Posted on 09/06/2013 5:14:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
Some defenders of Miley Cyrus' VMA performance don't understand what all the outrage is about. Justin Timberlake tweeted, "She's young. Take it easy on her." Lena Dunham worried about "slut shaming." Russell Simmons wrote "Just saw @MileyCyrus. What did I miss. She was having fun. #twerkmileytwerk." And Adam Lambert tweeted " ... Listen if it wasn't ur cup of tea -- all good but why is everyone spazzing? Hey -- she's doin something right. We all talkin."
Cyrus seemed to endorse Lambert's any-attention-is-good-attention rationale. She boasted on Twitter that "Smilers! My VMA performance had 306.000 tweets per minute. That's more than the blackout or Superbowl! #fact."
Doubtless if Cyrus had undressed completely and performed a literal (rather than pantomime) sex act on stage, her Twitter numbers would have been even higher. Ditto if she had twisted the head off a small animal or defecated live and in color. A product of the celebrity culture, she seems incapable of making judgments based on anything higher than buzz. If she did either of those things, would Lambert wonder why everyone was "spazzing," and would Dunham condemn "slut shaming"? It's hard to say.
How many of Cyrus' young fans will interpret her behavior as a normal part of growing up? How many will confuse lasciviousness with sexual maturity?
Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal's wise children's book reviewer, noted in a recent Hillsdale College speech that there is a vein in "young adult" fiction of ugly, horrific and sexually revolting material aimed at kids between 12 and 18. Girls cut themselves with razors until their bellies are a "mess of meat and blood," and boys don magic glasses that reveal "impaled heads and other black-rot body parts: hands, hearts, feet, ears, penises." The authors and publishers justify these themes as "heartbreakingly honest."
The subversives who undermine good taste always seem to invoke "honesty" or "reality". But as Gurdon rightly objects: "Books tell children what to expect, what life is, what culture is, how we are expected to behave -- what the spectrum is. They form norms ... And teenagers are all about identifying norms and adhering to them."
No one who has ever observed a group of 15-year-old girls -- nearly identical in their hair styles, clothes and speech -- can doubt this.
Miley Cyrus' performance was not just another case of a salacious and degrading bid for attention. Because of who she was -- a Disney star with a loyal following of young girls -- and because of what she did, she has introduced something even darker to the mainstream culture. She is indirectly legitimizing child porn.
Miley Cyrus became a sensation as "Hannah Montana," a wholesome Disney pop star. Millions of pre-teen girls adored the show and followed Cyrus' career. She is hardly the first celebrity to attempt to shock her audience by shedding her ingenue image. Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and others have plowed this ground. But Cyrus did more than cast off her innocence. She used innocence itself as a lecherous come on.
Cyrus, 20, began her vulgar dance by appearing in a teddy bear costume with dancing teddy bears as back up. She later exchanged this for a flesh-colored bra and panties and a large foam finger that she put to lewd uses.
I haven't ever seen child porn, but I would bet that a great deal of it uses images of innocence and childhood -- like teddy bears -- for the delectation of its audience. Cyrus has now taken this perversion mainstream.
Child porn, like every other kind of pornography, once relegated to a seedy underworld, is now as close as a cellphone. It's bobbing along in the twilight, close to the surface of American lives, but kept from full view by the last remaining shreds of propriety that our culture enforces.
The existence of the Internet has probably already eroded some of the shame that pedophiles once felt. Learning that hundreds of thousands of others share one's perversion must be cathartic.
But how much more liberating to see the themes of child sexual abuse portrayed approvingly at the VMA awards?
American popular culture continues to prove that there is no rock bottom, and everyone who shrugs that it's no big deal is a little bit complicit
No she doesn't - not at all
“American popular culture continues to prove that there is no rock bottom, and everyone who shrugs that it’s no big deal is a little bit complicit.”
But “rock bottom” WILL come and IT MUST.
Miley Cyrus and Gaga reflect the values and expectations of their audience. They and MTV get rich providing “entertainment” that is consistent with the tastes of many Americans. Decadence sells because America has become decadent. Hardly would call it “art”.
Thank you, Mona Charen, for putting my thoughts so succinctly in to words.
Miley Cyrus just created a whole new generation of child porn addicts.
Miley....some severe internal problems going on. Just like the Bieber...Too afraid to be themselves, but craving the attention, the fame and, I guess, the money.
Surrounded by leeches seeking only to profit from her, advising her to do all sorts of crazy sh!t. Just like the Bieber and his publicists who think it’s okay for him to go round like a black thug, get drunk, doped - and stupid....it gets pictures and columns and his ‘number’ goes up.
She can’t be thug so her handlers have chosen plastic outrageous whore. Make her strut he wares, tight tiny plastic pants and bra...stick your ugly coated tongue out to hide the little girl she used to be. Give her drugs to go even further.
We likely see her and Justin end up like Lindsay Lohan, Dana Plato, Lisa Robin Kelly, et al....
“But “rock bottom” WILL come and IT MUST”.
The question is just who in their right might would want to stay around for “rock bottom”?
Far better to be around for the repentent reawakening before “rock bottom”.
Amen! You dont like it, dont watch MTV. And dont let your kids watch. I figured that out a long time ago.
just who in their right might
AAAACK, right MIND.
AAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!
What is seen cannot be unseen!
Anything thought important by the likes of that Lena Dunham character has to be small potatoes. It's all a manufactured controversy designed to generate sales, to separate pre-teens and weak-minded adults unwilling to grow beyond their pre-teens from their disposable income.
"Slut Shaming," indeed. Skank.
The thing is one can’t help watching it it was all over FOX and I would imagine the other channels every day all day..That was how I saw it..I never thought she was a sweet little girl,something about her..My grand children never watched her even when she was on Disney..She has no talent so has to show off since she thinks sex is what it is all about..
Often time it DOES take hitting rock bottom to begin the process of repentence.
True. And these idiots like Miley Cyrus will continue to do more and more shocking things to get people talking until we all wise up and just ignore them for the morons that they are.
Mona’s boiling this all down to child porn isn’t correct. Cyrus’ boiled it down herself to getting attention as the objective. She succeeded in that. There’s money in that. That’s probably why she did it.
With right and wrong so confused these days, those old words simply won’t get through to anyone. Slutty, cheap, and “ho” just get amusedly laughed at by those who know better, who know it’s her body and she can twerk if she want’s to.
So, the new era says that dogs do it, people do it, don’t get all worked up over it.
Unless Jesus actually is, and somewhere inside she cares about that, then nogod says she’s just gonna not exist some day, and she might as well be twerking as anything else.
That would be a good idea is to ignore such ugly nonsense.
Everyone knew it was coming. It was a combination of being raised by Billy Ray Cyrus and being put on a pedestal. She was destined to skank up.
Madonna thought she was being “artsy” when she did it. Miley came off as “drunk at the trailer park”.
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