When the world discovered twerking I thought buildings would start spontaneously setting on fire, it would start raining literal cats and dogs and people's faces would melt like that dude in that Indiana Jones movie. But it didn't. The shitstorm of news coverage made it seem like twerking was the 1st coming of the urban apocalypse. Turning respectful young nepotist into ghetto booty shaking hood rats what has become of American values! I have to admit I was amused, not by the national frothing but by how badly Miley Cyrus twerked. Twerking is meant to shake your fat, to move your ass fat around rhythmical but for someone with .09% body fat to shake it around. All I could think was, if you're going to decry twerking then you should start by using an actual example than that sorry imitation. But I digress.
The conversation underlying the Miley Cyrus twerk tornado is, what is the morality of a woman who is lieu of being objectified, objectifies herself. Is this empowering, a form of female expression or another manifestation of the indoctrination of patriarchal female identities. What is the limit of freedom that a female pop artist is allowed to go? So now we have the latest addition to the conversation on women's depiction of themselves, but with much less fanfare. Perhaps it's more acceptable in America to see a young woman of color acting in ways that people attribute as being crude than a white young woman? I don't know. But to me, Rihanna's music video makes a much more plaintive and explicit statement.
Take a look at the video and decide for yourself.
Labels: celebrities, feminism, music video