Miley Cyrus Cultural Appropriation

You would think that girls would condemn this song, but most of the girls I know have this song on their spotify playlist. This song degrades women and explicitly promotes rape culture. This song does not say anything about Miley’s looks or personality, it reduced Miley to a piece of “ass” that Stitches is welcome to penetrate whenever he pleases. Stitches literally says “Ima put my d*** up in your ass and it ain’t coming out”. So how could so many people like a song that is literally about raping a celebrity? Normalizing this disgusting behavior contributes to violence against women.

In today’s popular culture a big topic of discussion is pop singer, Miley Cyrus. She was a former star on Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana and now we have all seen her transformation from a girl to a woman. To avoid fading away like many other celebrity teen stars as they aged, Miley decided to reinvent herself as an adult musician by pushing the limits. Many people only see Miley Cyrus for her unadulterated VMA Performances and her frowned upon behavior, which most individuals don’t care to get to know. There is another side of Miley that has made a huge impact on society and has reached new levels in giving back to the community. Miley has dedicated herself to feminism, improving society’s image of women, leading the fight against LGBTQ discrimination, charity work, and using social media to expose societal issues.

Like most modern celebrities, Miley and Monroe both received their fame due to the movie industry and modern technologies of the time. Without the technological advances of the time, neither celebrity would have received near the amount of fame that they do now. Miley Cyrus and Marilyn Monroe are also very similar in their great wealth and egotism that comes with it. Monroe once exemplified this characteristic when she demonstrated her great wealth by saying, “I always love finding new places to wear diamonds!” (Rudnick 2). Most of all, however, these celebrities are very similar in their complete lack of care for the socials norms and political correctness. Both have been known for performing radical actions that could insult specific groups of people, but they justify these actions with the fact that “heedless movie stardom defeats all common morality” (Rudnick 2). For these reasons, Marilyn Monroe can be closely compared to similar “star” Miley Cyrus in the media

As a thirty-five year old, Caucasian female, Britney came from an unstable home life. Britney Spears experienced major successes in her life, but went through some major losses. As a group, we are analyzing the period in Spears’s life that she seemed to break away from social norms and had odd behaviors: such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse, vulgar public actions, and changes to her appearance. We intend to approach this period in her life with a sociocultural perspective in order to get to the root of her spiral and how she came back on top.

Miley Cyrus can easily be explained through the eyes of Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis. Freud was the first to develop the “talking cure”, in which one makes their unconscious thoughts, beliefs, and motives, conscious by means of catharsis, or a free discharge of emotions. In this approach, it is thought that our behavior is a result of our unconscious motives. Therefore, psychodynamic therapy bases its treatment of mental disorders on the relationship between the unconscious and conscious mind. After working with many different people, Freud came to the conclusion that repressed memories, fears, and emotions stored in the unconscious mind must be brought to light to the conscious mind, in order for them not to manifest themselves through symptoms. The key internal mechanism for change here is insight of how the unconscious thoughts influence their behavior.

After the major tragedy of Hurricane Harvey, the famous young, American pop singer donated $500,000 to help victims in need. Miley Cyrus explains on the Ellen show, in her perspective, that she wanted to help in any way that she could, because it would be extremely hard on her if she lost everything. In America, people are diverse, but a disaster like this happens, people help each other. Another time when America came together was 911. Anna Quindlen wrote about this horrific time which she called, “A Quilt of a Country.” She wrote, “Like many improbable ideas, when it actually works, it’s a wonder.” She is explaining how people were mixed together by their cultures come together to assist each other which is amazing just like Miley Cyrus

According to Oxford Dictionary, cultural appropriation is defined as the inappropriate adoption of the customs of one people by members of a more dominant people. This can be especially dangerous due to the distortion and disconnection of a culture’s custom from its roots. However, at the same time, cultural appropriation can lead to cultural exchange which is beneficial to the overall development of the world because different cultural groups can connect to others through cultural similarities. An example of this is when former President Barack Obama, in 2016, held the first ever Diwali celebration in the White House. Although this was an attempt for America to appropriate Indian culture, at no point did I feel offended or mocked. As an American Indian, this made me garner a feeling of great pride for both my country (USA) and for my ethnic background. Therefore, cultural exchange/appreciation is the act of sharing cultural practices between different groups of people. Nonetheless, there is a fine line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. The issue of this boundary can be explored in the rap industry which is dealing with an influx of multicultural attention. Rap, historically, was an artform founded and pioneered by the African American community. Recently, there has been a surge in the participation of whites in rap. Robert Clift's 2010 documentary, Blacking Up, investigates the issues of cultural exchange and appropriation in the hip hop

Through Miley Cyrus’s years on her hit sitcom her brand identity and start text were made. Her original star text was known a young sweet innocent teenage girl that believed in love. As Miley and her audience matured she began to revolutionize her image by creating herself a new star text that was the polar opposite of her previous. Her new star text was completely self and media driven. Now her current start text identifies with heartbreak, drugs, activism and nonconformity. The extreme change of start text shocked and dismayed individuals. Many social media users and celebrity journalist wrote the transformation of, implying it as a lost girl in her twenties making mistakes she will eventually regret. Despite the negative comments she has embraced her star text using it for free publicity and media attention. Miley Cyrus purposefully modified her star text in order to make it in the music industry, she targeted a new market and generation using her controversial change, boosting her self-success, making her one of the greatest known evolved celebrities to a mass media level.

As Miley Cyrus’s audience matured, she purposefully changed her image by creating a new star text that was the polar opposite of her previous. A star text is everything that we associate with a start, including their promotion and body of work. Her hit sitcom Hannah Montana built her previous brand identity that connected with her audience of adolescent children. Miley’s original image was known for being a sweet and innocent teenage girl. Now her current start text identifies with heartbreak, drugs, activism and nonconformity. The extreme change of start text shocked and dismayed individuals. Many social media users and celebrity journalist wrote the transformation off implying it as a lost girl in her twenties making slipups she will eventually regret. Despite the negative comments, Miley has embraced her star text using it for free publicity and media attention. Despite Miley Cyrus’s claims that her controversial change was not for reward or fame. Her old star text became mundane to mainstream media and her maturing audience, compelling her to reinvent her star text in order to continue being famous and successful in the music industry.

The United States is abundantly diverse in distinct cultures. There are cultures coming from all around the world mixed up into one little area. So the crossing of cultures is inevitable. It will not be hard to catch yourself using another cultures customs, beliefs, styles, and/or traditions without putting much thought into it. Ultimately when one of these many things is borrowed, from one culture to the other, no insult is purposefully made. Depending on what was adopted or stolen if not careful enough it could be a huge insult to the owning culture. This is where the term cultural appropriation comes into play. Many are confused as to why using something from one culture and making it their own could cause offense to the owning culture. A lot of people think the concept is

Cultural appropriation is shown in many ways among the public. When a member of the majority takes an element of a minority culture and attempts to make it their own, they are appropriating the minority’s culture. Appropriating a culture is disrespectful and can lead to loss of valuable meaning of cultural practices. This is shown in many ways, such as the use of blackface or wearing a significant piece of Native American history as a fashion accessory. Each of these elements is an example of appropriation of a minority culture and is never acceptable and needs to be stopped.

Australian female rapper, Iggy Azalea, is a popular hip hop artist for her song “Work” and he #1 billboard chart song “Fancy.” The issue with Azalea’s music is the lack of authenticity. She takes certain aspects of black culture and profits over these assets, when other female rappers of color are constantly berated for the same features. Black female artist receive criticism for deal with their body, sexuality, tone of voice, and beauty. For example, Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim were call out for their sexual album covers and performances. Although Iggy receives criticisms, it is not as harsh as her female counterparts.

The difference is that now Miley has the chance to express herself without direction from others. “My whole life it was never about having control. Shit would just come out with my face on it, and that was it. So now nothing can have my face on it, my name on it, that isn’t dope -- that isn’t a part of the movement.” In an interview featured in her documentary, Miley adds a comparison between the lifestyles of other pop icons in their youth to her own. “Most people don’t have their kid photos put up and then be like, ‘She’s changed.’ Well, yeah. If you put up a picture of Lady Gaga at eight, and then Lady Gaga now, yeah, she’s changed” (Schillaci). Therefore, Miley’s new dubious movement into adulthood is not so out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, the essence of her movement embodies the revolutionary truth of self discovery, and teenagers worldwide who struggle with the fear of persecution should take note of her effortless ability to express herself.

Appearing naked swinging on a wrecking ball, many claimed this was inappropriate for young girls to see as their role model; but Miley seems to be trying to normalize this for women, allow them to control their sexuality, not allow men to define it. It’s consistently pointed out if star women are sexual but when male stars have naked women in their music videos it is not questioned. This double standard is furthered with the use of drugs; shortly before the release of the video, Miley smoked weed at a MTV Europe music awards in Amsterdam, which outraged people although drug use by male stars is widely

Charlotte Church speaks out about this issue saying “The culture of demeaning women in pop music is so ingrained as to become routine, from the way we are dealt with by management and labels, to the way we are presented the public” (Chase par. 9). This leads to questions, for example, must women be sexualized to gain greater earnings? Does sex truly sell? When we examine artists such as Julia Hotter, HAIM, or Polica, we perceive them as strong artists who are unrestricted in their art by their gender or sexuality. However, when comparing their success, sexualized women have dominated the music industry. Chase explains that women are allowed to fill three main roles in modern pop music: One of the Girls’ Girls, the Victim/ Torch Singer, and Unattainable Sexbot. Artists such as Beyoncé would be considered “One of the Girls’ Girls” who are for women power and are considered empowering. Adele is considered a “Victim/Torch Singer” even though she does not use sexuality to sell records, lyrically, she perceives the wronged women and creates a state of despair. An “Unattainable Sexbot” would be, without a doubt, Miley Cyrus, whose main goal is to be the most successful in the music industry by being hyper-sexualized and unrealistic. If an artist does not fit into one of these categories, they generally have a much harder time being one of the most successful in the music