My 2 cents on the the Miley Cyrus outrage

I tried to ignore the whole "Miley Cyrus twerking" thing. I really did. Then I discovered brief analyses describing the impact of that performance on feminism and racism. Because I belief racial and gender discrimination and societal portrayals make up a huge part of politics, I'll talk about it some.

It would have been nicer if people focused on Syria. A lot of people I talked to didn't even know what was going on. When seeing my Facebook libertarian friends complaining how people are more focused on Miley than on Syria, it seemed like they were exaggerating. When I actually went onto non-libertarian forums...it was all about her.

Anyways, back on track...(ironically)

The biggest complaint is that her performance was lewd and offensive to females.

When I finally got around to watching her performance, I had no problem with most of it. However, when she slapped that woman's butt, grabbed her own crotch, etc., that was too much for me. I seriously had no problem with her outfit and most of her dancing. Nevertheless, it was overall a bit tasteless and excessive.

Here, a sexologist writes an interesting take on it, and I have to agree. Both parties (and MTV and whoever else was involved with this) are at fault.

In this article, a woman complains about the racial implications of Miley's performance - treating black women as objects, "black" singing, twerking, etc. I think this is a bit of an overreaction, but since I am not a black woman, I can't feel much personal offense and therefore can't speak for any who were offended. I did not feel like, while watching, that Miley treated the black women as "objects," but I did notice that she was a white girl in a crowd of black people. When she spanked that woman, I didn't think "oh, she smacked a black person's ass," I thought, "wow, was spanking that woman's butt really necessary...?" You see, I tend to notice gender first (or so I think, my subconscious may differ), not race. The whole thing about Miley wanting "a black sound" for her new album is just a very ignorant thing to say.

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Feminism and 'Race' Feminism and Race brings together a wide range of writings on 'race', racism, and feminism that have been published in the past two decades. It aims to provide readers with an overview of the history of these debates as well as to suggest future directions for feminist scholarship and practice in this field.

I am not disagreeing with the author of the article when she says that the performance was racist, but I feel that it was more oblivious to the perpetuating of negative stereotypes of black culture and female identity than it was to the outright objectifying of (female) blacks.

What I am even more worried about is that Miley Cyrus has made twerking and other overblown interpretations of what is associated with black culture seem unacceptable. Even where twerking might be tolerable and commonplace, what she has done may have entirely ruined people's perceptions of it. Only time will tell.

Finally, not really related to race or gender in any way, but to clear up a mistake. The picture of the Smith family reacting to Miley's performance isn't really them reacting to her performance, it's actually to Lady Gaga's. I had been suspicious of that screenshot ever since it surfaced, since things can easily be taken out of context. Blame it on my untrusting nature of the media.

In the meantime, use this to capture people's attention in order to get them to see what important stuff is actually going on in the world.

Whether you like Miley Cyrus or not, I know you like me.

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