Miley Cyrus Appropriating Black Culture?

[Ariel]

So you may or may not have seen Mily Cyrus' VMA performance last weekend. If you haven't seen it, here's a picture to get you started:

In sum, it was pretty raunchy.

However, what's sticking out to me is that people are accusing her of appropriating black culture.

From the lead singer of the band Paramore:

But I, actually, am uncomfortable with the racial aspect of it. I feel like she’s sort of taking a culture that isn’t really hers and sort of using it as an accessory, and that actually bothers me more…. I feel like maybe someone needs to go to her and sort of explain the race issue.

From Jody Rosen at Vulture:

Cyrus is annexing working-class black "ratchet" culture, the potent sexual symbolism of black female bodies, to the cause of her reinvention: her transformation from squeaky-clean Disney-pop poster girl to grown-up hipster-provocateur. (Want to wipe away the sickly-sweet scent of the Magic Kingdom? Go slumming in a black strip club.) Cyrus may indeed feel a cosmic connection to Lil' Kim and the music of "the hood." But the reason that these affinities are coming out now, at the VMAs and elsewhere, is because it's good for business.

and finally from Jezebel. I recommend reading this entire piece: groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732

Now, a favourite derail of this discussion is that culture doesn't belong to anyone, and it's here for us to share and no one OWNS twerking. But those discussions always happen outside the context of cultural imperialism, and the colonial history that minorities face. It's more or less the same reason why it's not okay to wear a Native American headdress if you are not Native American.

It's not that we can't share. It's that until such time as black people are not ridiculed and debased for the styles and music and lifestyle that they create, live and breathe, hands off. Until such time as black fashion, art and music can become mainstream without having to be passed through a white filter, hands off.

Until such time as being black is no longer seen as something less than, hands off. That's it.

I find this discussion really interesting because I do think that musicians should be able to make whatever music they want. If Justin Timberlake wants to sing R&B, let him sing it. Conversely, is Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish) wants to be a country singer, awesome.

However, I can see how taking black culture specifically for profit is offensive. Miley Cyrus probably wouldn't be talked about so much if she had decided to make a country album. She's appropriating black culture, and getting famous because she's choosing to appropriate the culture. The majority of the hype I'm hearing isn't "She's making great music", it's "She's a white girl making black music, Whoa."

In the Jezebel article, the author mentions that Rhianna actually passed on recording "We Can't Stop" (the new Miley single) and didn't put it on her album. I wonder if anyone would have noticed the song-which in my opinion is catchy but not outstanding-if it hadn't been a white girl performing it.

There's a line here that I can't quite distinguish. I think it should be okay for all musicians to make all types of music, but what is the line between artistic freedom and an offensive act? If Miley had recorded We Can't Stop but didn't incorporate twerking, grillz, and using black women as stage props, would that be considered okay?

Finally, No Doubt released a music video a while ago where they dressed up as Native Americans. There was an immediate outcry and the band took the video down and replaced it with something less offensive. This is a pretty similar situation, except there have been no apologies (and maybe less of an outcry?) and Miley continues to use the same schtick.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Why not just label it as what it is - a talentless and lewd performance? Why characterize it as black culture?

As for black vs. white musical styles - blending is nothing new. Look at Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

[Dinaberries]

She uses black people (specifically "ghetto" black women) as props. On stage, she shoved her face into a black woman's ass, in a very "whoa check out this ghetto booty!" kind of way. In her video for the single, she's partying with a bunch of white kids, but then all of a sudden, there's a cut to her trying to twerk with a bunch of black women we don't see in the rest of the video. Notice that the women are there to look impressed by her twerking, to give miley street cred. Notice also that miley is dressed in white to contrast against their dark skin and clothing. They are clearly props.

Add to that how a girl born into a wealthy, country music family, who admitted a few years ago that she didn't know a single jay z song, is suddenly posturing as a caricature of ghetto black culture, and we have a minstrel show.

White musicians have been appropriating black culture for decades, and I'm a fan of a lot of that music. But what is offensive is the over the top and disrespectful way that miley is going about this. I could go on about this subject for ages but I'd start talking in circles. There are also many people who have spoken about this more articulately than I ever could. But bottom line, what miley is doing is insensitive and straight up wrong. I feel passionately about this because while I'm not black, my culture is often appropriated, particularly by white people, in ways that varies from using us as props to seeing us as the noble savage who can provide spiritual enlightenment. It's all offensive and dehumanizing.

[Arete]

She (Miley) is trying to stretch out her 15 minutes of fame. The more articles on this controversy, the better for her. There is no such thing as bad publicity when you are selling controversy as opposed to talent.

Brat.

[Curious]

I am apparently the only person that didn't know twerking was and had to google?

I actually feel sorry for Miley (and Britney and Amanda Bynes and a few other child stars). If you do any reading about what happens when you go from being a child star to the transition afterward it's pretty hard and often these kids don't have parents or a good support system that is looking out for anything, but how they can make money next.

[formergothardite]

I am apparently the only person that didn't know twerking was and had to google?

I actually feel sorry for Miley (and Britney and Amanda Bynes and a few other child stars). If you do any reading about what happens when you go from being a child star to the transition afterward it's pretty hard and often these kids don't have parents or a good support system that is looking out for anything, but how they can make money next.

I had never heard of it either. :lol:

I think she has probably had a very fucked up childhood with a father who used her to try and get famous again. And then she was mostly likely told that she better keep her image squeaky clean during her teen years or Disney would dump her. So she had to deal with that pressure too. She is now trying to act as wild and offensive as possible to get attention.

[LaLele]

I thought this blog author had a very interesting perspective on Miss Miley.

tressiemc.com/2013/08/27/when-your-brown-body-is-a-white-wonderland/

The cultural dominance of a few acceptable brown female beauty ideals is a threat to that privilege. Cyrus acts out her faux bisexual performance for the white male gaze against a backdrop of dark, fat black female bodies and not slightly more normative cafe au lait slim bodies because the juxtaposition of her sexuality with theirs is meant to highlight Cyrus, not challenge her supremacy. Consider it the racialized pop culture version of a bride insisting that all of her bridesmaids be hideously clothed as to enhance the bride’s supremacy on her wedding day.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Against my better judgment, I just watched the "We Can't Stop" video.

Ok. Now I see the racial objection. When I first read the OP, I had thought "why is a lewd performance automatically labelled as something Black?"

The video uses Black women as sex objects. It's not just fusion and cultural blending. It seems to be a kind of caricature - sort of implying that Black culture must be all about sex and being bad.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to listening to music on my radio, where We Can't Stop and Blurred Lines are catchy, not creepy.

[EyeQueue]

Marginally off-topic, but I couldn't find a thread addressing the sexuality of the performance.

Here's this Michael T. Snyder guy (of The Economic Collapse Blog and The End of the American Dream Blog) frothing at the mouth about how the performance was just one more indicator of how America's morals are going to shit and we're all d00med!!11eleventy:

endoftheamericandream.com/archives/dont-let-your-daughters-grow-up-to-be-like-miley-cyrus

Some of the more "da fuq" comments:

Since little girls want to act like harlots, they should be treated as such...

This one sounds mighty close to justifying rape of such "harlots."

Everything about her style and performance points to illuminati programming. The hairdo, left eye closed, right open, tongue out to the left, flashing the double V symbol, the teddy bear symbol with the same expressions. All of these things are satanic sex kitten signs. They love to make their slaves show off in this way.

Miley Cyrus is a MK-Ultra BETA sex slave. Look it up. She's one of many. The Illuminati are destroying us.

Oh noez!!111. It's an Illuminati plot!

Or demons:

Excessive sexual appetite has often been described as "animalistic" and "demonic" in the ancient Holy Scriptures. If satan and the demons are here on earth, it would follow that those they mislead (and Revelation tells us they are misleading the entire earth) would reflect the desires and personalities of those wicked spirits.

If you found out your behaviors and conduct were entertaining wicked, murderous demons, would you still call it art?

I would say her performance was invoking Krampus, the evil Yule demon. The devil horn hairdo, sticking out her tongue, dancing around with teddy bears, wearing a little kid's outfit, etc. all reminded me of the Bavarian folklore of Krampus who took bad children away--never to be seen again. It all seemed a bit Satanic to me.

These people are utterly batshit insane. :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:

[Curious]

I saw a lot of the "MK Ultra" and Illuminati posts on FB and immediately thought are we in Firestarter and someone has been reading too much Dan Brown. I didn't realize that was such a prevalent line of thought.

[FreeJosie]

I would say her performance was invoking Krampus, the evil Yule demon. The devil horn hairdo, sticking out her tongue, dancing around with teddy bears, wearing a little kid's outfit, etc. all reminded me of the Bavarian folklore of Krampus who took bad children away--never to be seen again. It all seemed a bit Satanic to me.

OMG. :roll:

[tuckerphez]

If there's one thing I love/hate about fundies and the uber-religious, it's how they're convinced that everyone (especially famous singers) is in the Illuminati. Or even just that they believe in the Illuminati.

But back on topic, yes Miley Cyrus is appropriative as hell. She treats twerking (which has been around for 20 years) like a trendy accessory and plus-size black women like props.

And Blurred Lines is hella creepy albeit really catchy.

[JesusFightClub]

I actually find Miley Cyrus sort of endearing, for reasons I find hard to explain*. Having said that, while I knew "We Can't Stop" I hadn't seen the video, and when I did see it I didn't like it.

It's so...manufactured, and generally icky. I think she is appropriating black culture. And in a rather disgusting way - she's basically saying "You think I'm a nice girl? I'm not. I'm a bad girl, and to prove how bad I am, look! I'm doing things black people do!" :pink-shock:

Pcos (as Small spells it) I am seriously old, I grew up when riot grrl was a thing and used to read Maximum Rocknroll and Punk Planet and sort of took them as a guide to life. That was more proper rebellion of sorts, even though some of it sucked (Crimethinc, I'm looking at you.) What Miley does is fake plastic rebellion, which distracts from real revolutionary thinking (if you are that way inclined).

It's actually a sort of consumer nihilism, where it's enough to state you're a "bad girl" doing whatever you like and then obediently follow the command to buy, buy, buy. It's intriguing to see that in the video people are destroying a lot of food, as if to say "there's much more where that came from". It's also intriguing to see dancing like a black person and using accessories like a black person portrayed as a shocking act because it's HANNAH MONTANA (the epitome of what all good white girls should aspire to) doing these things. There's a serious and scary racial undercurrent to this video.

*this may involve the sin of lust

[lilith]

I actually find Miley Cyrus sort of endearing, for reasons I find hard to explain*. Having said that, while I knew "We Can't Stop" I hadn't seen the video, and when I did see it I didn't like it.

It's so...manufactured, and generally icky. I think she is appropriating black culture. And in a rather disgusting way - she's basically saying "You think I'm a nice girl? I'm not. I'm a bad girl, and to prove how bad I am, look! I'm doing things black people do!" :pink-shock:

Pcos (as Small spells it) I am seriously old, I grew up when riot grrl was a thing and used to read Maximum Rocknroll and Punk Planet and sort of took them as a guide to life. That was more proper rebellion of sorts, even though some of it sucked (Crimethinc, I'm looking at you.) What Miley does is fake plastic rebellion, which distracts from real revolutionary thinking (if you are that way inclined).

It's actually a sort of consumer nihilism, where it's enough to state you're a "bad girl" doing whatever you like and then obediently follow the command to buy, buy, buy. It's intriguing to see that in the video people are destroying a lot of food, as if to say "there's much more where that came from". It's also intriguing to see dancing like a black person and using accessories like a black person portrayed as a shocking act because it's HANNAH MONTANA (the epitome of what all good white girls should aspire to) doing these things. There's a serious and scary racial undercurrent to this video.

*this may involve the sin of lust

Another grown up riot grrrrl here. My nine year old daughter loves listening to Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, Hole etc with me, and I consider it a good way to balance the Taylor Swift, Katy Perry etc that she listens to.

She's a little surprised to see Hannah Montana dancing like that and acting like that. Not disapproving or approving, just rather surprised.

[miffy]

OMG. :roll:

I'm fairly sure Dwight Schrute wrote that. :lol:

[Sumeri]

She uses black people (specifically "ghetto" black women) as props. On stage, she shoved her face into a black woman's ass, in a very "whoa check out this ghetto booty!" kind of way. In her video for the single, she's partying with a bunch of white kids, but then all of a sudden, there's a cut to her trying to twerk with a bunch of black women we don't see in the rest of the video. Notice that the women are there to look impressed by her twerking, to give miley street cred. Notice also that miley is dressed in white to contrast against their dark skin and clothing. They are clearly props.

Add to that how a girl born into a wealthy, country music family, who admitted a few years ago that she didn't know a single jay z song, is suddenly posturing as a caricature of ghetto black culture, and we have a minstrel show.

White musicians have been appropriating black culture for decades, and I'm a fan of a lot of that music. But what is offensive is the over the top and disrespectful way that miley is going about this. I could go on about this subject for ages but I'd start talking in circles. There are also many people who have spoken about this more articulately than I ever could. But bottom line, what miley is doing is insensitive and straight up wrong. I feel passionately about this because while I'm not black, my culture is often appropriated, particularly by white people, in ways that varies from using us as props to seeing us as the noble savage who can provide spiritual enlightenment. It's all offensive and dehumanizing.

This.

And in addition to that, her performance was just a hot mess. Honestly, it was really terrible. Didn't make a damn bit of sense, what with the teddy bears and the ass smacking and the tongue. My first reaction was wtf? not because of any moral objections but because I was just embarrassed as hell watching something so terrible. I honestly was in a sort of full body flush watching the awfulness, and it just. wouldn't. stop. I mean, who put that horror together?

[RosyDaisy]

As for black vs. white musical styles - blending is nothing new. Look at Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Or Aerosmith and Run DMC:

4B_UYYPb-Gk

[No Cure for Stupid]

I learned a new word with this whole VMA thing. I'd never heard of "twerking" before. From what I saw, I thought twerking meant dancing like you're having an epileptic seizure which is what it looked like to me. What was with the tongue thing, anyway? I think she was trying to be sexy, but all it did was made her look ridiculous.

[JesusFightClub]

I have wondered if it was to do with drugs. Some drugs and even drink can make you do a repetitive motion over and over again and sticking out the toung is one which is often seen. I really hope not for Miley's sake, though.

[miffy]

I have wondered if it was to do with drugs. Some drugs and even drink can make you do a repetitive motion over and over again and sticking out the toung is one which is often seen. I really hope not for Miley's sake, though.

This photo made me really suspicious that it might be drugs. If you look at a high res version of it you can see that her pupils are not reacting to the flash.

[JesusFightClub]

That is very sad and looks like drugs. Poor Miley! I hope she's not been caught in that.

I was thinking MDMA. People on MDMA do and say the same thing over and over (quite irritatingly). It's not addictive like some drugs are, but if you are rich and like it, it's dangerous.

Mates of mine on MDMA take it as a special treat, maybe a couple of times a year. If you are rich, you can take it daily. Not a good plan.

[miffy]

That is very sad and looks like drugs. Poor Miley! I hope she's not been caught in that.

I was thinking MDMA. People on MDMA do and say the same thing over and over (quite irritatingly). It's not addictive like some drugs are, but if you are rich and like it, it's dangerous.

Mates of mine on MDMA take it as a special treat, maybe a couple of times a year. If you are rich, you can take it daily. Not a good plan.

I remember about 6 or 7 years ago the singer Jimmy Barnes said that he was taking something like ten pills a day for four years. I can't imagine how he recovered from that. I've only done pills a few times & that was more than enough. It messes with your serotonin levels so much & the body heat thing is just awful.

[RainbowSky]

I watched on YouTube the other day after hearing people on multiple stations talking about it. No specifics at all other than along the "What does Robin Thicke's wife think?"

So.....I sat like :shock: because who the hell thought any one part of that was a good idea? I literally asked my nd what the fuck I just watched.

And if I happened to be Black, no way in hell I'd claim that mess as trying to make my culture her own. That was an embarassment to Teddy bears, even, nevermind Black people. Wow.

I think she went "I am NOT Hannah Montana! I'll show them!" And she just kept going more and more with that theme.

[FreeJosie]

I'm fairly sure Dwight Schrute wrote that. :lol:

Now I'm hearing it in Dwight's voice...too funny! :lol:

[Rachel333]

That is very sad and looks like drugs. Poor Miley! I hope she's not been caught in that.

I was thinking MDMA. People on MDMA do and say the same thing over and over (quite irritatingly). It's not addictive like some drugs are, but if you are rich and like it, it's dangerous.

Mates of mine on MDMA take it as a special treat, maybe a couple of times a year. If you are rich, you can take it daily. Not a good plan.

Well, her song does have the line "dancing with molly" in it.

Her tongue is so white! She might have just been not eating for a while before the performance. That can make your tongue look really gross.

I do agree with the concerns over treating black women as objects, and the whole performance was just awkward to watch, but otherwise... I just don't care. I don't think it's much worse than any other sexualized performance, and I don't think it makes Miley a terrible person that she did it. I'm sure it wasn't even her decision; it's all planned by her handlers or whoever, and she just goes with it.

(That's a lot of opinions for supposedly not caring, isn't it?)