Today the country is infuriated that a pop star, who made a hit song about being a vulgar, drug addled floozy, had the audacity to go on stage and act like a vulgar, drug addled floozy while performing the song about being a vulgar, drug addled floozy. Damn it, Miley! We just like to LISTEN to young women promote and glorify debauchery and hedonism, we don’t want to SEE it!
Well, I mean, we DO like to see it — hence the billion dollar porno industry — we just don’t want to see it on MTV.
Well, actually, that’s an insane thing to say. MTV exists specifically to provide that sort of entertainment, so never mind, I guess. Carry on, Lady Cyrus.
Ms. Miley paraded around on stage in a skimpy outfit, babbled a bunch of inane lyrics, sang off key, touched herself suggestively, gyrated in front of the crowd and simulated sex with some of the other performers. In other words, it was a pretty routine evening of cable TV programming. It’s not that I don’t find her behavior offensive and crass — I do, very much so — it’s just that I’m always a little surprised by the folks who seem to be only selectively opposed to the moral decay of our culture. I’ve seen outraged parents on Twitter and Facebook swear that they “won’t allow their daughters to listen to Miley Cyrus anymore”.
Anymore?
You do realize that little display last night was an accurate portrayal of the CONTENT of the actual song, a song which is currently sitting at number 3 on the Billboard charts, don’t you? So you let your daughter listen to music that actively encourages her to get high and have random sex, you just won’t let her see the visual? I don’t think she should see it, either. But maybe we ought to think about the consequences of having that messaged hammered into our children’s brains every day, all day — even when it isn’t accompanied by the jarring image of a half naked, anorexic, self destructing former Disney Channel actress sexually degrading herself on national TV.
Here’s a sample lyric from the wildly popular song Miley performed last night:
“To my home girls here with the big butt
Shaking it like we at a strip club
…And everyone in line in the bathroom
Trying to get a line in the bathroom”
Translation: Hey, girls, do some coke and objectify yourselves!
The rest of the song is just the typical narcissist ramblings that can be heard in literally any pop song recorded in the last two decades:
“It’s our party we can do what we want
It’s our party we can say what we want
It’s our party we can love who we want
We can kiss who we want
We can see who we want
Red cups and sweaty bodies everywhere
Hands in the air like we don’t care
Cause we came to have so much fun now
Bet somebody here might get some now”
A real poet, that Miley Cyrus. It’s said that you will know a man by his fruits. Well I think you can know a lot about a country by its “art.” Our art, particularly our popular music, tends to aggressively stupid, irritating, and repugnant. Is it a coincidence that we seem to churn out a lot of human beings with the same qualities?
This is the nihilist’s homily our society preaches to kids on a daily basis: Do what you want. Have sex. You can’t be expected to control yourselves. Nobody can judge you. There is no morality. There is no God.
We are the Culture of Death, the Culture of Nothingness. Miley Cyrus is but one small consequence of it. Go onto a college campus on any Friday night and you’ll find thousands of other consequences behaving in a fashion pretty similar to Miley’s VMA performance. Every once in a while we catch a glance of ourselves in the mirror and recoil in horror because, as it turns out, being a society without any sense of discipline, decency, character, and self respect, really isn’t as cool as we might have imagined.
I’m not trying to turn the Miley Cyrus molehill into a proverbial mountain, but I am saying last night’s horror show didn’t happen in a vacuum. We are generally an oversexed, amoral civilization, and this is the sort of spectacle that sort of civilization produces. Pretty simple. People often seem troubled when a young woman acts so sexually desperate, but then many of those same folks will lash out with mockery and derision anytime someone suggests — GASP! — self control as an alternative.
Fine, have it your way, progressive sexual liberators. Note: what you saw last night — that was your way, FYI.
Congratulations.
Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.