Miley Cyrus and Feminism

If pop music wasn't offending the professionally offended, then people would lose their jobs. That's not something we need in this economy. What we do need is a lot of people to approach Miley Cyrus the concept and attack it with their deconstructive rhetorical weapons of choice. Racism, Feminism, Libertarianism, Religious Fundamentalism. There's something there for everyone. These people can write articles and blogs and generate page views and youtube views and provide a route for people who secretly worship celebrities to, once again, look down their noses at a celebrity.

I think Miley Cyrus is a pop musician, and that as a culture, we spend too much time talking about pop musicians. The fact that we spend too much talking about pop musicians is one reason why one can make more money swinging naked from construction equipment than one can make swinging that construction equipment. There can be no spectacle without people willing to say "Hey everybody, look at this spectacle!"

But I'm a curmudgeon.

 

There's another side to the same issue. Check out Lindsey Vonn. 59 World Cup wins, 3rd greatest ski racer ever (either gender), should rise to #2 this year. Yet she's best known as Tiger Wood's hot girlfriend. WTF?

 

Personally, I think it's just a desperate ploy by a moderately talented ( I think I'm being generous here ) person to keep her star lit, by any means necessary. Feminist issues completely aside. If she could keep her fame going by burning her bra and not taking "the man's" shit anymore, she would be doing that too.

My daughter thought Miley was doing it right, somehow. I said the above to her. I also pointed out all of the successful people who haven't done these things and pointed out that they did not need to do this, as they had talent to back them up. Eventually Miley will have to pony up some talent or find another venue.

 

Independence? Maybe. Young woman can be quite rebellious. Child stars - even more so. Empowerment? Definitely not. She's at least 10 years away from knowing what the term even means. And I don't believe she's playing any different a game than many other young woman her age play - the only difference is - she's got a large audience to play it for. I'd be willing to bet she's far less concerned with what outrageous behavior will do for her career than she is with the desire to simply shock - maybe for publicity but more likely, because that's where her head is at right now.

She is getting a lot of publicity right now, which might be good for her career in the short term. If she was as smart and calculated as some give her credit for, she would be looking much further out. The fact that she isn't tells me her performances are a product of where she is as a young, sexual being who's been given the opportunity to expose her outrageous behavior to a national audience vs the same type of young woman confined to doing it in her local club.

I don't see any deeper feminist issue here or at least not one specific to Miley. We can talk about both the subtle and overt denigration of women in pop music overall, but I don't think it is relevant when discussing Miley Cyrus's break out performance. She did no more than shock the audience out of their previous perception of her. Now that she has altered that perception, where can she go? Can she be more outrageous than Lady GaGa? Maybe, but without the same abundance of talent, she will soon fall to the wayside.

I think she's peaked, which is a shame at her age.

 

I have to wonder if you're comparing the two or if you're starting with a strawman of feminism if you're finding a middle ground between it and Men's Rights or contrasting it with egalitarianism.

Maybe not specific to Miley, but it's another case of an individual being judged as a woman (and what we as a society expect a woman to think and do) rather than as a person. The focus of the discussion overall has whether her behavior is appropriate, especially in a performance where the man performing with her is not being judged by the same standards.

 

Middle ground.

 

Exactly my point. The only way this could not be a feminist issue is if the negative reaction to her out there had nothing to do with her being a woman.

 

What are the problems you're having with feminism?

 

As I said earlier, my position on the main issues is a work-in-progress. Gender issues have never been on the forefront of things I considered important, given where I have been working for the past 5 years.

I'll probably make a thread about it once I feel comfortable that I have sufficient knowledge and weighed the arguments accordingly.

/end of threadjack

 

Was she being judged as any woman would be or as the persona most knew as Hannah Montana, cute little innocent daughter of Billy Cyrus? If Lady GaGa or Rhianna had managed that particular performance, would the same furor have ensued?

There will always be members of the accidental audience shocked by such performances but I tend to think they are generally shocked by both genders equally.

In Miley's case, it would appear that more than the usual suspects were shocked. Why? Because she's a young woman? No, that glass ceiling was shattered years ago. I still contend that most were shocked because of who she was still perceived to be rather than by her gender.

If I thought this was a case of applying a double standard to women's performances, I'd be screaming my head off about it.

 

But men behave in overtly sexual ways in performance all the time and it has never caused outrage on this level. Thrusting, humping, etc. and they get cheered on. Sure, it may have something to do with the fact that she was a child star and I brought that up previously. But I believe it also has to do with an acceptable level of sexuality that women are allowed to show without shocking people.
--- merged: Oct 19, 2013 at 8:35 AM ---
Plus, keep in mind that we are no longer living in the Madonna-era. We are living in the Janet Jackson tit flash era. Things have changed.

 

my sense is that most of the folk who were agitated by the performance on the mtv music awards (if memory serves--why does this program still exist btw? except maybe as an exercise for the exploration of the outer reaches of irrelevance...) hadn't listened to miley cyrus' music, such as it is. her press handlers may have implicitly recognized that she finds herself in the unenviable situation at the moment of being a musician whose music is consumed by the demographic that she is trying to break with, and so is a kind of blank space for folk not in the tween demographic. operating under the principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and, presumably, working in concert with whatever miley cyrus seems to imagine necessary in order to break with exclusive reliance on a tween demographic, this infotainment segment was concocted. you have to hand it to miley and her public relations team...it worked. open letters, exchanges on all forms of social media. miley is making her personal brand known in the wider world. we're helping. it's nice to help.

 

I still haven't seen the mtv awards performance. The only thing I've seen of miley is her music video with the wrecking ball - viewed while I was lying in my motel bed in Tampa saying to myself - 1) she looks good in underwear and 2) why is she licking that sledgehammer? BUT comments about her were all over my facebook feed, about her vulgur twerking - and that just irritated me and sort of put me in the position of defending her. I don't defend her position as a star who really isn't that talented. But I will counter anyone who suggests she might be more ladylike. She doesn't owe a certain kind of behavior to anyone because she's on your MTV show. Fuck that shit.

 

lately, i have undertaken a campaign to be more lady-like. it's not going so well.

 

I've given up on being ladylike and am settling for hooker with a heart of gold(ish).

 

i may follow your example. particularly the heart of goldfish part.