THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS


“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.” -George Orwell

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

STOP TWERKING! MILEY, IT'S JUST NOT WORKING...


Oh, Miley...  It's not that you have to be black to twerk...it's that you've gotta have some junk to throw out there.  All of her backup dancers had ample junk in the trunk, which only made Billy Ray's little girl look even more ridiculous.  It's easy to forget that she's supposed to be a singer.  That, of course, is probably the point...  For me, though, the most disturbing thing was the non-stop tongue foo.  What the hell was THAT?  She's been doing this stuff all year long but last night's MTV Video Music Awards performance was the ultimate example of Miley's twerkin' jerkin' & Jersey Turnpikin' minstrel show.
The VMAs belonged to Miley Cyrus. Cyrus did her own striptease, down to a flesh-toned bra and panties; she stuck out her tongue a lot and humped, in turn, a gigantic teddy bear, a foam "We're #1!" finger, and Robin Thicke. But the shock that Cyrus was peddling wasn't sex. It was all about race.
Cyrus has spent a lot of time recently toying with racial imagery. We've seen Cyrus twerking her way through the video for her big hit "We Can't Stop," professing her love for "hood music," and claiming spiritual affinity with Lil' Kim. Last night, as Cyrus stalked the stage, mugging and twerking, and paused to spank and simulate analingus upon the ass of a thickly set African-American backup dancer, her act tipped over into what we may as well just call racism: a minstrel show routine whose ghoulishness was heightened by Cyrus's madcap charisma, and by the dark beauty of "We Can't Stop" — by a good distance, the most powerful pop hit of 2013.
Cyrus's twerk act gives minstrelsy a postmodern careerist spin. Cyrus is annexing working-class black "ratchet" culture, the potent sexual symbolism of black female bodies, to the cause of her reinvention: her transformation from squeaky-clean Disney-pop poster girl to grown-up hipster-provocateur. (Want to wipe away the sickly-sweet scent of the Magic Kingdom? Go slumming in a black strip club.) Cyrus may indeed feel a cosmic connection to Lil' Kim and the music of "the hood." But the reason that these affinities are coming out now, at the VMAs and elsewhere, is because it’s good for business.
While I agree that Miley is trying way too hard to let us all know that she's no virgin and also has black and gay friends, I disagree with the idea that she wasn't selling sex.  Of course she was...


I should say that if Miley's goal here was simply to be provocative and get people talking about her in the mistaken belief that "there's no such thing as bad publicity," then I guess it was working for her.  But since she wasn't exactly obscure before last night I don't really see the upside to making a complete fool of herself.  I'm not even sure she realizes how bad it was...although if she doesn't it's not because people haven't let her know.
The recipient of this year's Madonna in a wedding dress/Britney in a glittery thong/Kanye West "I'mma let you finish…" water-cooler buzz is Miley Cyrus, who personified the concept of "trying too hard" with her performance on Sunday night's show. The whirling dervish of crass, empty-calorie provocation that was her performance of "We Can't Stop" and "Blurred Lines" with Robin Thicke shocked people for a number of reasons, but one accusation as absurd as the dancing Furries Miley was twerking with is the idea that her performance was racist.
It is the year 2013, which means that she-who-played Hannah Montana feigning masturbation with a giant foam finger is the pitch for a flood of cultural think pieces, all of which hit the internet Monday morning. A lot of the reaction was pegged to the forced edginess Cyrus littered her performance with, from simulating analingus on a seven-foot-tall black woman to grinding her butt on Robin Thicke's crotch while licking the air - the alternately concerning and fascinating reality that this is what a 20-year-old girl thinks constitutes being sexual.
And then there was Clinton Yates of the Washington Post leaping to Miley's defense against Jody Rosen's "minstrel" accusation.
Miley Cyrus is America's worst nightmare. Last night, with her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, she proved that many people in this country are still pre-occupied with slut-shaming and coded racial condescension in the context of entertainment.
Her performance of "We Can't Stop," a catchy and otherwise seemingly harmless pop song, that transitioned to a duet with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," is clearly the most talked about moment of the show, but for all the wrong reasons.
Her bawdy performance, that featured Miley and other dancers twerking on stage, drew criticism as lewd, grotesque and shameful. MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski went so far as to say Cyrus "is obviously deeply troubled, deeply disturbed, clearly has confidence issues, probably eating disorder," on Morning Joe Monday. But what exactly is so disturbing about Miley Cyrus?
What's so disturbing?  Gosh, whatever could it be...











But since the VMA's are technically about music, who better to pass final judgment than the Queen herself:


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