So how come Miley Cyrus gets shamed

[ismnotwasm]

34. Wow and this POV from a parent blog

Both performers should be held accountable for what they did. It was rehearsed, there were many adults involved in making the decisions about what the audience would see. I think we can hold performers responsible for their art free of censorship, as the audience we have every right to comment on and critique. This act went on stage with those responsible knowing plenty of young people would be seeing it. I’m rather certain they were banking on that.

I’m not sure too many people had high standards for Thicke, whose rise to fame came on the wings of this summer’s rape anthem. On the TODAY show his mom spoke of her shock over the way Miley danced with her son, but said nothing of Thicke’s sexist, degrading video to his hit song about date rape. It is the perfect example of the double standards we hold in society. She says she can’t unsee Miley’s rump twerking on her son, just like I can’t unhear Thicke’s lyrics about wanting to tear a girl’s ass in half during anal sex because she’s the sexiest bitch up in this place. I wonder if that makes his mom blush, too?

People feel differently about Cyrus than they do about Thicke, and when we discuss this we are falling short when we shrug it off by saying she doesn’t want to be a role model, doesn’t owe anyone anything, and can express her sexuality any way she wants. That falls short because she is a role model and how she expresses her sexuality impacts the millions of girls with less fame and less money. Miley becomes part of a media culture. Media shapes perception, and perception becomes reality.

The blogger asked for Facebook responses, my favorite, reminicient of RedQueen's thread;

“It was a great example of what is called The Patriarchal Bargain. A patriarchal bargain is when a woman willingly accepts gender rules that generally disadvantage women in exchange for whatever power she can then wrest from the system. It is an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact. Miley fulfilled the bargain in textbook fashion – sexualizing herself, turning the Male Gaze on herself, in order to manipulate the system, which benefits her personally, but at the expense of all other young women, who feel the repercussions of male gaze, without being able to subvert it for financial gain. This isn’t about making the world G-rated. It is about making women objects, instead of letting them be subjects. It isn’t a healthy take on female sexuality at all – there is no empowerment for women in that performance, or in singing a song that glorifies the interchangeability of objectified women for men’s pleasure.” -Kristin Yates Thomas

http://blog.pigtailpals.com/?p=4433

Personally, I'm grateful for the thoughtful discussions that arose from this in different areas of the blogosphere