By Maria Padhila
Dear Everybody: Open Letters are trending — don’t be left out!
How it started: Pop artist Miley Cyrus has been making videos and doing live performances that involve a lot of simulated sex acts and very hot behavior (to me). I’m sorry; I’m honest. I find her really hot. I don’t find her ethical, but she is very sexy.
Her performance at the Video Music Awards involved some transgressions such as pretending to stroke her pretend cock, pretending to stroke others with one of those big foam “We’re No. 1!” fingers, and coming pretty close in reality to perform analingus on a woman. That’s pretty far out there, even for cable!
I think her performances at the VMA and in her “We Can’t Stop” videos are racist. They appropriate elements of the sexuality of women and men of color that are theirs alone to work with. (Some commenters have said, ‘hey, white artists always steal shit, what’s the problem?’ I can only retch.) Here’s just one thing I mean: all of her backup performers were black and there was endless focus on their asses, and I think some of them had fake big butts on. That shit is racist. Really. What do I have to say here.
But the biggest discussion came around the sexuality issues. In another Cyrus video, “Wrecking Ball” (in which she rides on a giant swinging ball and licks the chain, and licks a sledgehammer, etc., etc.), she runs a lot of close-ups of her own agonized face with a single tear. Whoa, she looks a lot like Sinead O’Connor in that “Nothing Compares 2 U” video, which you remember if you’re an old lady like me!
Sinead O’Connor is gorgeous. And her voice — nothing compares. And she’s ethical. But her recent views are way off base.