In the wake of numerous sobering world events, many Americans found themselves glued to the screens of their TVs on the night of the VMAs and simultaneously mired in the controversy surrounding the “racist” performance of teen pop singer Miley Cyrus.
Cyrus came under fire for the crude way in which she used backup dancers of a certain race and size, using their bodies as well as her own as props in an obscenely sexualized display. An article in The Guardian reiterated Cyrus’ demand to songwriters for “a song that feels black” and detailed her efforts to influence the “hood music” she so loves.
It goes without saying that Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs was a lewd and inappropriate perpetuation of stereotypes regarding “black” culture, but there’s been a sad lack of attention directed toward the massive double standard that exists for male and female performers in the music industry.
While I’ll admit that Cyrus’ crotch-grabbing and writhing gyrations were both vulgar and tasteless, it’s surprising that we as an audience aren’t yet immune to such acts given the frequency with which male rappers perform the same actions onstage with no media backlash.
Furthermore, while Cyrus’ song condones drug use and promotes a lack of censorship, more often than not the content within the music of male performers is far more tawdry in its blatant female objectification and explicit descriptions of demeaning sexual acts toward women.
This couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Robin Thicke, with whom Cyrus shared the stage. Cyrus lost what little artist credential she had, becoming nothing more than a backup dancer herself as she sidled up to Thicke while he crooned his popular song “Blurred Lines.”
In a refreshing series of events, Thicke’s most recent single came under attack for promoting rape culture and the degradation of women as well as advocating the corruption of “good girls” into sexual creatures through the use of alcohol, according to an article in The Atlantic.
The same article offers a theory in which other aspects of Cyrus’ behavior (stroking Thicke’s genitals with a foam finger, for example) was perhaps an attempt to objectify Thicke in some sick act of reciprocity. In fact, The Independent reports the efforts of a group of law students at the University of Auckland who did the same in their parody of the song.
The video featured three fully dressed women singing about sexism as they led half-naked men around on leashes and shoved dollar bills in their boxers, and it was briefly removed from YouTube for inappropriate content. While the video was eventually restored, this debasement of men is a poor response and serves only to promote gender inequality in a different form.
The true solution to gender disparity in either form can only be found in an environment conducive to dual empowerment — one in which both men and women can celebrate their differences as well as their sexuality without fear of alienation or degradation.  A world like that, more than any other, is something worth watching.