Now I’m really going to show my age. During a meeting this morning, 20-somethings Alex and Alexa asked me if I’d heard about the reaction to Miley Cyrus’s antics at the MTV Awards the other night.
I have little to no interest in either the MTV Awards or Miley Cyrus, but I was intrigued because Miley has apparently come a long way since Hannah Montana.
“What antics?” I asked them.
“Well, she stripped down to a patent leather nude bikini and did an extremely sexual dance. You can see it on You Tube,” Alex told me.
So I clicked on over and watched the six-minute performance, which consisted of 20-year-old Miley bending, twisting, arching and otherwise employing her lovely body to suggest a number of sexual moves. A big foam hand, with a polished nail, served as her prop, which she pointed, positioned and poked at some man (another popular singer whose name I don’t recall.) She licked the finger of the hand at the end of the segment.
Miley is a big “twerker,” apparently. And for those of you who are dying to know what twerking means, here’s the definition from Wikipedia: “Twerking is a dance move that involves a person shaking the hips in an up-and-down bouncing motion, causing the dancer to shake, ‘wobble’ and ‘jiggle.’ To ‘twerk’ means to “dance in a sexually suggestive fashion by twisting the hips.”
Imagine, we thought slow dancing in the sixties was sexy! And, remember when Marilyn Monroe sang a sex-saturated version of “Happy Birthday” to Mr. President, John F. Kennedy? We were aghast at her sequined gown, which hugged her voluptuous curves and showed off every inch of her generous backside. How naïve we were.
Anyway, while I personally thought Miley’s performance was utterly boring, she has created quite a buzz online, both pro and con. The more I think about it, the more I realize that we’re both duplicitous and conflicted, as a society, when it comes to sex and sexuality. On the one hand, Actor Will Smith and his family collectively had their mouths agape during Miley’s performance, but Mr. Smith is complicit in an industry that promotes sex, drugs and violence. Sharon Stone advises young actresses to get totally nude when they’re doing love scenes, while young actresses, including Jessica Alba and Emma Stone, say they wouldn’t be caught dead in the nude.
Kim Kardashian’s sex tapes turn her into a megastar, yet Monica Lewinsky is banished to oblivion for performing a little oral sex in the Oval Office. We idolize Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt yet we think it’s awful that two gay men or lesbian women would want to get married and, heaven help us, have sex!
I don’t know what’s worse: Keeping sex behind closed doors, like our parents did, or creating a Miley Cyrus. I guess it takes extremes to arrive somewhere in the middle.
0 Responses to “Marilyn didn’t need to twerk”
Mick says:
Miley is a blue collar talent just like her father. Crude, ill-mannered, and inappropriately bereft of class. Still – bad publicity is better than none at all they say, and this was tame compared to the nude wrecking ball bit. Is there nothing more original than stripping off your clothing? She’s only got “been there, done nude” material? Nothing we haven’t all seen.
Elizabeth says:
Yes, Miley danced very sexy. However, how come no one made such a big deal when Howard Stern came flying down the other year with his BARE ASS hanging out? At least Miley looked good. I would rather see her sexy dancing instead of Howard Stern’s butt any day. Get over it, she is an adult and it was the MTV awards. There is something outrageous every year. The only person that could or should be upset is Robin Thicke’s girlfriend, if he has one.
Anne says:
You know, Miley doesn’t have the body (and she may never have the body) to twerk. You gots to have serious booty, thunder thighs, and be able to get down. Massive pelvic, hip, thigh, and gluteus maximus control. And you’ve got to be able to do it with your butt hanging lower than your knees, your legs spread wide apart. Miley came across as a wanna-be pedophile’s dream. She’s still built like a skinny kid, her face is still teenage, and she doesn’t have one whit of sexuality about her – not steamy, not nasty, not got to have you …
So, her performance was boring and sad. And dumb. But, she’s still getting attention!
Ida K says:
She got publicity.
Bettie says:
About Miley’s performance all I can say it get over it! It was no different in the 80’s with Madonna.
vwill says:
It’s actually not Alan Thicke, but his son, Robin.
And WHAT IS UP with even showing/glorifying these photos…Yet. One. More. Time? SERIOUSLY? I didn’t need to have that with my morning coffee –it’s been all over TV.
Let’s celebrate celebs with class (that may be hard to find, though). And I DO NOT idolize Angelina, OR Brad — and not even adulteress-drug-swigging Marilyn.
Has our society improved with pushing the envelope? Uh….no. Why are we surprised that younger and younger kids are having sex? Or that 13-year-olds dress like hookers with the approval of their “But-I-wanna-be-my-daughter’s-friend…” moms?
The more our moral compass (or lack thereof) get’s pushed south, the more we lose direction as a society.
Sara says:
Miss Monroe wasnt an adulteress. And she wasnt a druggie. She took prescription medication for her insomnia and endometriosis. A lot of people take prescription medication for many things, it doesnt mean they are an addict. Some people need it to survive. Don’t judge someone by what you read on google. Most things you read about her is far from the truth. She was a class act, people who lived and saw her in the 1950s knew the truth, not the 21s century perceptions of her.
“Someday someone is going to say, ‘All the lies ever told about Ava Gardner are true.’ And the truth about me, just like the truth about poor, maligned Marilyn Monroe, will disappear like the names on old tombstones.” -Ava Gardner