Well, This Is What I Think

Which if you haven’t seen already, what’s the matter with you? As it has got 10.5 million hits.*

So, anyhow, that twerking stuff is so yesterday, ya know?

Hmmm. “Wrecking Ball.” Is it art? is it porn?

Well, yes, both, probably. She knows what she’s selling, that’s for sure. And for equally sure is the fact that she’s embracing her raunchy persona with great enthusiasm, so, you know, you can’t really say she’s being exploited.

Or can you?

Is there management behind her insistently whispering “Push it further, girl, push it further.” How would anyone know? Should someone take the girl aside and murmur, “You know, you’re really more than this, kid”? Because it’s hard to see where she goes from here, if not to star in a re-make of “Pizza Delivery Boys IV”.

OK, we know she’s making squillions, but we really cannot help but wonder what will she be when gravity takes hold of her perkier parts. Will she be “Highly respected recording artist, Miley Cyrus”, or “That fit bird who used to stroke and kiss the chain on a wrecking ball”? Will her career have longevity, or will she be discarded by this time next year, in favour of the next (and presumably more overt) gamine entrant.

We really dunno. And you know what? What gives us pause for thought is that it’s actually not a half bad song. Even if, when we asked our local culture guru Pat at the desk next to us, “But did you like the song?” he wryly answered with a smile, “Was there a song?”

We are not, at the Wellthisiswhatithink toil cubicle, a particularly censorious lot. We are on record as being comfortable with sexual matters. But we do, honestly, worry about this type of performance, and especially the impact it will have on young girls, and their self image.

To our minds, there is little difference, in reality, to the performance you see here, and the performance you’d see in a lap-dancing club or striptease joint. And would you take tweenies and teenies to such a place? We wouldn’t. Simply because there’s such a thing as “age appropriateness” to be considered. But how many of the 10.5 million viewers so far are … 16 years old? 14? 12? 10? Younger?

Do young female viewers feel, as a result of this and a hundred other “pushing the boundaries” videos, that they can only really be “in” if they wear extraordinarily skimpy clothes and subscribe to raunch culture?

Tell you what: go stand on any downtown street corner about 10pm any Friday night and we think you’ll know.

But what if they don’t want to conform to that norm? Or what if they aren’t blessed with a bullet-hard body; how will they feel about themselves?

In short: are we creating diversity of personal expression, or simply a new conformity?

We think we know the answer to our own questions, but what do you think?

Interestingly, the public response to the video has varied from “she looks great, get over it, losers” to the frankly unprintable, of which the kindest we have seen is “whore”. And before we are accused of beating the story up, a cursory glance at the comments on various forums will show you that word used often. Miley says that she just ignores negative comments, but we are frankly sceptical whether any 20 year old woman is going to be entirely inured to the gale of criticism that is swirling around, which about balances the tidal wave of enthusiasm.

We confess we’re a little worried about this. But then again, we don’t want to overstate it. We’re just as sure there’s a happy medium, we’re simply not sure this video is it. And we are more worried about the war in Syria, to be frank.

But then Ms Wellthisiswhatithink is not a teenager any more, and anyway, she’s got her head screwed on with more screws than seems quite decent in one her age. We strongly suspect at her age we were much more irresponsible. Well, there’s no “suspect” about it, in all honestly.

But if we were the father or mother of a twelve year old breathlessly urging her parents to buy the latest Miley Cyrus DVD, we think we’d be a tad more concerned. Or a lot more concerned, actually.

*UPDATE The 20-year-old pop singer’s new music video for new single “Wrecking Ball” has shattered the record for most views on VEVO in the first 24 hours, with 19.3 million views across the music video platform. Now that’s serious pop princess power. A bona fide “cultural event”, no less.