Written by Emily
Miley, Miley, Miley. Sunday night you were pop culture concentrate. You held a magnifying glass to pop culture atrocities, and we gulped it down with our mouths and eyes wide open until we were left feeling sick to our stomachs.
I can’t believe I didn’t see it at first, and I used to teach units on satire! The over-sized bears? A glaring spotlight on our consumer culture. Obvs. The twerking and gyrating on a grown man in a bad suit; hello, oppressive misogynist culture that reigns supreme. I have to give you credit for wearing such a small but garish costume all for the sake of highlighting what we see everyday in magazines and commercials: objectification and exploitation of women. Genius. You even wore a foam finger, which so clearly “points” to our intense infatuation with sports culture, and at Fantasy Football time, you couldn’t have been more “spot on.” The tongue? I wasn’t sure about that, but then as I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed, I saw at least three pics of tongue-out selfies. You are good. Social commentary on the growing vanity and self-indulgence inspired by social media. Where did you study satire? You covered so much ground in so little time.
No doubt you read Jonathan Swift’s piece A Modest Proposal. An essay about eating babies is almost too gross to digest. I’m sure you know about the astonishing backlash he received from people who just didn’t get it. Morons. I hope that prepared you for all of the negative media attention, the sanctimonious tweets and articles.
I’m sorry you have to deal with all this, but sometimes the most powerful statements come at a price. You are instigating cultural and social change. That’s hard work. I’m embarrassed that I initially thought you were a silly girl who thrives on media attention.
You duped all of us, Hannah; I mean Miley. Well played. Well played.
I’ll be waiting with baited breath by the tabloids to catch your next social experiment. I can’t wait.
Fourtuitous 
“I’m sure you know about the astonishing backlash he received from people who just didn’t get it. Morons. ” LOL! Brilliant. Oh and the Cards are in first place momentarily, ma’am.
I am choosing to ignore the latter part of this comment and instead am focusing on this: “Brilliant.” Thank you. I’ve heard enough 🙂
I am glad to be able to say that I didn’t see Miley’s performance at the VMAs but my Facebook feed is full of articles about it! Frankly, it sounds pretty awful!
It was bad. So very bad. But the VMAs want to shock and awe and get people talking. The people in charge are lying if they say otherwise. It was just a display of everything gross that we excuse in the everyday in my opinion.
I love this take on that beautiful exploited girl. 🙂
May I say, “Well played, Emily!”
The Onion predicted this — http://gawker.com/this-onion-piece-from-2008-accurately-predicted-miley-c-1201768477
I saw this today as well. Funny! Thanks for sharing!
One of my former grad schoool professors posted an interesting response. She asked why no one’s talking about Robin Thicke.
Yes. I mentioned this today in a FB thread as well. His video and his presence in all of this continues to suggest that this kind of exploitation is acceptable and even expected. All of it= gross.