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Tuesday 27 August 2013

Blurred Lines: Why Miley's twerking isn't the real MVA embarrassment, and why society's reaction is.

What was really “impressionable” about Miley’s performance is the reaction that it both desired and enormously received. When social media platforms exploded with commentary during the awards show, we all became little moths desperately clinging to Miley’s PVC bikini flame.

The fact is, Miley’s marketing team achieved the holy grail of advertising: They sold ice to polar bears. The spinoff from the performance was and still is gargantuan.  Yesterday morning, they kicked back and gave each other high fives because entire nations bought into exactly what they wanted us to, and they didn't even have to try.

We were simultaneously delighted and outraged that she presented herself and her music the way that she did in collaboration with Robin Thicke. True to our collective societal character, we were solely outraged by Miley, and not her co-musicians.

Miss Cyrus was reprimanded and condemned for her every movement, her clothing, overall appearance, performance set, artistic concept, backup dancers and costuming, her foam finger, and her evocative gyrations. But Miley’s performance is only a small piece of a very unfortunate puzzle. A large argument against her performance being approved for the VMA stage is that her fan base consists of a younger, female audience who are vulnerable to absorbing her suggestive behaviors.

Let’s talk about Robin Thicke for a moment. A thirty six year old married man (with a child) sang about how much he KNOWS you (women) want it while allowing a twenty year old (engaged) woman to push her barely covered behind into his crotch and use his body as a stripper pole. I’m not only pointing out Thicke’s relationship status here, Miley is engaged and is just as much the culprit. However, just like dominos, society tumbled one by one into a fury of revulsion for Miley’s actions, but provided Thicke with tolerance and absolutely no judgement in light of his. Pretend for a second, that Miss Cyrus was a mother. It would be an infallible guarantee that her performance would have been explosively criticized because she was a parent. She would have been held to a hierarchical standard.

Now, let’s explore Thicke’s fan base- also largely comprised of young females and males. Why aren’t we making a spectacle of what HIS fans absorbed? His current hit single, “Blurred Lines”, talks about the male struggle to interpret the distorted ‘lines’ of perceived female sexual innuendo. The song’s music video features Thicke and his collaborators in the company of a troop of scantily clad models. What many people don’t know is that there’s an additional unrated version of the music video where the same models are topless and wearing nude colored panties. At a first glance, they appear to be totally naked.

Also important: Robin Thicke’s music video is the reason Miley was toting a foam finger as a prop. One of the models featured in “Blurred Lines” uses the same finger to playfully hide her breasts from view during the video. Also, guess why she was wearing nude, PVC hot pants? You guessed it, also featured in THICKE’s video. It’s a small world, ladies and gentlemen.

The fact of the matter is, what your daughter (or son, or any young female/male that you’re close to) absorbs and perceives from a provocative award show performance is NOT MTV’s responsibility. It’s yours. That’s right, you as a mother, or a sister, a mentor, or simply a more mature presence in a young female or male's life. Advocating for responsible media presentation and advertisement is a noble cause, but it’s also a failing one. If anything, media is becoming increasingly suffused with explicit, sexualized content.

The literal only way to combat girl's skewed perceptions of themselves and the realities of the world around them, is to fight the battle from home. Parents, educators, and mentors need to make a collective and constant effort to change the way we think, talk, and the messages (whether direct or subliminal) that we deliver to young girls and women. The same principle applies to young men.

Objectification is decreased when we break the continuous cycle of condoning and propagating it. Give the gift of critical thinking. Make sure your daughter or the young girls in your life are able to process and deconstruct what is presented to them by the media so that they KNOW they have a right to either consent or decline to any suggestive or sexual behaviors while still enjoying the music of their favorite artist. Ensure they don’t grow up believing that behaviors such as those exhibited by Miley are a requirement in their lives.  Make it your divine mission to instill values of self confidence, positive body image, self respect, and self worth in these girls. In turn, ensure that young men don't grow up believing that they need to embody what Robin Thicke represents. EDUCATE young men and women on what matters so that they know what doesn't.

A great start would be NOT calling Miley trashy, or a slut, or a whore, or use any other derogative language pertaining to her. Why, you ask? Because if YOU sanction those terms to oppress another woman, then in turn you've made it okay for everyone else to utilize those same terms to oppress others.

You’re entitled to hold your own reservations regarding her performance, but keep it out of the reach of younger ears. Perhaps you and your partner had some passing comments at bedtime regarding the spectacle, but that doesn't mean you need to incorporate it into more public forums of conversation. Spreading intolerance and hate isn't a supermarket of picking and choosing which statements influence others; everything is thrown into the same melting pot. By the same token, I'd be the first one on the dance floor after hearing the first three notes of "Blurred Lines". It's catchy and fun! The difference is that I'm an adult who appreciates the song at face value, and deciphers the subject matter to draw my own, informed conclusions, not a developing teenager.

Gauge what is damaging and what isn't. Use of the word “twerk” was rampant in post VMA responses, but there’s a significant difference between remarking a dance move and attacking a human being (that’s right, Miley’s one of us!) in a slanderous tone.

Also, be responsibly conscious. There’s something to be said for presenting tasteful humor in light of this VMA conduct. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t want to poke a little fun at the wildly creative set, the costuming, the dancers, and yes, the twerking. There is, however, a fine line between poking fun and participating in the defamation of a young woman who still has a considerable amount of growing up to do. I’m not even criticizing her maturity level with that remark, just pointing out that she is experiencing the same personal exploration and evolution as every other young woman her age. The difference is that Miley hasn’t been afforded the level of privacy that most young women are. She is experiencing this evolution in a very public way while catering to the expectations of a demanding and crippling entertainment industry. Will she look back on the performance with embarrassment when she’s thirty? Who knows? But also, WHO CARES?! As the songstress says herself “It’s my life, I can do what I want to”. And she’s RIGHT.


Miley isn’t the entity to be ashamed of as we emerge from this VMA controversy. Rather, it’s our failure as a population to think critically and apply our attention to a detrimentally influential situation that continues to be neglected.

Tuesday 7 May 2013

Follow the Leader: A Battered Identity

An overwhelming amount of sexual assault, rape, 'slut shaming', and sadly, resulting suicides, have dominated news networks and social media feeds for months.

Each one has touched the hearts of many in unique ways, but we really need to let these tragic events start touching our minds in a more registering and progressive manner.

There are few things that can be said on these issues that haven't already been brought to the surface by history, by feminists, social leaders, families of the victims, clinical professionals, and really anybody with a sense of rationalism and compassion.

As is anyone who advocates for change on this platform, I tire of justifying. I am exhausted from analyzing and speaking out against the same mistakes only to be met with regurgitated responses.

I am all too familiar with being told that we're too concerned with being politically correct, or that women are seeking to place themselves above men. For the millionth time, pick up a dictionary and read for yourself that feminism is an advocation for EQUALITY. Nobody is trying to scramble to the top of this ethical food chain to eliminate the top predator. We just want to sit and harvest the bounty of parity together.

What we're really all too concerned with is resisting positive and worthwhile changes to our hard wired social and cognitive contexts. This is a history which malignantly continues to repeat itself.

I have always said that too many men complain in private about their close female friends or relatives in abusive relationships while they ACCEPT the abuser into their social circles and afford him privilege as though nothing is happening.

Silence communicates consent and complicity. The bystander effect contributes to an enormous portion of the ideologies that we accept and participate in, especially for men. When men in powerful roles continue to allow sexism and endorse abuse, it is a failure to lead by positive example. Leadership failures account for so much of what we accept, and even more of what we allow to happen.

Champion boxer, Floyd Mayweather, returned to the world of professional boxing at the coveted MGM Grand in Las Vegas over the weekend. Mayweather comfortably extended his unbeaten record to an astonishing 44 victories. You know what's even more astonishing? Society was too busy celebrating his welterweight title to remember that Mayweather beat his girlfriend and threatened to make her "disappear" in front of her two children just a few years prior. An act for which he avoided trial completely and was minimally sentenced to just three months in prison for. Let's not forget that the judge delayed Mayweather serving his time so that he could fight Miguel Cotto on the grounds that the fight would provide an "economic boost" to Las Vegas. An outstanding example of failed leadership at the cost of a continued acceptance of abuse.

Men do not only abuse women, this is not solely a women’s issue. Men abuse children, and most importantly, men abuse other men on a compelling level. So why do we continue to practice victim blaming when a woman is sexually assaulted or falls victim to domestic violence? Why are the questions only about her and not her abuser? Why do we force her to identify herself as ‘battered’ while we remove her abuser from the conversation? It is because cognitively, we’ve been structured to do just that.

For so long we’ve allowed these dangerous ideals to stand at the forefront of decision making, identity development, and societal implementation.

Take twenty minutes and share this video on your twitter, Facebook wall, or as I have done, on your blog. Sit down with some male friends and share it with them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvSfeCRxe8


Dr. Jackson Katz is right, we don’t only owe solid leadership, education, and equality to women, but we also owe it to boys and young men who played no active role in being born into a society that demands such a skewed and dangerous ideal of masculinity from them.

Until next time,

A Fabulous State