This Is Not A Post Critical Of Miley Cyrus
This is a post critical of every single person who feels comfortable referring to her as trashy, who mentioned any level or variation of her being a whore or a slut, and the people who have spent the past day or so mocking her in order to, I don’t know, build themselves up? Make themselves feel superior to her?
Miley Cyrus has been sold as a commodity to you and I, the public, since she was 14-years-old. Four-fucking-teen. Why is she a joke to people who claim to be compassionate adults?
Look at these photos
The first picture and the second picture are separated by maybe 18 or 19 years. For all but maybe 5 of those years, her entire function in life has been to perform for the gratification of adults, including the one playing the guitar in the first photo.
Why is all the hate and vitriol directed at her? Why is she the problem? She’s doing exactly what she’s been taught to do and she’s doing it admirably. She’s got the whole world looking and talking about her. As far as she has been taught, that is her entire function.
Don’t get me wrong, I think her performance was objectively awful, but I don’t blame her for that. I blame us.
Take the twenty-ish minutes to watch this episode of South Park. Yeah, this is a show with it’s own problems but they called the way that people would turn on Miley Cyrus six years ago. Is it really time for the lottery again?
When you’re done watching that, watch this.
If, after watching both clips you can’t emulate the basic human decency of Mr. Ferguson, rinse and repeat until your moral center runs clear.
What a Witch 
Thank you.
Watching Britney Spears melt down was a guilty pleasure of mine – and one that the Witch and I fought about. Take the above post – replace cyrus with spears and you will functionally have her side of the argument. I pointed out that I wasn’t hurting anyone and it was just some schadenfreude and we both indulged in that from time to time. Neither of us convinced the other of our side and neither of us were satisfied with the argument.
Then I saw the above mentioned South Park episode. It held a mirror up to my “guilty pleasure” and I was left sans pleasure. This was before the I Told You So Dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNGc9zmpK5M) had been invented but the Witch refrained from rubbing it because I think she was happier that I had come around and schadenfreude of my guilt would have lost her some moral high ground. (<3)
I find myself horrified by Miss Cyrus right now, but in truth It is in the same way that the Witch is horrified. I wonder how long till her melt down is going to happen – but this time there is a sense of dread with it. It is not a guilty pleasure but rather a sad nod to a cycle that South Park pointed out and correctly predicted. I wonder who is telling her that she is sexy and what she is doing is right. I shake my head at the rape culture that is blooming in the fertile soil of Cyrus Love and Hate. I feel sorry for her.
I hope she finds her way out. I hope that she has someone in her life who will put her best interest first and not just use her for fame and money.
I hope that Also for the love of all that is holy I hope she stops sticking her damn tongue out all the time. It's just stupid!
After leaving a comment similar to this post on the CNN article about the performance, I got like 70 responses that all sounded like the old grumpy dude yelling, “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
I get saying it was a objectively bad performance… But, really… You’re tuning in to the home of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom, and expecting what? Was she going to come out in an evening dress and do an Ella Fitzgerald number?
Any time I see this type of thing happening, I just hope she can avoid permanent injury to her body or character while riding out whatever stunts she needs to before gaining wisdom and maturity.
The Macklemore performance was objectively good; not great but good. So to answer your question, I expect performances that are not awful.
It’s been interesting to see the split in this. I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Miley and it’s fallen into two camps. The mainstream media, by and large, has focused on slut-shaming and horror at her performance, placing a lot of the blame on her in ways that I think are unfair. The people I follow on social media and less-widely read sites have offered some tough but (in my opinion) warranted criticism around the ways that she has appropriated black culture in her videos and performances and why that’s problematic. Which responsibility on her but also recognizes larger cultural issues. I wish I was seeing that get amplified instead.
I would point out a lot of the accusations of MC “appropriating black culture,” are historically blind at best. All of modern music is an appropriation of black culture, especially pop and rap. MC is just being a little more honest about it.
that was my response! so she’s emulating “black” music and that’s a problem how? I haven’t even heard the song people were commenting about. all I saw was her response ” thanks guys I know what colour my skin is” so I wonder why does her skin have to be important?? she just likes what she likes. who’s the racist here? So because I’m black/white and chines I’m only allowed to like artists who make music from those genres? or I have to only make creative statements that adhere to my “own” cultural backgrounds. Makes me really glad I wasn’t raised to see that side of it.
There’s no way to deny the facts of cultural appropriation in terms of music. The point that I was making is that most modern music is appropriated from black culture, so I don’t see why MC is being singled out.
yeah I don’t get it either.
At some point… a person is no longer a victim and the pilot of their own life. Miley Cyrus acted like the vitriol of society at the MTV VMA awards (which is catered toward teens and tweens.) Her behavior would have been appropriate in a strip club, but not in front of a target audience of TWELVE to 34. She is not a victim. She is a drug and sexually charge young adult that is acting the fool of her predecessors (Spears, Hilton, Whinehouse, etc). Defending it is condoning it.
Yes. Defending it is condoning it. Aside from the crap music, I totally condone her performance. What I find so very interesting is the number of people who condemn her performance as problematic but are utterly silent on Robin Thicke’s rape culture promoting horror. HE WAS A PART OF THAT PERFORMANCE TOO! But people don’t see to have a problem with him. Her? She trashy or acting the fool or whatever. Him? Crickets.
On a personal note, I yelled BETTLEJUICE three times. His performance should have been forced back from whence it came. I’m wondering what went wrong.
Okay, I finally watched the whole thing. Still with you on the slut shaming and the voyeurism and the performance aspect. Not with you on the appropriation issue. It looked like a fucking minstrel show to me. Way over the top.
While I don’t disagree that the performance was awful, in historical context; Madonna rolling around during “Like A Virgin,” the Britany/Madonna/Christina fake lesbian kiss, Diana Ross groping Lil Kim, Fartman, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog sniffing JLo’s butt, Lady GaGa just being…it is exactly in line with the standards of the show.
Oh yes. Nothing new here.