Giving in to the Topic of Miley Cyrus

That’s it.  I can’t avoid it any more.  Despite my most desperate attempts to avoid discussing the topic of Miley Cyrus, I can’t keep quiet any longer.  I have refused to hit a like button, share a photo, or weigh in on Sinead’s open letter, or any other open letter, article, or blog denouncing Miley as a slut, whore, and disgrace to the female population and the feminist movement.  But here I go.  I have to purge this rant from my system, so I can move on to more pressing issues.

How I feel about Miley Cyrus is irrelevant.  My greatest concern is the seemingly incessant need of the entire North-American population to discuss the topic of Miley Cyrus.  Why the sudden dismay over a slutty dance routine at the MTV awards?  Why the need to publicly condemn one girl when slut culture abounds all around us?

My theory is this:  Miley Cyrus is the current slut trope that we can all hate, and by doing so, we feel better about ourselves as we continue to placate our minds with shallow pop culture analysis, while simultaneously and unquestioningly consuming corporate culture every minute of every day. 

Why are we shocked by the image of Miley grinding against Robin Thicke; tongue out, ass up?  How different is it from the images of girls grinding against some hulky mass-of-a-man in a ‘Guess’ advertisement? How dare Miley do what every fucking magazine article, bus ad, billboard sign, TV commercial, music video, and corporate rep. is telling her (and millions of other women) to do? If we are truly outraged by Miley’s actions, we should be outraged by the larger context in which such actions are accepted and rewarded.  If we are truly offended by the gendered and sexist music industry, we should be unplugging from the very machine creating it.  An industry exists only when the market supports it.  But if we can all agree to hate Miley Cyrus, we can all agree that the way we contribute to the perpetuation of rape culture has less or no consequence.  By publicly denouncing Miley Cryus, we can feel better about ourselves as we mindlessly consume the same corporate culture that creates the context in which Miley has found her fame and fortune.   This is the same context which we accept and conform to, by the millions, when we accept the corporate culture of GQ, The Swimsuit Edition.   The same corporate culture that requires Miley to exploit her body in order to sell her music, requires of millions of women everyday to exploit themselves; whether in the form of posing in a demeaning and stereotypical gendered clothing ad, flirting for tips as a waitress, or twerking against Robin Thicke during the MTV awards.

Unless we are willing to address the topic of Miley as merely a symptom, or as a function of a much larger and much more complex societal issue, the discussion is moot, invalid, and non-consequential.  If there wasn’t a market for what Miley offers, if there truly was mass outrage at her antics, Miley the brand, would not exist. Instead, however, what seems to have taken hold of the “Miley Situation” is just another example of individualizing a larger issue, of slut shaming and victim blaming.  In this way, we, as a society, are able to ignore the systematic nature of an industry designed, developed, and carefully crafted to exploit young women who eventually and inevitably self destruct one way or another, while, at the same time, remaining ignorant and distracted from the dire global, political, and environmental issues that should be greatly concerning us all.  By attacking Miley as an individual who we can mock, slut shame, demonize, and generally partake in the enjoyment of her destruction as a form of entertainment, we are participating in a modern form of Bread and Circuses; a mere distraction from the truly destructive, and dangerous reality which is unfolding before us, unbeknownst to most, under the guise of harmless entertainment.

Discontented Academia

This week, along with the usual mid-term moodiness of exams and essays, students at the University of Manitoba are being confronted with the additional weight of a potential faculty strike.  At best, this could mean a week off from classes, allowing us some extra time to read, write, and sleep.  Worst case scenario, however, is we lose the work we’ve done this semester, get our tuition refunded, and start all over again.  While the latter is unlikely, the looming possibility only adds to an already discontented university culture.

            

 In recent years, a noticeable shift has taken place on the Fort Garry Campus, with visible signs of the university’s insistence to pursue a corporate model.  One blindingly obvious example is the presence of a Monsanto research facility on campus.  Earlier this year students, faculty, and staff rallied together to protest privatization and mismanagement.  Now, among other concerns, the faculty are pushing back against the university’s corporate model, arguing that it can have a huge impact on the direction of research and development required of professors.

            

 In emails to students and staff, the university administration continues to imply, I would argue in an intentionally misleading fashion, that the issues surrounding the impending strike are primarily monetary.  However, from what I can gather from speaking with the professors themselves, the issue of money is generally resolved.  The real issue, I would argue, is the continued corporatization of the university. 

            

 The effects of corporatization abound; subtle and obscene, they not only affect the academic culture of our campus, and of campuses globally, but also the mundane aspects of our every day.  When we begin to accept our surroundings without question, we are spoon fed corporate profit over academic integrity.  When faculties become part of the business model, professors become a tool in creating what Noam Chomsky describes as “commodities for the job market”, students being pushed along an assembly line for inevitable corporate consumption.  When we accept that the majority of the food available to us on campus is only provided by a small handful of corporate giants, when the university campus continues to get gobbled up by corporate industry and it’s interests, and when big banks make their appearance on campus in order to introduce themselves to first years students, offering out credit card debt under the guise of “making student life more affordable”, we are accepting our roles as being produced by a machine in which we have no agency.  If professors’ research and development requirements are dictated by the administration forcibly integrating the business model within academia, deterring critical thought, analysis, and freedom, the quality of education we, as students, receive, will inevitably suffer. 

           

 In speaking at the University of Toronto in 2011, On Academic Freedom and the Corporatization of Universities, Noam Chomsky describes his reaction to corporatization at his own university:

           

             “So what's the right reaction to outside funding that threatens the ideal of a free university? Well one choice is just to reject it in principle, in which case the university would go down the tubes. It's a parasitic institution. Another choice is just to recognize it as a fact of life that when I'm at work, I have to walk past the Lockheed Martin Lecture Hall, and I have to look out my office window at the Koch building, which is named after the multibillionaires who are the major funders of the Tea Party and a leading force in on going campaigns to wipe out the remnants of their labour movement and to institute a kind of corporate tyranny.

            Now, if that outside funding seeks to [influence] teaching, research and other activities, then there's a strong argument that it should simply be resisted or rejected outright no matter what the costs. Such influences are not inevitable, and that's worth bearing in mind. “

An Open Letter to University of Manitoba Administration

An Open Letter to University of Manitoba Administration:

I would like to make an official complaint regarding the recent display on campus by the group: "Students for a culture of Life".

I am deeply troubled and offended by their use of genocidal content in their efforts to promote their anti-choice views on abortion. Not only are the images extremely graphic, they are extremely offensive.

As a student currently enrolled in genocide studies, I am aware of the anti-scholarly and anti-intellectual nature of this type of dialogue. It is a feeble attempt at an over-used shock tactic. Furthermore, these images and the dialogue of comparing the Rwandan genocide with the topic of Abortion is extremely offensive as it minimizes the horrors of, not only the Rwandan genocide, but the atrocities of all genocides though out history.

Considering the sensitive nature of both the topic of abortion, and genocide, I would have expected a more appropriate, and intellectual forum that would not only take into consideration the student body and public who might view this display, as well as the appropriateness of such a display at a higher learning institution. I have to question the integrity of an administration that did not consider the severity of such a claim, and the possible effect it may have on those who have suffered the true horror of genocide, as well as the tremendous impact on women who are likened to a Nazi or a genocidal perpetrator.

The Genocide Awareness Program (GAP) is managed and produced by a privately funded organisation in the United States called The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform.  It is a movable display that has been set up on many campuses throughout North America since 1997.  Due to the controversial, inflammatory, and misrepresentative nature of the content, many campuses have banned the display, or, as was the case at the University of Alberta in 2004, the display was refused access to a high traffic area and was instead granted a private room in which students could enter and view the content on their own free will.  This was not the case at the UofM campus.    

While it is the right of groups such as "students for a culture of life" to hold their views, and run a student group, it is also the responsibility of administration to uphold a standard of sensitivity, appropriateness, and intellectual academia. The GAP display is not a forum of freedom, speech, and debate, but rather, a disturbing, disgusting, and demeaning use of shocking images that only serve to shock, terrorise, and traumatize individuals, while minimizing one of the greatest horrors created by, and endured by humankind.

I am calling on University Administration and UMSU to remove the student group status from the “Students for a Culture of Life” due to lack of ethical forethought.

Sincerely,

A “Student for a Culture of Academic Integrity”,

Wanda Hounslow