The VMAs happened just over 24 hours ago and by now, everyone has seen or heard about Miley Cyrus' performance. I have seen and heard nothing but rants about it and how poor/trashy/inappropriate/disgusting it was. I have nodded to show that I was listening and responded to text messages about it carefully. It took me a full 24 hours to come to a conclusion about it. "Not everything you see, you have to react to."
Miley Cyrus was once a Disney Channel star, featured in the homes of many as the Southern Sweetheart Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. The show had a five year run, in which it also produced a movie and several cds from Miley Cyrus before ending in 2011. Since then we have seen Miley fall from the Disney tower into the deep darkness that is adulthood. We've seen her gyrate in throngs of people in "Who Owns My Heart", we've heard her openly discuss sex, and we gawked when she cut off all of her beautiful brown locks, shaved her head and bleached her hair.
And now, seven years after Hannah Montana aired, Miley Cyrus is
here. Gyrating and stripping and shaking her ass in barely and clothes in front of thousands. How did she get here? Where did her parents go wrong?
As much as we shake our heads,
WE led her here. It is no secret that in America, sex sells. There are billboards of scantily clad women, advertising bars, beers, and strip joints...but also cars, watches, and other fashion related items. Millions tune into the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Bikini's get smaller and smaller. There are restaurants where the waitresses are dressed in daisy dukes and bras. In movies, it is the beautiful, busty woman who gets the guy, or the girl who puts out...not always, but mostly.
So WHY did Miley do what she did? Because she believed THAT IS WHAT WE WANT TO SEE. Why? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WE HAVE PROVEN TO BE TRUE.
I told my friends that her outfit was no different than what you would find in a club. The moves she pulled are ones go-go dancers do nightly. So why is she taking the heat? Because she is broad casted on millions of televisions, when in reality, this is the world we live in. There are girls like this everywhere, someone's daughter, someone's Miley, someone's graduate. If Miley were at one of her concerts and this is how she performed, would the backlash be as great? If this were a girl at a club, would we openly say the things people have said about Miley?
There is a popular book that is going to be turned into a movie, and guess what the book is about? SEX. 50 Shades of Grey has become one of the best selling books of all time. Women are going to flock to movie theaters to see the film, based on the sex lives of two individuals. It's a porno. How much money will that generate?
I worked at a restaurant about a year ago when the book was more popular and I had 6 or 7 women walk in with that book under their arm to read at the table.
Women openly reading a very well known sexually explicit book in public (literally, everywhere!) and we are shocked when Miley pulls stunts like this?
By the same token, how many women went to see Magic Mike? No one knew what it was about, everyone just knew Channing Tatum was going to be giving us a taste of his previous stripping experiences and everyone wanted to see! Why? BECAUSE IN AMERICA SEX SELLS.
Is this the worst thing to happen at an award show? No. Let's not forget the Britney/Madonna kiss 10 years ago, and the Janet Jackson nipple flash we got...
I am going to stand by Miley on this one. Nobody develops fully on their own, we are always being shaped by something. I don't believe it's Miley's fault she danced the way she did. I don't believe it's her parents' fault. Perhaps it was a manager calling the shots, in attempt to prove that she is no longer a Disney girl. Whether we realize it or not, everything we do, we do in a subconscious attempt to please other's.
Now, let's look at the channel in which this was shown. It has been years since MTV has shown strictly music videos. It is now home to popular shows such as Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Jersey Shore, Skins, The Challenge...NONE of those shows are free of sexual content. Skins was full of naked people, people are shown hooking up constantly...why would we expect anything different from an awards show shown on the channel? To me,
Miley's racy performance evolved from a progression of the things we allowed to be shown on TV. Now everyone is casting stones and screaming it's too much? Are you going to change the channel the next time a show has a sex scene?
Miley is only 20 years old. People are saying she acted unclassy and disgusting...she was compared to both PINK! though some argued PINK! was classier...but I remember people didn't exactly like PINK! because she had a mouth on her! I'm sure people thought that was unclassy and disgusting for women to be talking/singing the way she did....Let's talk about the women who show up to award shows/events with plunging necklines that barely cover anything, and the short fitted dresses with heels high enough to put you at level with a sky scraper...is that unclassy?
If we want to prevent any future performances like Miley, if we want to protect our daughters from acting out that way, we, as a country, need to re-evaluate how we expect/want women to be showcased in public. But
we have allowed this to happen, whether we realize it or not. Our music promotes it, our TV shows promote it, our billboards promote it.
There is a time and a place for things...and while I argue that knowing what kind of shows MTV airs, parents shouldn't be surprised that their kids were exposed to that, there were probably kids (preteens-15) in the audience. Miley is who she is, and I support that. But her performance would have been better received at one of her own concerts, where she was free to be herself. With the VMAs, she was also representing her fellow artists. Even Kanye West had a respectful performance (this year!). To act that way, while representing both MTV and all of the other acts, was disrespectful, especially since the moves were in sync and on stage with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines".
I like her music. I like her voice. It's unique, and she was right to break away from country because it wasn't her forte. I will buy her songs, because I like them. I am going to forgive this performance because I have done stupid things, crass things, unclassy things too...and I don't want that hanging over my head. She needs time to grow into herself, into the woman she wants to be, and if we want better, we need to help her, as well as every little girl in America.
How will you start?
.jpg)
