Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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In which Seanan actually sort of defends Miley Cyrus.

So the VMAs (Video Music Awards) happened last night, and Miley Cyrus did a thing. It was...well, it was not a good thing. She's making creative choices that I don't necessarily agree with or understand, and I sort of wish she'd put her tongue back into her mouth. But these are not my choices to make, and since the state of her career doesn't really impact me in any rational way, I will do my best not to criticize her beyond "I really liked it better when you were doing awesome country music, Miley, and I hope you'll get back to that, because I'd love an album with you and your godmother singing together."

As part of the thing that Miley did, however, she wound up grinding her backside (and, due to her position at the time, her genital region) against Robin Thicke's groin while wearing spanky pants made of what looked like flesh-colored vinyl. No one missed a beat when she did this, including Robin Thicke, so I have to assume that it was rehearsed, and was part of the plan for the performance. Again, still not a good thing, but she didn't start throwing in the over-the-top sexual stuff on a whim: MTV approved this. Her backup dancers learned this. Robin Thicke voluntarily did this.

I have now heard three separate people say something along the lines of "Robin Thicke's wife should slap the shit out of her," and "she should be ashamed." What I'm not seeing, though, are people saying the equivalent things about him. It appears that, to many people, Robin Thicke just materialized on stage as an innocent bystander, where Miley Cyrus proceeded to grind on him, and he didn't push her away because he's a gentleman.

I...wait.

I know this is a weird example to use, but bear with me here: this is actually a really good demonstration of how we tend to treat female "characters" in both real life (celebrities, pop stars, people whose lives are turned into narratives by the media) and fiction. Belle stole Brina's boyfriend! Sharon is a skank! Cassandra is a coward! It's always the women who are to blame, and the men around them are blameless. It's not "Brian left Brina for Belle." It's not "Sharon had consensual sex with Steve." It's not "Connor threatened Cassandra's life and family, so she withdrew." We place the full onus for anything we don't like on the female participants, leaving nothing for their counterparts. And it's just not fair.

Miley Cyrus did a thing. Very few people seem to have liked the thing, and that's on her: she should know her audience better than that. But Robin Thicke did not accidentally wander into the performance. If there's blame to give here, it needs to go both ways.

We need to drop the double standard.
Tags: cranky blonde is cranky
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There's probably a joke here about taking two to tango, but I'm not gonna be the one to make it. >.>

-TG
You juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust did.

the_gneech

3 years ago

beccastareyes

3 years ago

Personally I think Robin's skeevy, and yeah, he was equally complicit in the act (which I disapprove of because of multiple reasons, but slut-shaming Miley is not one of them). If we're gonna get mad about people acting like this, don't act like the male in the act was completely blameless. It's like all the flack Kristen Stewart got - enough to make studios drop her - and yet the guy involved got off relatively scot-free. It's like no matter what happens, the woman is always wrong when it comes to the court of public opinion, and that is a depressing thing.
Exactly.

I think they were both acting unwisely, and it was Miley's show, so she probably proposed the things she did to some degree. But he never had to agree to them.

elektra

3 years ago

geekhyena

3 years ago

wiliqueen

3 years ago

geekhyena

3 years ago

Yes. I remember in an English class in college. There was a story about two guys fighting over a woman. The class tried to blame her even though she didn't appear in the story till the last paragraph. I tried to defend her but I got a lot of resistance.
It's so weird.

cheshire_bitten

3 years ago

Thank you!

Also, to everyone who is getting all up in arms over her performance: chill. It's nothing new. Yeah, it pushes the bounds of good taste, but performing artists have been pushing those bounds for decades if not centuries. Would I have done it? No. But I'm not Miley. She's a grown woman -- if a young one -- and while I think there is room to dump all over her performance AS a performance, I don't think it's fair to say "OMG, SEX!" as a criticism. It's really not okay to focus the pearl-clutching on her and not hit the choreographer, the other performers, and the executives who approved everything that went on that stage.

It wasn't a good performance, which bothered me, but yeah. How is this different than every other VMA performance ever?

tibicina

3 years ago

cheshire_bitten

3 years ago

capplor

3 years ago

Obviously none of the people who are freaking out over this have seen the uncensored version of Robin Thicke's video for Blurred Lines, in which the completely topless, flesh thonged models dance with Robin Thicke. If they had, they would realize exactly how covered Miley was by comparison, and that the segment was obviously a nod to his video. To hold her solely responsible for that is utterly ridiculous.

I'm completely with you on the tongue thing, though. Looks like she's auditioning for the old Budweiser "Wassup" commercials. Too passé.
Tangentially, I have more of a problem with the lyrics to "Blurred Lines" than with the content of the video (which I have seen in full). I'm not saying I have zero problem with the video, just that I find the lyrics even more problematic than the naked-woman objectification. (If I were his wife I'd have slapped the shit out of him for the lyric "you the hottest bitch in this place.")

But if Thicke's wife is supposed to want to slap the shit out of anyone, shouldn't it be him? He made the choice to be in that performance, he made the choice to make the video that the performance was referencing, and he made the choice to write the song that the video was made for.

And it's especially telling that people just assume that his wife would be upset by the performance (or the video) in the first place. I didn't know he was married (in fact I'd never even heard of him before I heard about the video), but I can't imagine anyone close to him is somehow unaware of his career. The jealous-wife get-away-from-my-man trope is just as much a part of the slut-shaming, just as much a part of the misogyny. Miley is presumed to have done something inappropriate with someone else's man; Thicke's wife is presumed to feel threatened with the fear of losing her man. Because as we all know, we're nothing without a man; we either have to have one and be trying to keep him, or be trying to get someone else's. Poor things are just pawns in our little games.

The whole thing is so gross.

azurelunatic

3 years ago

Deleted comment

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

The whole thing on everyone's part was in poor taste. Only thing I have to say is it looks she's asserting herself as her idea of an adult and making some choices that maybe aren't the best. why no one stepped in and offered some other options, I'll never know. Maybe they all thought it was great, or she refused, or who knows. No slut shaming here, just wondering what made her decide this was a good performance. I would have wondered the same of a man, too.
I concur. She could have gone many different ways in creating her new image....unfortunately she decided 'cheap, creepy and horny' was the way to go.

dragonsong

3 years ago

mandasthe_01

3 years ago

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

nyxalinth

3 years ago

I haven't personally seen people saying that about Robin and Miley, but I've seen enough complaints about it to see that it's been pretty widespread. WTF, people?

Also disappointed by the number of people who I generally respect making comments about the size/shape/appropriateness of Miley's butt.

(I didn't like the performance, on multiple levels, but as I said on twitter, we can have opinions on it's artistic merit without making comments about her body or slutshaming her.)
I don't understand humans. :(
A couple of semi-random thoughts:

I think the reaction was a whole lot more pronounced because Miley is, in her own way, a Disney Princess. A lot of people can't get their heads around the fact that she isn't Hannah Montana, and never really was, and that it's massively unfair to expect her to play wholesome her entire life. Had the performer in question been someone who didn't grow up on TV, and specifically on The Disney Channel, we might not be having this conversation.

I do agree that the reaction has been horribly sexist, and that's almost always the case. But I'll include the "almost", because a small counter-example comes to mind. I've seen some of your fans blame Connor for, essentially, trying to seduce Toby into adultery. Which never happened.
I agree with this.. I have heard massive criticism about her actions BECAUSE she used to be an idol for little girls, and so "sweet and wholesome". Bleecchhh. I don't much care for the artistic merit of her performances, but damn, I would not want, at 19, to be expected to still behave like I was 14.

I have also heard a lot of parental boo-hooing and castigation of VMA from parental watchdog groups saying they were clearly marketing to children just by having Miley on. What? Since when had MTV been for children? Why would a parent expect the MVA for be G rated suddenly? C'mon parents... do your homework.

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

donaithnen

3 years ago

I'm thinking that it won't be long before she Miley does a modified version of her old TV theme song:

"You get the best of both worlds . . . Tie me up, tie me down, make me laugh like a clown . . . "

Love your idea of the duet album.
Snrk.
This is so true. Thanks for bringing it to folks' attention!

Deleted comment

I hate how women get shamed for being "sluts" while men are praised for promiscuity.

*MEGA HIGH FIVE*

The logic behind that makes no sense. It's okay for a man to sleep with multiple women, but the reverse is somehow wrong? Please. It would better to pick a stance, and then apply it equally to men and women.

teal_cuttlefish

3 years ago

gothrockrulz

3 years ago

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Sing it, sister!
Eh.

*shrug*

She's trying to change her image. I personally think this was a bad idea, but....
Worm Quartet did a song about this kind of thing. It's called "I Want to be Taken Seriously as an Artist," and it's hilarious.

Here's the lyrics.

erinwrites

3 years ago

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Britney was 22, about 6 months older, when she kissed a 45 year old Madonna at the VMAs. So those who scold about that aspect are missing the point. 21 year olds can do sexual provocation and "edgey" work with great mastery and elan. The problem is Miley was trying to top Britney - and said as much - and is not very good at it. Burlesque done badly and desperately just makes everyone uncomfortable.

I was distracted by how Robin Thicke looked like he was wearing Beetlejuice's suit. What did bother me was her approach to black people as props. I'm not a big fan of Stefani's Harajuku Girls either, and this reheated that concept with an extra dollop of country/southern discord.


dragonsong

August 26 2013, 20:31:01 UTC 3 years ago Edited:  August 26 2013, 20:31:47 UTC

I saw a photoshopped version that put Beetlejuice in Thicke's place, and I may have nightmares. They also put Lydia in the audience, which was hilarious.

ETA - aaaaand if I'd clicked your link. Oh well. :P

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Yes. The end product of this is putting all women into enveloping covers -- chadors? -- so that men are not driven to sin because of the unbearable temptation.

That being said, I've been assuming that Cyrus's choices are actually Marketing demands, since she's legal now and they can Sex Her Up without being arrested, and there's no point to having a female artist without turning the sex up to 11 to get all the 14-to-21 and 18-to-34 boys you can. That is, I assume it's mostly cynical imposition by old men.
I had this thought as well. How much of it was her decision, and how much is pure marketing because Sex Sells and now she's Legal? Meh, even assuming it was completely her idea (which I doubt), double standards suck. Female pop stars can't be taken seriously as performers pretty much no matter what they do. Either they're so pure we point and laugh at them (Taylor Swift) or they're too promiscuous/suggestive and we slut-shame them (everyone else).

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Is it all her idea, or is Marketing trying to make a child star a Grown Woman [tm] which means lots of stupid poses - see every book cover since forever.

Because Marketing is always out for the righteous moment, oh yes.
aaaaand, when is Velveteen going to have a new adventure?
I am not currently planning a Velveteen revival.
I only know Robin Thicke from his performance on the Colbert Report(which I found a bit of a let down after the glorious bizarreness of the get lucky dance sequence)...but doesn't his entire schtick revolve solely around scantily clad women grinding erotically near him?

and now people are complaining about a woman who dared to grind erotically near him?

People are really unpleasantly inconsistent.

They really are.
I thought she just looked like she was one of those girls at a party that gets super drunk and tries waaaayyy too hard to get attention. And just winds up looking like a flailing mess. If somebody wants to be sexy, hey, go for broke. But there's a line, and a not even very fine line, between provocative and desperate.

Plus, if he wasn't in on the stunt, what she did several times over was pretty much sexual assault. Just sayin'.
Plus, if he wasn't in on the stunt, what she did several times over was pretty much sexual assault. Just sayin'.

Ayup.
Slut shaming and body shaming are certainly not ok.

The criticism of Miley Cyrus I'm seeing, though, is almost exclusively about her appropriating from black culture, which is a legitimate complaint. And that, if I understand the animated gifs I've seen, is also part of the thing she did.
Yep, that's been the main criticism I've been seeing, too

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

Without even seeing it, I'm having flashbacks of Britney at her VMA performance (I assume I don't need to specify which one), Christina when she became "X-Tina," Jessica Simpson when she tried to learn how to dance, and also that one episode of South Park where they talk about how people have a tendency to worship child stars while they're still children and then heap scorn and derision on them the minute they hit 18 no matter what choices they make. (It's called "Britney's New Look." And it's legitimately terrifying.)

This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME a female pop star either gets tired of being treated like a child and decides the way to fix that is to up the sexy. Every time. The male pop stars do it too--up the sexy, I mean--but I don't see Justin Bieber getting slut-shamed. There's plenty of hate flying around for him, but slut-shaming isn't on that list. Just think about that.
+100

I wish I could "like" this post!!

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

sirriamnis

August 26 2013, 22:44:54 UTC 3 years ago Edited:  August 26 2013, 22:55:41 UTC

Here, Here!!!!!!

It's not like the VMAs have EVER been the province of choir boys and nuns. I mean, come on, the first VMAs had Madonna humping the stage in a corseted white wedding dress.

And you are totally spot on that people give dudes a pass for this. Robin Thicke's really awful video for his really rapey song has naked girls, but outside of feminist discourse I don't hear anyone batting an eyelash.
The amount of money that song has made nauseates me.
My major thought on the clips I saw was "Girlfriend, you need a new dance teacher, because, well, you can't. SRSLY. I know strippers and former strippers who dance MUCH better than you do, why are you making more money than they are?"
Yeah, I do not know.
In the circles I'm in, most of the criticism of Miley has to do with racism (use of African American women as props in some of her acts, appropriation from the African American community) as opposed to sexualized performance. I'm not informed enough to even judge this as the case or not, but I've actually seen more criticism of that.

As for her sexualized performance... meh. People are acting like this is the first time they've ever seen anything like this?? I remember the controversy over Madonna performing in lingerie!
I've seen some of the racism critique, and have the same reaction: I think that she crossed a lot of lines there, I do not understand the field enough to be the one who criticizes her for it.
We need to drop the double standard.

Amen.
Srs.
What I've seen of the VMAs has just been too WTF to condemn or defend.
Agreed.
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