cinematography.

We are immediately confronted by a crying woman, there is no introduction or other explanation as to why she is crying. Unwavering, uncomfortable eye contact, viewer is directly involved in the shot. What did we do to make her cry?

Here and throughout the video there is harsh unpleasant lighting.

Fast cuts to shots of hammer, and boots, facing wall, eye contact still unwavering.

Dragging hammer along wall, unpleasant grating association. Ugly concrete walls. Is this a snuff movie?

First shot of hammer and mouth. Obvious phallic imagery but less obvious is the implication of violence: The metal is directly touching her teeth. This is an important image because it is immediately followed by a scene of wrecking ball smashing a wall. The viewer has just made made an association of teeth and hammer the violent imagery becomes more overt as the video goes on.

Eye contact again, with shots of concrete smashing. This time with dour expression and dead eyes.

Cut to weird phallic wrecking ball, abrupt shot cuts, jarring, not sexy, phallic shot again.

Licking hammer now.

Abrupt cut to naked sexually writhing which ends as soon as we are seen, direct eye contact again, we are being addressed, we're interrupting not participating in sex, pleasure expression immediately ends, we're not welcome.

Cut to hammer licking, and hammer in suggestion of positions, when looking sexually pleasured does not look viewer in the eyes.

Creepy, Rapey lyrics

"I came in like a wrecking ball
I never hit so hard in love
All I wanted was to break your walls
All you ever did was wreck me
Yeah, you, you wreck me"

"I just wanted you to let me in
And instead of using force
I guess I should've let you win"

"You wreck me". Well at least we know what we've done wrong now.

Rapid shot cuts, crying woman to woman presenting the crack of her ass at us back to crying woman. Yeah... that's really... alluring...

Final horrible shaky first person cam following wrecking ball.

At best this is a song about emotional violence a messy breakup song, but implication seems to be it's a song about physical violence with a sexual undercurrent.

The horror movie cinematography is quite clever even if it turns out to be just a song about emotionally damaging each other, but I suspect it's darker then that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like your analysis, I think it's pretty spot-on.

I was also taken with the way she's writhing in underwear on chunks of broken cinder blocks... those things are abrasive as fuck and it was hard not to cringe at the imagery. As far as I can tell the nudity and displays of sexuality are not intended to titillate, but to stimulate discomfort.

[LMNO]

I love you guys.

Not the least of which, this is now my favorite subject to annoy my hipster friends who dismiss her work.  I can still get at least one of them to froth at the mouth by asking them why they think she doesn't have agency.

Faust, I kind of want to formalize that and post it all over the internet.

[Faust]

Go for it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Nigel and I had talked on the phone about this.  Her performace at the VMAs and in Wrecking Ball was more or less designed to trigger rape panic in males.

[Cramulus]

Our old crush DearCokeTalk isn't quite as enamored

what do you think of miley cyrus?


I resent the implication that I should have an allotment of brain cells dedicated to Miley Cyrus.

I don't give a waxed cunt-hair about her, and neither should you.

Just saw your response to the Miley video - how about Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" video? Opinion?


I dunno. Let's see his dick.

Please say something about that new Miley Cyrus video.


What? Seriously, why do I have to have an opinion about this? Is Miley Cyrus doing anything we haven't already seen a half dozen times from Taylor Swift or Kesha? Am I supposed to be impressed that these bitches like to have slumber parties with their makeup artists?

Am I supposed to think it's somehow scandalous for them to get in glitter-filled pillow fights with American Apparel models by the pool at some gay dude's weekend house in Palm Springs? Please. That shit is ridiculous.

People are acting as if Miley spent the entire video sucking off the Jonas Brothers when all she really did was twerk a little and refuse to spit out her gum while doing what we can all agree was just a half-assed Rihanna impression. Honestly, I've seen episodes of Hannah Montana that were more controversial.

Whatever. As far as I'm concerned, the bar was set last year by M.I.A with her video for Bad Girls, and there's not a pop princess alive who's got the vision or the talent to come up with new shit that cool.

another related post, which talks about the "cultural appropriation" angle in the dialog: http://dearcoquette.com/post/61897891157/on-mileys-hair

Can you explain why cultural appropriation is so wrong? I want to style my hair like Miley Cyrus' but a couple of my friends told me she appropriated that style from hip hop culture. I know she did, but butches did it first. Pink did it first. I don't really get it.


Actually, the official chief mistress of Louis XV did it first. Her name was Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour. Not that any relevant history matters, because your sphere of influence is just a candy-coated pop culture bubble that extends one degree of separation beyond Miley Fucking Cyrus.

The good news is that there's nothing culturally appropriative about Miley's current haircut. The bad news is that for you to understand why, it would require that you have a sense of culture in the first place.

Just tell your stylist you want a platinum quiff, and try not to fall asleep while chewing gum.

While we're listening to our dear Coquette, here are some other words about this whole phenomenon

People constantly quote you for your definition of cheating, but what are your definitions for classy and trashy? You seem classy, but you've had life experiences that some of the more narrow minded populace would consider quite the opposite. How do you define those things?


Classy and trashy are objective manifestations of opposing states of mind that exist across a subjective spectrum of aesthetic sophistication.

These objective manifestations aren't classy or trashy within themselves. They require contextualization within an aesthetic framework.

For instance, Britney Spears sporting fishnets and a top hat is inevitably trashy, whereas Madonna rocking out the exact same outfit is classy as fuck.

Now, is this due to either woman's money, talent, or beauty? No, not at all. You're missing the point if you think like that. Those things have no direct correlation to aesthetic sophistication, and while money, talent, and beauty may make it easier to develop and express aesthetic sophistication, they also make it easier to express a blatant lack of it.

This isn't just about fashion, by the way. The same holds true across the entire range of aesthetic endeavors — design, music, architecture, the visual and performing arts, even culinary aesthetics.

Come on, it doesn't take much to know that Anthony Bourdain is all class and Rachael Ray is nothing but trash.

I like this note about how "Those things have no direct correlation to aesthetic sophistication" -- it is precisely what Jean Baudrillard writes about, how our current hyperreality is composed of symbols, and those symbols have lost touch with their referents.


its' a total tangent, but here's Coquette's comments on a recent britney video

and I'll leave you with this image:




mmmmm, makeup!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My GOODNESS, Emily Ms. Coke sure is vehement about how much she doesn't care about or think about Miley Cyrus! 

What's up with the nearly-subliminal clown smile on Ms. Cyrus in that pic? She's up to something.

ETA just realized I think I conflated Coquette with someone I used to work with. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

My GOODNESS, Emily Coke sure is vehement about how much she doesn't care about or think about Miley Cyrus!

She has CULTURALLY RELEVANT things to talk about, as you would know if you weren't a complete philistine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My GOODNESS, Emily Coke sure is vehement about how much she doesn't care about or think about Miley Cyrus!

She has CULTURALLY RELEVANT things to talk about, as you would know if you weren't a complete philistine.

Clearly.

Shit I'm gonna be late. See you after class!

[Cramulus]

What's up with the nearly-subliminal clown smile on Ms. Cyrus in that pic? She's up to something.

it comes from this

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What's up with the nearly-subliminal clown smile on Ms. Cyrus in that pic? She's up to something.

it comes from this

Well, there goes her diet.   

[Faust]

What's up with the nearly-subliminal clown smile on Ms. Cyrus in that pic? She's up to something.

it comes from this

Kali, is that you?

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Coke Talk / Coquette also said this, which I thought was relevant.

http://dearcoquette.com/post/63109967420/on-fun-sized-bullshit

Sinead vs. Miley. Care to weigh in?
Sinead's open letter was condescending and misguided, but her heart was in the right place. She's wrong about Miley being exploited, though. Miley is the one doing the exploiting.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Coke Talk / Coquette also said this, which I thought was relevant.

http://dearcoquette.com/post/63109967420/on-fun-sized-bullshit

Sinead vs. Miley. Care to weigh in?
Sinead's open letter was condescending and misguided, but her heart was in the right place. She's wrong about Miley being exploited, though. Miley is the one doing the exploiting.

I disagree with Sinead's heart being in the right place, unless sanctimonious and condescending is the right place. I do agree with the last sentence.