In the middle of reading a NYT story about the origins of ‘wife beater’ denoting a certain style of t-shirt there was a reference to. M. Cyrus video (I choose not to provide full name or link). I already know how the story of Stanley and Stella applies, but I’m not familiar with any of the Cyrus music.
So I clicked the link. There is the video of a song titled ‘Wrecking Ball’. Some hundred years ago there was a scandalous episode of a woman singer on a swing, fully clothed. Now we have progessed to a young women in underwear swinging on a wrecking ball, enamoured of the chain. The sequence includes her sensuously licking a sledgehammer. Is this progress or exploitation? She also rides the wrecking ball stark naked, a hairless body.
Much has been written in celebration of the anniversary of women suffragettes. I doubt they had this video in mind as a goal. Isn’t Miley just as exploited as that woman hundred years ago? But at less she is cashing in, for now. How will she view her life achievements in 40, 50 years?
Were everything in life about sex, as some media personalities might lead one to believe, we would have no medical cures, no rocket ships, no literature, no music videos as it all is just sex. Like animals, merely responding to instinct and an innate need to further the species.
Increasing portions of the population need pornography. And to judge by films, music, comedians, television sexual acts are displayed with increasing frequency. Remember when movies closed the bedroom door? They real weren’t less sexy, were they? Some time back I saw a photo of Paul Newman lounging in a doorway in the movie Hud; my heart skipped a beat. He never did a sex sceneon film but was generally considered one of the sexiest men around. Another time, different standards and values.
Yet Americans don’t seem more confortable with their sexuality. Just look at spring break festivities. Are those people comfortable with their sex, when they need binge drinking to loosen up and engage in debauchery? Men in cargo shorts, are they confortable woth their sexuality? Nah, so much of it seems immature sexual acting out, not maturity.
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