Senior computer engineering major
When Miley Cyrus got her freak on at the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 25, I had a little bit of a freak-out. It wasn’t because of those creepy teddy bears she ironically incorporated into her routine. And it wasn’t even her harassment of that poor, unsuspecting foam finger during her collaboration with Robin Thicke.
Instead, as Cyrus shamelessly twerked across stage that night, I couldn’t shake the disturbing feeling that our culture has reached a new landmark in the perpetual sexualization of popular dance.
I should mention that the notoriety of the performance did not arise from some novel contortion of the human form; twerking and grinding are old news by now. It was the context of the exhibition that sent shock waves through the Twitterverse and blogosphere. Never before have we seen such a big-name celebrity dance so provocatively on live television. On top of that, Cyrus’ history as a Disney star provides us with a story of lost innocence reminiscent of Britney Spears and (more recently) Justin Bieber.
While Cyrus’ actions can easily be dismissed as the desperation of an attention addict, I think they play an important role in a gradual shift in attitudes toward dancing. If we look back about a half-century, we can see this evolution clearly. First came “the twist” in the early ’60s, then “the bump” in the ’70s, then Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze in the late ’80s, and before we knew it, we were getting low with Lil Jon.
As time went by, hips moved just a little bit more and couples danced just a little bit closer. But every step of the way, there was a similar friction between a younger generation looking to express itself and an older generation condemning the unruly behavior. Cyrus’ spectacle was masterfully crafted to generate just the sort of controversy that will keep pushing the envelope in this fashion.
What concerns me about this phenomenon is that at this point in the progression, there is very little new territory left for us to discover. Grinding, the most pervasive of dance crazes among young people today, has already blurred the lines between dancing and sex.
Anyone who has recently attended a senior prom has witnessed the hypnotic gyrations that typify the dance. Only daggering, a dance gaining momentum in the Caribbean, can top grinding’s eroticism: Jamaican doctors have actually advised against the practice because of several reported cases of — ahem — male tissue damage.
Maybe it’s time we put an end to this limbo of our standards of decency. I’m certainly in no position to tell people how to shake what their mamas gave them, but I’d like to see social dancing take a trip back in time.
We could start by facing our partners when we dance, and we could sacrifice some physical contact to revive flirtation. We could even bring back leading and following and dance in ways that require some practice and technique.
Of course, most of our top-40 party anthems aren’t conducive to this sort of change, but occasional hits, such as Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” or Bruno Mars’ “Treasure” give us beats that we can groove to like our parents did 40 years ago.
The chorus of Cyrus’ hit single about dancing at a party tells us that “we can’t stop.” Rather than spending our time lampooning her recent escapade on the Internet, why don’t we simply tell her that we can, and we will?
Kevin Hogan is a senior computer engineering major. He can be reached at khogandbk@gmail.com.
