Thursday, August 20, 2009
Miley Cyrus: Stripper in Training?
I had to check out the video of Miley Cyrus on the MTV Teen Choice Awards after I read about how inappropriate her dancing was.
While I would agree that, yes, the dancers, including Miley, are all dressed in very short shorts and dancing pretty sexily, I just don’t see the stripper pole dance at all.
Yes, there’s a pole on top of the faux ice-cream cart that she holds onto while the cart is pushed stage left. Only once does she even dance while holding the pole.
Can a pole never just be a pole again?
Anyone who sees Miley as promoting stripping through holding onto a metal pole so as not to fall down probably has a stripper pole in their own bedroom. I don’t see how anyone without their minds fixated on stripper poles would ever make that connection.
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She's singing the line 'Everybody's lookin at me now' while she does a dip and a hip grind just after she gets on that ice-cream cart. Too provocative for some people? Also, in the chorus of the song she repeats the line 'Movin my hips like yea' and dances with a little bit of hip shakin', but I guess that doesn't evoke sex as much in and of itself. It's that addition of the pole that adds more of a sex element.
ReplyDeleteOverall, it's barely anything compared to other videos on MTV.
But she is the new queen of youth pop... like Britney used to be... all the little girls look up to her. And I'm sure I wouldn't want my daughter dancing like that at a young age. I can wait a bit more before she learns about those things.
Some of those ice-cream carts have umbrellas attached to them... it wouldn't have worked for the stage show... but if they had left the top on, maybe it wouldn't have been seen as a stripper pole.
No, a pole can longer be "just a pole" anymore! Only because they're everywhere - you can get them for your personal bedroom, you can take stripper pole dancing classes, they pop up in music videos for no reason, and the media loves to tell us about the stripper pole trend (for either exercise or for spicing up your lovelife).
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that Miley has an ice cream truck for her "stripper pole" - I agree that she needs something to hold onto while they wheel it along - but, she makes some of the classic moves for stripper pole dancing classes that I've seen. So is it just a pole or a stripper pole? Let's not forget, she's in the process of growing up and transitioning away from her Disney image. So of course, the media is going to be all over her. "Look at Miley on the stripper pole!" Of all the pictures I saw online, none of them showed it was on an ice cream truck. I suppose the ice cream truck makes it non-sexual?
I think that the media makes a stink about her because of her open Christianity. She's always praising God for her family and her talent. At least some of her Christian fans probably feel the ice cream truck is a lame attempt at non-sexualizing what they feel is obvious pole grinding.
Good post! We could keep debating this forever.