A joint
post by Katya, Christina, Ceilidh & Cory.
Katya: Lots of people seem
concerned about Miley Cyrus. From her VMA performance to the Wrecking Ball
video, everyone is very, VERY concerned for Miley Cyrus. Doubtlessly, the
concern will turn to vitriol now that she has declared herself a feminist, because
(insert preferred reasons.)
I
have one question though: For all of the concern people express,
how many of them have tried addressing the cause of the problem? Namely, that
they, in perpetuating the “save the children” myth have created a
generation of young people that has been grown under a jar and then
roughly thrust into adult life without so much as an instruction manual?
Maybe
instead of clutching our pearls of what Miley Cyrus is doing we ought to
start a conversation about the values we raise young people to.
Ceilidh: I'm bemused, amused and highly
offended by the same women who try desperately to convince young women to call
themselves feminist sneering at women like Cyrus for taking up the mantle. We
saw this a lot when Beyoncé said she was "kind of" a feminist. Oh
god, she can't be a feminist. She poses seductively on the front of magazines!
She named her tour the Mrs Carter Tour! Tear away her feminist badge! Then
again, these women are currently too busy fawning over Lily Allen, whose latest
effort proclaims to be feminist and female positive yet comes with a dose of
slut-shaming and a racially problematic accompanying video. It seems that some
feminists are more equal than others.
Back to
Miley, it's often forgotten amidst her antics and accompanying publicity that
she's only 20. Not only has she grown up in the limelight, she did it while
under some extremely strict contractual obligations. That Hannah Montana long
brown haircut she had? She was contractually obliged by Disney to have that
exact haircut while working on the show. She was trotted out on TV sets, music
tours, a book tour for her autobiography, and all under the happy mantle of the
House of Mouse. Her dad, of Achy Breaky Heart and Hannah Montana co-star fame,
talked openly about feeling more like her friend than her dad. She was hoisted
to the position of role model for girls her own age and let's not forget the
God fearing promise ring wearing "good girl" image she was forced to
maintain. Can anyone blame her for getting a Twiggy haircut and licking a few
sledgehammers?
Christina: If people want a perfect example
of how damaging a life can be while growing up in the public eye, they need to
look no further than Michael Jackson. He was often referred to as someone with
"Peter Pan syndrome", often because the public didn't WANT him to
grow up. He was to remain "little Michael", a sexless cherubic child
with an enormous amount of talent.
A more
recent example is Britney Spears, who was held up as a role model for being
successful, attractive, and a self-proclaimed virgin. She was also almost
instantly sexualized, wearing a schoolgirl outfit while dancing provocatively
in her video for "One More Time" and posing in her underwear for
Rolling Stone before she was eighteen.
Miley Cyrus
states that she is doing as she pleases and is not being coerced into dressing
or acting a certain way. If this is true, is she indeed a feminist? Are those
who condemn her slut-shaming her, or do they have a point? Is it possible to be
a feminist while celebrating your sexuality as a woman?
That might
be the key thing here. Cyrus is still seen as a little girl, not a woman. Also,
her tone is more raunchy than mature. If she was to do a suggestive photo-shoot
for a fashion ad rather than grinding on stage with a foam finger and sticking
her tongue out, would this still warrant a discussion?
Katya: I think the major
problem here is that people still see “feminism” as a passing fad, rather
than an important social movement to bring about true equality.
If we truly
didn’t need “feminism” because “we’re all equal”, we’d be able to see
that women can be as varied and as unapologetic in their expression as men are
without condemning them. We would be able to view Beyoncé and Miley as artists
first, women next, as we are supposed to view men. We would be able to discuss
their work without having to descend into heavily polarised discussions because
to each their own and (dis)liking either of those artists was just a personal
choice, not a political/moral statement.
(Incidentally,
this is also one of the reasons why I’m baffled by people hailing John Green as
the saviour of YA because he writes: “rich, complex characters”
and “view MPDG as real people.” I mean, wow, a man who views women as
human beings! All of the gold stars!)
Instead, we
use a woman calling herself “feminist” either to fawn over her or to slam
the movement. Which, incidentally, ends up supporting the status
quo because it sets women against one another, and rather than them
focusing their effort on kicking patriarchy, they kick themselves and feed into
the stereotype of “emotional women” who can’t handle “serious
subjects.”
Christina: I'm also confused as to where the
line is drawn, because clearly there is a line. It's "okay" for a
woman to have a nude scene in an elegant drama, but not okay to pose for Playboy.
It's "okay" for an older woman to flaunt her younger
boyfriend/husband, but not okay for a woman to talk about how great her sex
life is with anyone. Where is the line and why is it there?
Women who
don't sexualize themselves are held up as the gold standard, but why? Miley
Cyrus is an adult. If she did that performance when she was underage, that
would be another issue. Why do we assume that when a woman shows off her body
and sexuality, she is not doing so by her own choice?
Cory: I think it would also be important
to consider the series of open letters between Sinead O'Conner and Miley, as
well as the racial implications left by the performance if we're truly going to
address Miley vs Feminism. I find the latter rather important as there seems to
be a growing divide between white feminists and WoC, with WoC, choosing not to
even identify as such. Also, with Sinead a while back being a rather large face
of feminism choosing to slut shame Miley.
Also, Joss
Whedon's recent weird little speech on Feminism vs Genderism.
It is a
rather large topic, IMO. Truly interesting that Miley would choose to identify
as a feminist now but many major pop stars won't.
Ceilidh: It’s still safer for pop stars, especially
young ones, to play the “I’m not a feminist, but” card. Feminism’s still seen
as radical hysteria fuelled by a desire to castrate men by a surprisingly large
portion of the population. Then again, after decades of an overwhelming
narrative pushing this falsified image, it’s not hard to see why, and it’s also
not hard to see why women refuse the mantle. Feminism to this day is not an
all-inclusive club of happy sisterhood: Trans women, sex workers, the working
class, women of colour, uneducated women, disabled women, etc, all feel
excluded from modern discourse on feminism. When the media spends its days
declaring Joss Whedon, Lena Dunham and Lily Allen the saviours of feminism, I occasionally
feel the need to jump ship myself.
It
also doesn't help that nuance entirely fails a substantial number of
commentators when it comes to an issue like feminism. There is a very strong
argument to be made against Miley Cyrus, mostly in relation to her
objectification of women of colour and the general mantle known as black
culture in an attempt to promote herself. The twerking's been sneered at but
there's a point to be made there. Unfortunately, it's one that's passed by so
many because gender and race are seen as entirely separate issues. Nope, life
is not a single issue to be solved, everything intersects.
For Miley, we
can't just look at her age and circumstances. We should also take a gander at
her manager, the man partially responsible for Britney Spears in her jail bait
titillating school girl number. We talk about sex selling but if that were the
case every male pop star out there would thrust against hammers with their meat
and two veg on show. Sex doesn't sell - sexualising women sells, and Cyrus's
YouTube page views and single sales are a perfect example of that.
Katya: Ah, yes, I believe
Caitlin Moran was fawning over Lilly Allen for her “satire”, but people
accuse Miley of being racist. White middle class feminists, who tend to be
the “elite” for this kind of thing, don’t like talking about WoC, but they
will gladly shame Miley for being racist because?
I have no
doubt that Miley’s expression is racially problematic, but the fact that she’s
the only one to actively promote the idea that feminism isn’t a monolith is a
pretty big stand against the views expressed by the elite. Is that why
feminists like Allen and O’Conner slam her? Because she dares to say that their
little club should not be so exclusive?
Speaking of
the sex sells, can I say something about Wrecking Ball? I get why the fuss over
the video, but has anyone actually listened to the lyrics? That’s some major
cognitive dissonance right there. The song is about a strained relationship and
the singer’s gradual disillusionment with the whole “save the tortured
boy” idea that permeates our society; the video is only barely appropriate
because it has the most literal interpretation of the lyrics.
Again, how
many people slamming Miley for the video actually listened to the lyrics?
Christina: It's obvious that a lot of people
are still offended by Cyrus's VMA performance, judging by the sheer amount of
rage directed to her (particularly from other women). I myself saw it as an
obvious marketing ploy and was therefore less than impressed.
Take a look
at this list of top ten MTV VMA shocking performances.
Most of the performers were women who shocked audiences with their blatant
sexuality. One of the more buzz-worthy performances was a kiss from Madonna to
Britney Spears and Christina Aguliera, which Stevie Nicks called
"obnoxious" and stating that Britney "dug a hole" forherself with the public kiss.
Ceilidh: The
VMAs are an irrelevant little show that thrives on shock value. It always has.
Cyrus fit the mould perfectly and did her job. The fact that so many people
seem determined to beat this dead horse to dust (while ignoring the date rape
song cohort of her on-stage shenanigans, Robin Thicke) shows how little our
mainstream media actually cares about feminism, something they see as
simultaneously too exclusive and not exclusive enough.
The issue
with the Wrecking Ball video that many have had (other than Cyrus’s inability
to act) is the involvement of the director, Terry Richardson, a man who has
received several accusations of sexual harassment from women who have modelled
for him. The male gaze becomes more evident with Cyrus’s video when his
involvement is acknowledged, or at least it does for me. Like Thicke using
Cyrus for VMAs publicity, it leads to the question of how much a 20 year old
woman is being used by fully grown men with more power for the purposes of
making money.
Christina: What would be a way to combat this line of thinking? Do we as a society
agree that a woman can make her own choices but is still a feminist? Why is a
woman who wants to stay at home, raise her kids, and cook automatically not a
feminist? Why is a career woman a feminist unless she's a sex worker who is
happy with her job and her life? How can we get away from the knee jerk
reactions and the vitriol, and can we even do so?
Katya: Engaging in a discussion about intersectionality, as well as an honest
critique about the truly problematic aspects of pop culture (racism in the way
the media treats Miley vs Rihanna, the fact that Macklemore, an admittedly
gifted rapper, is only able to do his shtick (publish independently and reap
amazing awards) because of some inherent privilege.)
Ceilidh: The issue, as with life in general, could benefit
from a little nuance and some context. The intersectional approach is the right
one too (I have no time for those who dismiss it or claim it's overtly
complex). We also need to take some time to explain that women can and will
make decisions that aren't necessarily feminist, and doing so doesn't
relinquish them of their desire to be treated equally to a man. Miley Cyrus can
lick her hammers and show her nipples and still be a feminist (but all the
racial appropriation needs to stop now because that's definitely not feminist).
It can be hard to always do or say the right thing when you're both blinded by
your own privilege and living under the smothering awareness of generations of
internalised misogyny and a patriarchy that compares wanting equal rights to
Nazism.
Feminism
itself isn't an amoeba. It evolves, it's not made up of one united movement and
it hasn't always done good. Look at the classism, transphobia, racism and
shaming that still prevails in modern discourse. If you claim to be a feminist yet see nothing wrong with disparaging women
like Cyrus for calling themselves as such while praising Joss Whedon's
mansplaining derailing of so-called 'genderism' then you're a far bigger
problem than a pop star licking a hammer.
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