Sinead O'Connor's Letter to Miley Cyrus

This is written very much in a rush and something I really value your opinions on - if you've been anywhere near Twitter today, you'll probably have read Sinead O'Connor's open letter to Miley Cyrus today - which you can see here. Read that first.

It was when she compared her to being "made into a prostitute", that got me.

And if you've been hiding in a box for weeks, the video in question:



"WRECKING BALL" - Miley Cyrus

I've been actively avoiding blogging about Miley Cyrus to be honest, for two basic reasons - the first, is that lots of other people are much better articulating all these important points about slut-shaming and women in the media but I'm pretty fucking sick of being quiet about it at this point.

A friend of mine wrote this piece about Cherie Bebe's Burlesque Revue in Manchester recently, which I saw, and it really got me thinking about burlesque, and displays of sexuality - the thing that the music industry sees as so cheap and desperate as, in fact, an art in itself.

My take on it is pretty much this:

When someone makes bad (normally pop) music, we'll be quick to call them out on it. Rebecca Black's "Friday" is a prime example of it: an international laughing stock. But the object of attack wasn't music, was it? We weren't demonising and criticising the act of making music, it was the fact that it was an awful song.

But with Miley Cyrus' displays of sexuality, it's how dare a woman display her sexuality, and how dare she take her clothes off. I don't know if this is to do with our association that a naked woman is shameful, or an object, and that that's wrong. Because sexuality can totally be art, that's something we can embrace and be okay with - what's problematic isn't the way Miley Cyrus uses it, but the oversimplification and objectification of women in "Blurred Lines". It's almost like "don't hate the sin, hate the sinner". Except... not. Don't hate displays of sexuality. Hate demoralising ones, hate ones that objectify. And try to understand them. And try to think about why they're wrong.

The only problem I really have with what Miley Cyrus is doing is that, I hope it isn't out of fear. Or an effort to be controversial. Or, as Sinead O'Connor very explicitly assumes in her letter that she is vulnerable or nervous about exposing her body. And as long as that isn't valid, and she's comfortable as an artist expressing herself in that way, the problem isn't Miley's but belongs to us - as the media, as an audience.