Miley matters and that’s not good

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Miley Cyrus is going on tour, with an act resembling a strip club show.  I’d say hide your children, but not just for the obvious reason. 

Ms. Cyrus is selling sex, which is an old message, from Elvis to Madonna and beyond.  In essence, she’s selling instant gratification for the body. She is just the latest avatar to sell the consumption of “mass quantities,” as the Coneheads on Saturday Night Live used to say.  

This is not a revolutionary idea. Ms. Cyrus believes she is transgressive, but she fits comfortably within the corporate world.  Witness the commercials for Krave cereal, a combination of chocolate and marshmallows in a graham cracker shell. Krave commercials don’t sell its nutritional value to kids.  They’re selling the sugary taste of these flavors. In that sense, Ms. Cyrus is no different than Krave cereal.

Ms. Cyrus is simply a new messenger in an old coat – selling us instant gratification as the giant consumer companies have been doing for decades. Her song, “We Can’t Stop” should actually be titled “We Don’t Want To Stop.”  The title “We Can’t Stop” implies complete lack of free will.  

Here is a sampling of some of the song’s lyrics: 

“Red cups and sweaty bodies everywhere
Hands in the air like we don’t care
‘Cause we came to have so much fun now
Bet somebody here might get some now…

To my home girls here with the big butt
Shaking it like we at a strip club…

 And everyone in line in the bathroom
Trying to get a line in the bathroom
We all so turned up here
Getting turned up, yeah, yeah”…

So Ms. Cyrus’ “fun” involves sex and cocaine – anything for an immediate thrill.  Perhaps it’s too much to ask her fans to postpone gratification and seek instead to find greater meaning in their lives beyond the next moment of instant pleasure. 

Miley Cyrus, youth culture, Mike Gold
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