Althouse: "We were OK with Miley wearing a one-piece with a bear sticking its tongue out on it."

August 26, 2013

"We were OK with Miley wearing a one-piece with a bear sticking its tongue out on it."

"We were OK with Miley sticking her face all up in that ladies big butt. However, when she ripped off her clothes to grind all up on Beetlejuice Robin Thicke, that was the twerk that broke the camel's back."

From NY Magazine's selections of the highs and lows of last night's VMA show. I watched the segment described above. It made me feel bad. But they were trying so hard to make people (admittedly, not me) feel good. Like they were bursting with barely containable sexual energy. Like they were. The most entertaining parts were the occasional shots of sad-looking men in the audience who seemed to be averting their eyes.

32 comments:

Opus One Media said...: limits to good taste, seemingly no limits on bad.; 8/26/13, 7:47 AM
Wince said...: After watching that, I'm pulling my money out of the stock market.; 8/26/13, 7:53 AM
Iconochasm said...: The best part was the reaction shot of Will Smith's family. His son's expression about covers it. On the plus side, we have a new cultural benchmark for "travesty".; 8/26/13, 8:01 AM
Moose said...: I could barely watch it. Really awful.; 8/26/13, 8:17 AM
LarryK said...: My brain needs a bath...that was comprehensively awful. It almost makes me long for the understated elegance of Niki Minaj.; 8/26/13, 8:47 AM
Unknown said...: That was quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Like a dance routine created by ten year old girls, with some weird grinding added.; 8/26/13, 9:12 AM
Avierra said...: I found this reaction pic of the performance pretty entertaining as well: https://twitter.com/NYDreamVillain/status/371810086723010561/photo/1

Her performance, not so much, but then I am not her target audience. Actually, this train of thought makes me wonder just who her intended audience is.; 8/26/13, 9:18 AM
CatherineM said...: That was sad and it made my stomach turn too. The tongue, the crotch grabbing, the rubbing herself with the foam finger in a bra and panties.

It was porn.; 8/26/13, 9:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Can't. Stop. Masturbating.

To the Big Stuffed Dancing Bears, of Course.; 8/26/13, 9:44 AM
Jaq said...: My daughter actually woke me up this morning to tell me about how dreadful this was.; 8/26/13, 9:48 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: It takes behavior this egregious to make one wonder if the Taliban have a point about American culture.; 8/26/13, 10:35 AM
n.n said...: She is either a freak or a genius. I wonder where people will finally draw the line on unrefined liberalism.; 8/26/13, 11:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Cyrus's behavior on stage has not one thing to do with liberalism, refined or otherwise. It was vulgar and it indicated this young woman is not in a healthy place in her life.; 8/26/13, 12:50 PM
n.n said...: Cyrus's behavior is exemplary of unrefined liberalism, which is simply a reactive philosophy to "traditional" constraints and standards. She is the prototypical rebel with a cause and without a clue.; 8/26/13, 1:14 PM
Conserve Liberty said...: Well when you sell reciords to 14-year-old boys . . . .

I was discussing with my wife this morning that her father isn't very happy with all of this. She says he tried (and clearly failed) to protect her from Disneywood - even having a part on the Hannah Montana show - and thinks she is a slow-motion accident in progress (as is Taylor Swift).

It isn't the women out there who are the problem - it's the men who ruin them.; 8/26/13, 1:18 PM
William said...: Too much depravity can easily slip over into silliness. It takes a certain amount of taste and self discipline to achieve depravity. I think next year the back up dancers should have sex with farm animals. That would break new ground and not be so silly as eroticizing stuffed animals.; 8/26/13, 1:19 PM
JRoberts said...: "Cyrus's behavior on stage has not one thing to do with liberalism, refined or otherwise. It was vulgar and it indicated this young woman is not in a healthy place in her life."

I agree it is a reach to equate Cyrus's performance to a political viewpoint. However, I do believe that political liberalism and "performance art" of this type are rooted in the same worldview that believes that man is no more than an evolved animal that has no value beyond this material plane.

It's a worldview that devalues the human spirit and manifests itself in many ways in our culture. I'm reminded of a passage from the Bible that states "Professing to be wise, they became fools..."; 8/26/13, 1:38 PM
Joe said...: Miley Cyrus has always been a talentless hack relying on cuteness. When the cuteness ran out, she had nowhere to go but shock. The problem is that without any underlying talent, it just becomes obscene.; 8/26/13, 1:43 PM
Clyde said...: Assuming she doesn't Anna Nicole herself, she'll look back on this and cringe. As well she should.; 8/26/13, 2:41 PM
madAsHell said...: The only thing missing was the stripper's pole.; 8/26/13, 2:41 PM
Cedarford said...: Muslims, as Tyrone mentioned, do have a huge point about the sheer repulsiveness of the ever-worsening vulgarity of mass market American culture. A vulgarity carefully and knowingly amped to the max to maximize the money the liberal and progressive jewish owners of most mass entertainment crave.

I can't blame Muslims in foreign lands for thinking America is the most vile, oppressive land on Earth because all they generally see of us is what is delivered to them from our mass media entertainment sewer. Not who most Americans really are. We really don't think the black underclass is the coolest, sexiest, most peaceful, and wisest and best part of humanity ever - despite media homages to it. We really don't want "All homo, all the time! Its so fabulous!" shows. We really don't want next year to have Miley naked on stage next year, servicing three cocks in each of her openings...We really don't like the constant mockery of religion, family, American culture. The sneers of celebs at hard working dull people in their dull jobs no TV show could be based on...

We Americans, in turn, have taken certain "God-given rights" - denied each citizen has responsibilities and duties that go with "rights" - and taken some of those "rights" to such extremes it is taking all of us on a path of failed democracy and to devolving into what Detroit is. Unless things change in our present dysfunctional system.
Or if unchanged, a scale of emergency comes into being such that we are forced to end our present democratic and judicial systems, absolutist "rights" - in a military takeover or revolution and start afresh.

Start afresh with a new consensus on rights, duties, and limits to what society deems to be the future expected rights and duties. A modern and better "Sacred Parchment" is written in lieu of a failed Constitution.; 8/26/13, 2:55 PM
Robert Cook said...: "...rooted in the same worldview that believes that man is no more than an evolved animal..."

But that is exactly the truth.

"...that has no value beyond this material plane."

I don't know what this means. I don't know of any atheists who assert humankind has "no value beyond this material plane." That's a meaningless statement. Rather, there is no discernible existence for us beyond this plane.

"It's a worldview that devalues the human spirit...."

Hmmm...whereas one might also suggest that the Western world's traditionally prim propriety regarding matters of the body is unhealthy, dishonest and devaluing of humanity in the imposition of shame on us for our natural impulses and bodily functions, while those cultures which celebrate sexuality as central to our existence--it is, after all, how we all come to be--are simply being honest in acknowledging our prime directive, as it were.; 8/26/13, 3:41 PM
Kev said...: (the other kev)

Those music execs are besmirching the good name of honest pornographers.; 8/26/13, 3:46 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/26/13, 4:15 PM
Crunchy Frog said...: Well when you sell reciords to 14-year-old boys . . . .

Her audience is 14-year old girls, not boys. Girls who see this behavior and want to emulate it.

It isn't the women out there who are the problem - it's the men who ruin them.

There are no heterosexual men choreographing VMA dance routines.; 8/26/13, 4:18 PM
n.n said...: Cedarford:

The Constitution did not fail. It is, however, less coherent, when divorced from our national charter, The Declaration of Independence, which conceived its birth.

The problem is the civilization paradox, which describes a progressive dissociation of risk, by circumstance and design. This is the basis for corruption, and is motivated by dreams of material, physical, and ego instant (or immediate) gratification.

The issue is that liberty is only suitable and possible for men and women capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior. The consequences of unrefined liberalism will not be constrained to its immediate adherents. Fortunately, liberalism is a generational philosophy. Unfortunately, it is wholly inconsistent outside of this frame. Let's hope that mature minds prevail.; 8/26/13, 4:57 PM
autothreads said...: That was sad and it made my stomach turn too. The tongue, the crotch grabbing, the rubbing herself with the foam finger in a bra and panties.

It was porn.

Nah. Porn gets your aroused if it's at all done well. This was creepier than lots of porn.

I seem to recall a time when feminists were all in a twitter about "cock rock", strutting stud rock stars, but it seems to me that it's been the ladies, er, rather women women, like Madonna, Lady Gaga etc who have been acting in a far more overt sexual manner. If Madonna is going to grab her body parts, what's a budding young rockslut to do to surpass that?; 8/26/13, 10:13 PM
jr565 said...: If you're going to do a strip show you might as well show your tits. Otherwise you're just a tease. Cyrus is horrible as an entertainer and also horrible as a sex object.
Porn and modern culture really ruined sex. How boring it is to watch people like Cyrus shaking her ass.

Too boring to even give you a boner.; 8/26/13, 11:58 PM
jr565 said...: Maybe the problem is Disney. They seem to be pumping out a bunch if whores.; 8/27/13, 12:03 AM
jr565 said...: The really sad thing is this act shows that she's a terrible dancer and singer gettin by solely on her ability to tittilate. If you compare that to even Britney Spears you can see her moves come across as limited.
All she did was stick her tongue out a few times and stuck her butt in the air.; 8/27/13, 12:43 AM
jr565 said...: Robert cook wrote:
Hmmm...whereas one might also suggest that the Western world's traditionally prim propriety regarding matters of the body is unhealthy, dishonest and devaluing of humanity in the imposition of shame on us for our natural impulses and bodily functions, while those cultures which celebrate sexuality as central to our existence--it is, after all, how we all come to be--are simply being honest in acknowledging our prime directive, as it were.

Yeah but if you watch Miley and her act you realize how banal sex for sex's sake as entertainment isn't all the sexy or entertaining. And a drunk puking all over himself may be exhibiting his natural impulses and bodily functions and it may even be honest, but perhaps, if the choice is propriety or falling all over yourself drunk then maybe propriety should win out at least some of the time.
Libertines may be more honest but they are still libertines, and unless you remove the standard of propriety there is no reason why libertinism has to be looked at neutrally.; 8/27/13, 12:49 AM
Anonymous said...: As the genius David "Iowahawk" Burge tweeted, "If Miley Cyrus really wanted to shock people, she'd become a rodeo clown and wear an Obama mask."; 8/27/13, 1:35 PM