Those who adopt the sociological perspective often are able to look upon their own culture and have moments of culture shock. I had one when I saw the video of Miley Cyrus' performance at MTV's Video Music Awards (VMA), but that was not a surprise (pun intended). The surprise was that, in the aftermath, much of the criticism of this performance got it wrong.
Through blog posts, and op-ed pieces, to news articles and internet memes, the overall commentary surrounding this event placed the blame (and its vitriol) solely at the feet of Miley Cyrus, while only highlighting the overtly sexual nature of her performance. The internet exploded with slut-shaming rhetoric, the evocation of gender double standards, and humiliating hate-speech. However, what was more telling, was how (relatively) quiet it was for any commentary about race. Particularly, how the cultural appropriation of blackness (particularly black female sexuality) is used as a mechanism to achieve an adult white female sexual identity. Miley Cyrus achieved that end not only through "twerking" and feigning masturbation, but also through the simulated analingus, and spanking of black female bodies. Cyrus used these women as her props in order to, once and for all, shed the ever-so present image of Hanna Montana thereby granting her sexual agency. Unfortunately, the previously mentioned articles focused more on the product of Cyrus' sexualized reinvention (continuing the tradition of punishing women for their sexuality) rather than the process that created it.*
Miley Cyrus' process begins with Disney, and being a child star. Our culture fetishizes children in the public consciousness, and Disney is the king. Children (usually girls) are routinely paraded around as paragons of innocence, virtue, and goodness (e.g. princess culture). Therefore, since sex has always been seen as a deviant act of defilement for women, virginity is used as the instrument by which innocence is judged. The most recent manifestation of this is purity pledges and purity rings. I can not fathom the asphyxiating repression of a natural sexual curiosity which Disney must apply to its stars in order to maintain the family friendly image. Yet, when these stars are "of age" they are cut loose; struggling to find their own identity as an adult...alone. This is a daunting task for anyone, add to that the pressure of overcoming the immortalization of a child star's image, and it becomes insurmountable. Cyrus was always set up to fail, because she couldn't stay a child forever.
As an adult, Miley Cyrus has a right to her sexuality, and her body. She is free to cultivate her sexual identity through whatever form of expression best suits her. That kind of ownership of one's self is powerful and builds confidence and self esteem. Nevertheless, her VMA performance as an example, Cyrus' attempt at developing such an identity falls into a lot of gender traps, namely: 1) The belief that women's value is in the sexualization of her body and 2) Women understanding their own body as ornamental, and that their sexuality should be per formative not subjective. Dishearteningly, this is all too common among young women, and needs to stop.
What Cyrus does need to answer for, is the distastefully racist way she affirms tired black sexuality stereotypes in the pursuit of that sexual identity; leading to the creation of a minstrel-esque bamboozled farce. Although experiencing gender inequality, Cyrus still gains privilege from her whiteness and class status. To that end, the normalization and commodification of whiteness and blackness respectfully, affords her the luxury of ignorance. She will be able to look back on this in twenty years as a "crazy-stupid" thing she did when she was young. Whereas, black people of color will just have to add this to the already long list of examples in which their bodies and their culture have been used against them.
* Note:The American Culture has had a long history with the hyper-sexualization of black bodies (fearing the "animalistic" black male sexuality, while desiring the "exotic" black female sexuality), especially those that were owned. Now this ownership takes a new context in Cyrus' case. Through the commodification and exploitation of black women's bodies, Cyrus can feel value in her own body.