Another MTV Video Music Awards, another round of controversy.
For nearly 30 years now, the cable channel formerly known as Music Television has excelled at offering pop culture’s provocateurs du jour a big stage from which to shock the masses. And this year, Miley Cyrus went “all in” in her bid to win the 2013 VMA shockstakes.
Cyrus performed an exceedingly suggestive version of her song, “We Can’t Stop,” before stripping off a teddy-bear themed leotard to reveal a flesh-colored bikini of sorts for her duet with Robin Thicke. As the pair sang “Blurred Lines” (about a man taking advantage of a drunk woman), more lascivious behavior ensued, mostly involving Miley’s nonverbal, ahem, “interaction” with Thicke in even more sexually suggestive ways.
Many cultural commentators—from conservative pundits and Christians to feminists and celebrities—have weighed in on Miley’s performance. The vast majority of that commentary has been critical, mocking or both … even as Miley’s antics have resulted in a kind of publicity “superstorm” that she obviously views as a good thing (more on that in a minute).
Writing for the Huffington Post, psychologist Peggy Drexler said of Miley’s performance:
Last night Miley Cyrus proved sex is a stunt that never gets old. What’s different about Cyrus’s performance, however, which seems to have generated an unprecedented level of outrage, is not its by-now old-hat hypersexuality but its particular seaminess. …. [But] sex sells, and pop culture particularly loves reimagining erstwhile Disney stars as porn stars.
Miley’s antics on MTV definitely got the attention of the Parents Television Council. The television watchdog organization’s director of public policy, Dan Isett, said of the VMA broadcast,
MTV has once again succeeded in marketing sexually charged messages to young children using former child stars and condom commercials—while falsely rating this program as appropriate for kids as young as 14. This is unacceptable. … This much is absolutely clear: MTV marketed adults-only material to children while falsely manipulating the content rating to make parents think the content was safe for their children. MTV continues to sexually exploit young women by promoting acts that incorporate ‘twerking’ in a nude-colored bikini. How is this image of former child star Miley Cyrus appropriate for 14-year-olds?
As for Miley’s peers in the entertainment industry, many couldn’t resist this golden Twitter opportunity. Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson tweeted, “I just watched the #VMAs & I know I’m going to have nightmares about Miley Cyrus.” Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher said, “Watching VMAs. Haven’t been to a strip club in a while, but good to see nothing has changed.” Actor James Van Der Beek tweeted, “Things I learned watching the #VMAs2013: There’s nothing you can do with a foam finger that you can’t air on MTV.”
But even though Miley didn’t take home any awards during the evening, she was still arguably the night’s biggest winner when it came to the publicity her raunchy shtick generated.
Miley’s performance generated massive online activity, a whopping 306,000 Twitter messages per minute—nearly 100,000 more per minute than her next closest competitor, Justin Timberlake. Meanwhile, her newest single, “Wrecking Ball,” jumped to the top (or near the top) of Amazon and iTunes’ sales charts. Miley happily retweeted Rolling Stone magazine’s assessment of her performance: “‘Miley was the one star in the room who truly understood what the MTV Video Music Awards are all about! Miley stole the night, which is why the nation is still in recovery today. Thanks, Miley…’ – Rolling Stone”
And all of that is arguably proof that the controversy-stirring strategy pioneered by Madonna and perfected by Britney Spears is still a very effective one today—something both Miley and the producers of MTV’s VMAs know very well.
Perhaps nothing I read, however, put things in perspective quite as effectively as Christian youth culture expert Walt Mueller did in his blog on the VMAs. For all Miley’s supposed shock, it was really nothing of the sort, Mueller noted:
There was nothing at all surprising. Not one thing. If you’ve been watching culture for any length of time it should come as no surprise that what you saw is not only all around us, but it’s reflective of who we are. It is the soup that our kids swim in every day. It shapes their values, their attitudes, and their behaviors. How many young bloggers were protesting [the VMAs] yesterday? Why didn’t we see any? For most kids, this is normal fare. Nothing out of the ordinary. Sure, it’s nuanced in the sense that it has been evolving over the years. Pop culture is always stretching the envelope. … Even this year’s routine by twenty-year-old Miley Cyrus wasn’t shocking in the sense that it could never have been anticipated. We are reaping what we’ve sown and culture is on a step-by-step progression that is not only still moving in the same direction, but it’s moving faster and faster as time passes.
I think Walt Mueller is right here. What feels shocking and utterly beyond inappropriate to an older audience is just “another day at the office” to many in younger generations who have grown up on a steady diet of fare that is often, unfortunately, even more explicit that the bizarrely sensual show Miley Cyrus put on at the VMAs.
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