USA TODAY International Edition
Miley Cyrus twerkfest sparks cultural freakout
Jim Farber, Daily News, New York: “The biggest winner at this year’s Video Music Awards didn’t take home a single award. Miley Cyrus bagged the only prize that counts: Chatter. By letting her tongue lay lazily out of the side of her mouth like a dog on a hot day, and grinding her crotch like a sex worker who’s seen happier times, Cyrus titillated and appalled millions — a surefire formula for modern success. ... It doesn’t seem to matter that her moves appear more than a tad desperate, not to mention obvious. Cyrus has been trying to ‘ grow up’ for years now.” Shirley Halperin, The Hollywood Reporter: “What made it so cringe- worthy was its crassness — from the song itself to Cyrus’ choice of wardrobe and stage props reminiscent of a bad acid trip. Instead of singing along to We Can’t Stop, it seemed more fitting for the horrified masses to scream, ‘ Please, stop!’ Robin Thicke’s appearance half- way through the song didn’t help matters much.” Penny Young Nance, Fox News: “Britney, Lindsay and now Miley. Disney produces human train wrecks, and then MTV slaps the faces of American parents as they parade their freak show of objectification in front of our kids. Shame on them — and on us — for funding it. ... Miley needs to know that in fact, she can stop, and she should. The reaction comes not because of her age or upbringing but because she was absolutely classless and self- degrading. ... Less than a hundred years after our nation guaranteed women the right to vote, after decades of societal development for women, we cry out for this degradation of our self- respect to end. Come on, ladies, we can do better. We are better.” Tom Hawking, Flavorwire: “Head to pretty much any club in America on a Saturday night and you’ll see girls of every color doing exactly what Cyrus was doing on stage. ... She spent her teens in the clutches of Disney, but maybe now she’s asserting herself. Is it so outlandish a thought that she’s finally making the music, and portraying the image, that she wants to? ... What exactly has Cyrus done that’s so bad? ... She’s not throwing bongs out win- dows or shaving her head in public. She’s flaunting her body and twerking. It’s not the end of the world.” Kia Makarechi, The Huffington Post: “The 20- year- old’s VMAs performance marks another chapter not only in Miley’s reckless use of black culture as proof that she’s subversive and no longer a Disney star, but of the entertainment industry’s casual co- signing of her team’s idiocy. How did no one, for example, think that having voluptuous, black backup dancers figure as meat for Cyrus’ slapping was offensive?” Jody Rosen, Vulture: “Her act tipped over into what we may as well just call racism: a minstrel show routine whose ghoulishness was heightened by Cyrus’ madcap charisma, and by the dark beauty of We Can’t Stop — by a good distance, the most powerful pop hit of 2013. ... Cyrus’ twerk act gives minstrelsy a postmodern careerist spin. Cyrus is annexing working- class black ‘ ratchet’ culture, the potent sexual symbolism of black female bodies, to the cause of her reinvention.” Amanda Marcotte, Slate: “Try not caring. Step back and really look at the performance. If it were anywhere but the VMAs, we would not be that interested in a mediocre pop star in a beige bathing suit rattling her butt at Alan Thicke’s son in an inept attempt at eroticism. ... She’s insulting our intelligence to think that we’d be scandalized by such an obvious ploy. Don’t let her win.”