I had never heard of Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana until people started talking about the show as it had become popular with Millennials in the latter part of the 2000s. I think they referenced it in Zombieland at one point. I had pretty much stopped watching The Disney Channel in the late 1980s and early 1990s unless I saw some old-school toons. But over the latter 2000s and into the early 2010s, Cyrus appeared to be the “safer version” of Britney Spears to many, even though now we know it wasn’t really Britney’s fault.
Miley’s father was Billy Ray Cyrus whose mullet even in the 1992-1993 era was the type of godly awful thing no decent human being would leave the house letting people see even in some of the podunkest of communities. His rowdy behavior was the type of things country-western music was trying to move away from as Garth Brooks took it mainstream and others turned it into pro-American, White Christian Nationalism propaganda. I went years and I mean, years before I realize her brother was Trace Cyrus, the tattooed emo-looking singer of Metro Station. Imagine Post Malone and Kylo Ren if they merged. And anyone whoi had heard the lyrics to the popular “Shake It,” knew it meant something totally sexual.
So, why the hell were people surprised when in the late summer of 2013, Miley Cyrus, 21, appeared at the MTV’s Video Music Awards and danced around in skimpy clothes and for only a few seconds twerked a little while Robin Thicke, dressed like Beetlejuice, gyrated his crotch on her bum? The way people talked about it, you think they’d had a massive orgy on the stage something to rival whatever the most foul and filthy comics could ever come up with for “The Artistocrats” joke.
No one seemed to question why Thicke, who was 15 years older and married to Paula Patton, at the time was performing that way with a younger woman? Thicke’s “Blurred Lines ” which also featured T.I. and Pharrell Williams had become a big hit over the summer, even though the song has very date-rapey vibes looking back 10 years. Hell, people began to notice it at the time. Even the music video had two versions – one where the women, including Emily Ratajkowski, were featured half naked in bras and panties and the others where they showed off their bare breats. Patton would also accuse Thicke of domestic abuse, infedlity, drug and alcohol abuse when a year late she filed for divorcea.
But all people could talk about was how Miley had turned into a “complete slut.” That phrase I saw a lot of on social media. She became openly mocked for sticking her tongue out and every self-righteous Christian Gen Xer who did at least 100 times worse in high school and/or college was condemning her. A still frame of Will Smith and his children, Willow and Jaden, at the VMA was incorrectly identified as them watching the performance. Willow was yawning while Will was just chewing gum and Jaden was being Jaden. (Of course, the irony of using the Smith family wouldn’t age well over the next 10 years itself.)
You know good and well from the start of Hannah Montana, so many disgusting creeps watch the show and probably tossed off to it. And this was when Miley was a minor. The entertainment industry is so full of creeps who sexualize women and especially children. Then, the same industry condemns them when they don’t act like Amish/Mennonite docile women.
Yes, in 2013, Miley was now a young woman at 21. She’s 30 now. And call me crazy, she kinda looks more like a young Frances McDormand now. I know there were jokes about how much she resembled Justin Bieber at the time. And we’re not going to talk what he looks like now.
But it makes you wonder why so many people wanted to say so much about Miley when MTV and music videos have always been about sexualizing women, even those who were very young. Even M.C. Hammer, who was as straight as an arrow for Middle American rap, went down the rabbit hole with his music video “Pumps in a Bump” which makes the twerking performance at the VMA look like the G-rated “Everyone Wants to be a Cat” dance. And Hammer, real name Stanley Kirk Burrell, had a wife and kids too just like Thicke.
But. no, it’s Miley who deserved our ridicule and scorn. And even when she made that “Wrecking Ball” video where she swings around naked, people went after her. Yet, they didn’t mind when porn star and accused rapist Ron Jeremy did a parody. We seem to hold women to a higher standard when they want to explore their own sexuality. But it’s really about controlling them.
We criticize Spears for making Instagram videos that are very tame compared to what other women post social media. And just about anyone reading this probably knows at least one person who has an OnlyFans account. But let’s not act like it all started with Britney or Miley. Shirley Temple Black said people used to sexualize her decades ago when she was a small child.
I’m sure someone picked out Miley’s costumes and arranged the duet between her and Thicke and there was choreography she learned. She just didn’t pop up on a stage unannounced and unplanned. MTV producers wanted this. Because that’s the industry they’re in.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 