In the pornified music world populated by churned-out female pop stars pumping and grinding to a sexualised script, cavorting semi-naked and presented as sexually insatiable, we see Miley Cyrus simulating sex acts while denuded of real sexuality.
While many around the world condemned what was seen as an overtly sexualised performance at the recent MTV music awards, her crotch-centred routine – which included rubbing the groins of herself and Robin Thicke with a giant hand possibly stolen from a Coles ”down, down, prices are down” ad – was one of the most desexed stage performances I have seen.
Miley Cyrus is a business. Her mostly male management would have scripted every plastic fake sex move. In an industry dominated by men, Cyrus thrusted and writhed because these same men thought there would be money in it.
The view of some young people whose thoughts I sought in schools last week was that it was less an expression of sexuality than of ugliness. For them, Cyrus’ performance represented a distorted version of female sexuality. And if Cyrus’ management thought the act would shore up her fan base, they have misjudged.
Almost without exception, the girls groaned and rolled their eyes when I asked them about it. Grace, 13, says: ”The performance portrayed a negative image of women.”
Alex, 13, drew attention to the shaping of boys’ thinking. ”It shows boys that’s how we are, our image.”
Megan, 12: ”She thinks it’s cool, she’ll attract more people, but she hasn’t.”
Emma, 11: ”I felt overexposed to something I shouldn’t have watched.”
These girls noted that the women on stage wore less clothing than the men. They wanted to know why this differential nakedness was acceptable. It troubled them that Robin Thicke – whose Blurred Lines song has been condemned as justifying non-consensual sex, is almost twice Cyrus’ age. (Defined Lines, a parody by three female University of Auckland students sending up Thicke’s song, was temporarily removed from YouTube for displaying sexually explicit content, while his clip containing topless women can still be viewed in full online.)
X-rated artificial sex routines have become banal. The girls expressed a desire to enjoy female talent free of predictable objectified routines. They want to see an emphasis on the song more than the body.
Lady Gaga pulls a machinegun out of her vagina, Katy Perry shoots whipped cream from her breasts and Rihanna offers S&M and bondage themes. It may be porny, but it’s far from erotic.
And, of course, there is a contrast in the judgment afforded to women compared with men. Men are so often let off the hook. US rap artist Tyler, The Creator, who sings about rape being fun, raping a pregnant woman and calling it a three-way and raping female corpses, was given a visa to perform his live misogyny at ”all ages” Australian concerts recently.
Flo Rida’s Can’t Believe It, at No. 7 on the top-40 charts, also enforces the female-artist-as-porn-performer theme. The song opens with, ”Damn, that white girl got some ass”, and the video features objectified, headless women with oversize backsides. Women are depicted visually as ice-cream and in porn-style poses.
Justin Timberlake’s Tunnel Vision clip has him in a suit surrounded by naked women whose sole purpose is to writhe around him. It is a complete double standard. We don’t see male artists gyrating their bums before the cameras.
The female students I spent time with wanted to see more female performers who defied limited visions of womanhood. They saw Adele and Taylor Swift as women who respected themselves, were devoted to their voices and who refused to conform to the standard expectations of women in the music industry. For a truly beautiful and sensual performance, give me Sade Adu, the British singer touring this country for the first time in 25 years in December. Here is a woman who understands you don’t have to take your clothes off for a lads’ mag to prove you are a real woman.
Churning out one manufactured fantasy after another, in which women are always presented as ”up for it”, doesn’t constitute an expression of female independence or agency. The girls I spent time with saw it as co-operating in your own exploitation. ”Miley exploits herself now,” says one student, 13.
They wanted something more than a singing, dancing sexual puppet. Why can’t the music industry give them that?
10 Responses
‘Why can’t the music industry give them (girls and women of course) that?’ Answer is because the music industry is owned and operated by powerful men and hence these men know sexually exploiting female artists will earn the male owners’ huge profits.
Furthermore any real Feminist and/or young women who challenges this now routine dehumanisation of female artists wherein they are presented to males as ‘males’ dehumanised sexualised robots’ is precisely what men want. The music industry is all part of the male instigated backlash against Women’s Liberation From Male Domination.
Male owned music industry has very cleverly marketed the sexualised dehumanisation of female artists as ‘supposedly female empowerment’ and sadly too many pseudo Feminists have eagerly lauded/promoted mens’ vitriolic hatred/contempt for women as ‘supposedly female sexual empowerment!’
Is it not strange that pseudo feminists and men alike constantly whine ‘but these female artists make a choice to become mens’ disposable sexual service stations’ given this supposed ‘choice’ is precisely what men want and what men have always claimed women are – non-human disposable sexualised robots!
Women and girls know that if they speak out and challenge the male dominated/male controlled music industry, they will be demonised by men and pseudo feminists because no criticism of male institutional and individual power is allowed. Instead ‘choice’ is the word commonly used to deflect attention away from what is really happening.
However, as evidenced by these young women who see through men’s lies – this proves yet again men cannot and never will totally control/oppress all women all the time. There will always be women and girls refusing to passively accept male hatred/male contempt as irrelevant. However because malestream media is owned and controlled by men this is why malestream media works very, very hard to ensure such real Feminist challenges to male hatred/male contempt for women is rarely accorded a ‘public airing.’ Instead we have isolated individual opinion pieces which are presented as just ‘an individual woman’s view’ and hence does not ‘dent’ male dominant claims ‘we know what is the truth.’
Male power over women is real and proof of this reality is the male owned and women hating music industry.
Male artists know they are human not ‘dehumanised sexualised objects’ which is why the male controlled/male owned You Tube removed that excellent critique by three women (yes women) University students who deliberately portrayed men as ‘dehumanised sexualised objects!’ By the way why couldn’t those men get ‘the joke’ -given no male was harmed in production of this video!
Oh the outrage from men was so predictable, because men are not ‘dehumanised sexualised objects and how dare this man-hating video be put on Youtube.’ The only ‘dehumanised sexualised objects are female which is why Youtube continues to allow videos of males sexually degrading women to be shown.
Mens’ war on women and girls continues unabated and sadly men are the ones winning because sadly many girls are growing up believing mens’ lies and these girls have no way of learning these male created degrading images of women are mens’ lies – never mens’ truths!
I omitted to say what action can women and girls undertake against the women-hating male controlled music industry?
Nothing will change until such time as we have another resurgence of women and girls coming together and collectively holding men to account for their now open male hatred/male contempt for women and girls.
Women and girls must boycott mens’ music industry and refuse to purchase these women hating products. Protest action is needed by women en masse because this is what men are frightened of – a large group of women openly holding men to account. But sadly I don’t see this happening in the foreseeable future because malestream media is a very, very powerful propaganda weapon and dominant claims that ‘male power over women is non-existent’ is being widely accepted as mens’ truths rather than mens’ lies!
Another great article.. just presenting the facts.. and it is scary and sad…
well done!
These women and their audiences are being fooled into believing that they’re free, when in fact they are becoming more enslaved than ever.
Exactly. I recently read on the normalization of the sex industry through fashion, music etc, and this is a prime example. Miley is said to be showing her liberation and coming of age, but in fact this performance shows how much she has become entrenched in this mainstream sex industry faux- music world.. Shame!
Thank you Melinda, Excellent comments from Hecuba also.
It really saddens me that so many girls and women actually believe they are being sexual empowered by emulating porn stars. Porn stars are so infuriating. They are overly paid to ‘act’ as though they are enjoying vulgar and often violent degradation. They are then too intimidated to complain for fear of losing work, and often must get ‘wasted’ to be able to perform. They are nothing but pawns in the process of making it become a commonly held belief that women actually want to be treated like objects for men to f#@k. Although men are generally the main consumers and producers of porn, it’s the women who sell themselves and the rest of us out that push us along the even more dangerous path of inequality we are currently on…
Melinda, I don’t agree with an important part of your argument. Yes, these sorts of performances are degrading to women, and yes, they represent an awful pornification of the music industry that is damaging to both boys and girls. But, I question whether it is driven by men.
You say “In an industry dominated by men, Cyrus thrusted and writhed because these same men thought there would be money in it.” Well, I have no doubt the top managers in these businesses are driven by money only. But top management doesn’t design the video clips or the dance moves or the costumes. And Miley’s audience is not young men, but predominantly young girls/women. Same with Rhianna and Katy Perry. I bet the designers and choreographers of their moves, costumes and approach are largely women. And that they are targeting Miley’s core audience, girls. Top management wouldn’t have a clue about these things; their only instruction is “Go sell!”.
Heaven knows the twisted logic they adhere to, but this is not an example of male oppression at play. It is cheap and nasty money-grubbing, at its worst. But women are as complicit in it all the way along the chain as men, and my guess is, more so than men. Its been many years since I read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, so I could easily have this wrong, but my key recollection is that the beauty industry is dominated by women, and hence it is women who manufacture these pressures on other women. Yes, they might be doing so because the patriarchal world-view has inevitably seeped into their sub-consciousnesses…etc, but they do it.
In addition, these video clips heavily objectify the male form too. Have you had a look through Madonna’s back catalogue of videos lately? Best to do so with the sound off, but you’ll see my point.
If you have the time, this would be a fascinating subject for further analysis and research.
More than male objectification of women, what we see here is the ongoing tawdrification of society. Its not about the art, its about the money; its not about making people feel better/bigger/stronger, but bringing everyone down to new, dirty lows, and its “out of control” in the sense I bet no one in the industry can give an articulate explanation for why its happening or who requested it. I tuned out of mainstream music, TV and film years ago. I encourage my kids to do likewise.
Keep up the great work!
Andrew
Thank you Hecuba for ‘telling it like it is’ you have inspired me to add my comments.
Melina Tankard-Reist asks ‘Why can’t the music industry give them (girls and women) that?’ The real question isn’t why can’t the music industry give them that, the question is why would they?
The reality is that the music industry is owned and controlled by powerful men who make massive profits by exploiting young female artists presenting as dehumanised sex objects to entertain the men. The music industry has furthered female sexual oppression and increased their profits by re branding the sexual exploitation of women in the music industry then selling it back to them as ‘empowerment’.
The fact that these young women reject the degraded and sexual objectification of women in the music industry reminds us that there have always been women who fight against men’s hatred of women. Individual opinion pieces will have no effect on how women are treated. Instead we need more feminists working collectively, united in challenging men’s hatred of women.
Hera
all grown women enjoy being sexy. it’s how we attract the opposite sex. but it’s only ok if you know what you’re doing, what it means and you’re still being yoursefl and not this image of sexy that the media has created. and most importantly, you’re still in control of yourself. she clearly has none of that. this was just degrading, trashy and seemed to say to little girls that imitating sex wins more fans than talent (of which there was very little here) does