At the MTV awards show, popular culture reached another new low with the Miley Cyrus bump and grind dance routine. Sadly, her entertainment went well beyond bump and grind, to downright gross. Aided by Robin Thicke, who should know better, this spectacle was unsuitable for audiences of all ages.
I’m not a prude, but I do think there should be some boundaries, some standards of decency. About the only thing she didn’t do in her over the top display was full frontal nudity. While MTV likes to portray itself as edgy, this was going too far, even for them. Don’t they have any adult supervision at MTV?
I know what Cyrus was attempting to do. Taking a page out of the Madonna playbook, he was reinventing herself, as Madonna has successfully done several times in her career. Cyrus wanted to go from the squeaky clean Disney character Hannah Montana to a sexy Madonna-type adult. However, she overshot her goal and went beyond sexy to slutty. Of course she also presented herself as a terrible role model for girls. I’m sure there will now be an outbreak of Miley-type dance routines appearing on YouTube done by everybody from pre-pubescent girls to 20-somethings. Sexting will be on the rise once more as well.
Besides the obvious (at least I hope they are obvious to you), there are two other problems with what Cyrus did:
First, this will cause body-image problems for girls who aren’t built like Miley Cyrus.
Second, Miley and Robin reduced girls and women to sex objects by their sensual exhibition.
I hope Miley just fades away – that this ends up becoming her unintended swan song. That would show that there are limits, that we still have some standards of decency, and that such over the top performances don’t insure success, Madonna and Lady Gaga notwithstanding.
If her performance does end up launching a new career for her, then God help this country and western civilization.
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