Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Friday, April 11, 2014

Miley Cyrus Does The Unthinkable In a Bikini!

This article is part of a continuing series: "Torn From The Headlines," or perhaps "Beneath The Headlines" or even "Above The Headlines?" It doesn't really matter what we call it. Just click the 'headlines' tag in the footer! Those posts will come up, and the concept is pretty obvious. Basically the idea is to tear a headline straight from the news and write an article under it, without reading the real article or doing any research. This is pretty much what comedy writers do to furnish talk show hosts with most of their opening monologues. Not exactly original or hard to understand!

But damn it. I've totally derailed the thing. I had a pretty good headline, here! Well, too late now to do anything but forge ahead. Collect one's self and charge once more into the bulge and breach it! Yeah! Let's see what happens, anyway. Miley Cyrus does the unthinkable in a bikini!

First, let me say I have no problem at all with Miley Cyrus. I always thought "Cyrus" was a cool last name, even back in the days when it was famous solely due to dad's pop country line dance exhortations. And when I heard he had a daughter, and that she was a star on Disney, I said "this I've got to see!" I don't recall whether I actually did or didn't see it, but am I remembering rightly? Did she used to look a little like Chelsea Clinton when she was younger? If I'm thinking of someone else, so be it. Who cares.

Because I can tell you this: I have seen still pictures of Ms. Cyrus since, and in abundance. People seem to be giving her a lot of flack for acting like a slut. Well first, guess what people? She's an actress. You shouldn't be judging her because she acts like a slut. You need to be judging her by how well she acts like a slut. Is she convincing? Did she convince you? Well, then, step off.

Secondly: I hate to call it like it is, but isn't the whole brouhaha just one of those teacup deals? So to speak? Aren't all these tempestuous cries of so-called sluttery basically the same thing as slut-shaming? It seems very much like borderline slut shaming to me, pure and simple! And if you haven't heard of this "slut shaming" phenomenon, let me tell you it is developing into one of our culture's cruxiest clashes, a social justice controversy on a scale similar to school bullies. Remember that one? And in fact, when you consider the parallels, there are some. Let me bring you up to speed on "slut shaming." I'm kind of an expert.

I've read more than one article written on slut shaming. From a pretty strong "social justice" standpoint, I can tell you that to a lot of folks, arguably, to more and more folks, from what I can tell "slut-shaming" is the new being a slut, in terms of being able to be shamed over it. Or else if it isn't, it soon could easily become so! I mean that from what I've been given to understand: where you used to be able to be shamed by others for being a slut, nowadays or very soon in the future, you might be getting shamed by others for shaming a slut. From one perspective, you might call that a sign of the shocking moral decay of traditional prudery and puritanical values in our society. But from the other perspective, there's no denying this reversal has a distinct element of poetic justice all over it. There's no reason we should be surprised by that. Almost all the things people characterize in terms of "poetic justice" involve a reversal of some kind.

So I guess basically I'm saying watch it, because if you lick your finger and stick it in the air with a quizzical look on your face, you might feel the wind shifting on this one. It's an issue, no-doubt.

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