Miley Cyrus rocking the racism boat

I don’t respect Miley Cyrus.

While supporters claim she’s being a good businesswoman by stripping off all her clothes and dancing provocatively around like a peacock, I’m of the strong opinion that getting half naked isn’t “good” business. It’s cheap, uncreative, and lazy business. Let’s not dress it up as anything more than what it is (or dress it down, in Miley’s case).

However. I’ve read a few news stories lately making a claim that Miss Cyrus is nothing short of racist for “co-opting” African-American culture, and that’s where I put my foot down. The young lady may be vulgar, unimaginative, and squirm-inducing, but racist she is not. Well, at least not for dance moves, which is what this post is all about.

Let’s talk for a moment about cultural appropriation, the name given to the act of taking something you like from another culture, and applying it to yourself. Think pretty, hipster models in Native American headdresses. I, myself, didn’t realise that was such a big deal until a drew a comparison with Maori culture here in New Zealand. It would be hideously offensive for somebody here to get a ta moko (a traditional face and body type of tattoo for all you non-Kiwis), if it held no cultural meaning for them and they wanted it “just to look cool”. In the same way, Native American war bonnets are meant to be worn by someone who has earned them. They are highly symbolic, so it’s safe to say that any old white person donning one because “the feathers look so pretty” is disrespecting that culture.

Some instances of supposed cultural appropriation are simply ludicrous though, and Miley Cyrus adopting the infamous “twerk” is one of those instances.

Simply Google cultural appropriation and you’re likely to find about five links on the first page slamming Cyrus for her heinous crime of twerking when she apparently had no right to twerk. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a heinous crime (please stop twerking, Miley), but only because it looks stupid. The idea being echoed around is that twerking is a black girl dance move, and as we are all very much aware, Miley ain’t no black girl.

That’s where it gets overly politically correct. It’s where social justice warriors jump in with their torches and pitchforks, screeching that Cyrus shouldn’t be stealing a dance move popular to black culture. But guys, how long has twerking even been a thing? A year? Two at the most? It’s not as if it’s ingrained in African-American history. It’s not as if it holds any meaning whatsoever. It’s literally nothing more than a dance move that some people do because they think it makes them look sexy. Maybe if twerking was a native dance done to mourn the passing on a loved one I would buy all this nonsense about it being cultural appropriation, but this is so far off the mark it’s not funny.

On top of that, there’s the same kind of wailings going on about Cyrus performing “black” music, that is, hip hop style songs stereotypically sung by your average strong, independent black woman. I may not like her music, but there’s nothing wrong with Miley picking up a genre of music that she likes, and running with that. Again, it’s not as if hip hop is some meaningful part of black history. Should we be calling Eminem racist for being a rapper? After all, rap is a genre dominated by African-Americans, should we slam him too?

The argument can, of course, be raised that Cyrus is still racist for her treatment of black women in her VMA performance, but that’s a whole other ball game.

Nevertheless, I am so very, very tired of seeing that sickly, white tongue sticking out everywhere I go, on magazine covers or web pages. I’m ready for that to disappear, please.

Right next to the toothpaste

Apparently Woolworths over in Australia caused a bit of a furor a week or so ago by deciding to stock sex toys in their supermarkets. And of course, they’ve once more caused a furor in the comments section of Stuff by pulling the items back off the shelves.

Well, I shouldn’t say Woolworths was the one getting people all hot and bothered the second time – it was more the doing of a Christian group based across the ditch who didn’t want vibrators being sold in a supermarket. I totally get it, too. There’s plenty of places people can go to buy them, is it really necessary or appropriate to be stocking them in a grocery store?

Some would have you believe it.

“Depressing,” said one woman, “another step backwards for feminism and women’s rights.”

A little melodramatic, you’d think, considering it’s nothing to do with robbing women of their rights, and everything to do with maintaining some modicum of decency. Nevertheless, her views seemed to be echoed by every other person there. Cries of “Christian’s are forcing their beliefs on us!” and “It’s fine to explain it to  your kids!” arose from all around. The general idea was that we should be at a point in society now where people can be proud of their sexuality and no longer have to keep it a secret. People should be able to buy these things without shame.

I agree with that, it’s all very well, but I simply do not think it’s something that we need to be seeing  on our weekly trip to fetch the groceries. Yes, we know that it’s okay to have a healthy sex life, and we know that it’s alright to be comfortable and open about it – but how open does it need to be? Do we have to be so comfortable and open with sex that we’re bombarded with it everywhere we go?

Honestly, to me it seems like sex is becoming too public. When it comes down to it, it’s supposed to be a private, intimate thing, but more and more people are trying to strip it of all its meaning and throw it out there into the limelight.

I foresee some point in the future where people will be doing the nasty while they wait for the bus, and people will tell you it’s a natural part of life and that you should be fine with it. (I’m exaggerating here, hopefully we never reach that point.)

I don’t care too much about sex toys in the supermarket. I think it’s tacky and I support the move to pull them back, but it’s not something I will go to my grave fighting against. I will, however, say that I don’t think parents should have to explain sex toys to their children at an early age.

Most of the comments said something along the lines of “just because you have to have an unscheduled sex talk with your children doesn’t mean you should bully businesses into doing what you want.” Many people believed it was fine to explain to your children what sex toys were. I disagree, to an extent. It should wait until they’re older. I had the talk when I was about ten, and that was more about the science behind it all. I didn’t need any more than that. I probably didn’t know sex toys were even a thing until a few years later, either. I think it’s better that way. I honestly think it’s something that would change an innocent mind.

I have no moral issues with sex toys. Go for it, if that’s your cup of tea, but for goodness sake, can’t we have a little discretion?

Demonising

I’ve noticed something funny about the internet.

There’s a lot of websites I could go on that attract people from all over the world – websites like Imgur or Tumblr. What I’ve noticed with these kinds of sites is that people are relatively tolerant of everyone else’s beliefs and choices. While religion (especially Christianity) still gets hated on a bit, for the most part people on these sites are fair, and stick to the “people are free to believe what they want” mantra.

Not so on websites closer to home.

I came across this article on Stuff.co.nz, talking about those girls making an exorcism documentary. Now, I don’t know much about what they’re up to, but I don’t approve of it as a money-making venture, if that’s what it is. Regardless, some of the things I’ve heard about it (which sound absolutely ridiculous when summed up by a very atheist writer) ring true with my knowledge of the Christian faith.

We do believe in demonic possession, and we do perform exorcisms. We do believe people can take on demons from various different things such as drugs and sex, and most of us don’t advocate turning down medical help in favour of prayer. But boy, do those beliefs take a hammering in the comments section of Stuff.

What I’ve noticed in the Stuff comments section numerous times is that anyone even vaguely religious gets downvoted to oblivion and ridiculed nonstop for what the non-spiritual among us call “being uneducated”.

I believe in God. I am a Christian. Last time I checked, I was not uneducated, I was not a blithering idiot who thinks all science is the work of the devil, and I didn’t want to force every other living being to become a Christian too. If you were to sit down with any random Christian off the street you’d no doubt find they are perfectly sane, reasonable, and logical people, just like you.

One commenter on this article actually said “There should be a law preventing anyone from being religious until the age 18.”

Yes, please, take away our freedom of thought. It’s 2013 now. We’ve come far enough that we should be able to believe in a God (or no God, as the case may be) without being sent to jail. To see a comment like that, with numerous upvotes, in this day and age . . . well, it makes it sound like we’ve started to go backwards.

When it comes down to it, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I hate how people will call Christians uneducated and blind and compare our faith to a belief in Santa, when we’re the exact opposite and there’s nothing to say they’re in the right anyway. Live and let live.

Nudity and construction equipment

Oh Miley, you’ve done it again.

Her new music video for Wrecking Ball came out today, and I can safely say she’s ruined the song for me.

The tongue still doesn’t stay in her mouth, although this time instead of poking it out, she’s just seductively licking sledgehammers. Can we all just take a moment and think about just how ridiculous that sounds? Seductively licking sledgehammers.

When she’s not doing that, she’s naked except for a pair of boots, riding a wrecking ball, or just writhing around on the ground in underwear and a singlet.

Miley, honey, I know you said you can’t stop, but I think it’s time to.

Dear Miley Cyrus . . .

Sweetie, I believe I speak on behalf of every single living being who has seen your performance at the VMA’s when I say what the hell was that?

1. Why does your tongue spend more time out of your mouth than inside it?

2. A lot of your dancing involves standing with your legs very far apart. It looks a bit strange, as if the skin between your thighs is chafing, so you’re being extra careful not to let them rub together. Briiiing the legs in bud, they’re not going to bite each other.

3. You seem to have misplaced your clothes. Of course, so did Lady Gaga, so maybe you can schedule a shopping trip together.

4. You also bend over an awful lot. Good for you, I guess, I try that after going for a run, but I can only reach halfway to the floor. Some day I aspire to reach all new lows like you. (that was a pun, and it sounds really catty, but I don’t want to delete it because I’m quite proud of it).

5. I do actually like your new song, wrecking ball. Maybe we could get a half decent music video for that one? Y’know, one where you aren’t channeling your inner stripper? Yes? Wonderful.

The chronicles of the flingzoning crash guy

My flatmate has been “playing with fire” as of late, according to our classmates, and it’s not hard to see why.

It started off innocently enough: when a man crashed into the back of her car on a jammed Auckland motorway. Enter “crash guy”. The full documented adventures of Sacha and “crash guy” can be found on her blog. While she doesn’t go into it fully, the larger story tells what I like to think is an important message for every guy who ever thinks he’s been “friendzoned”.

I’ll be frank with you, boys, “friendzoning” isn’t a thing, and if you complain about it, you’re probably a bit of a jerk who believes he’s entitled to any girl who throws him a smile.

Sacha agreed to go out for coffee with crash guy after he disfigured her poor little Nissan Pulsar, Zip, but the agreement came with a whole lot of worrying and nail-biting, for one reason. Sacha, you see, has a boyfriend, and has had said boyfriend for around two years now. They are very much in love, so demonstrated by all their PDA when he comes to visit, PDA that I like to get in on by jumping in and making a two person cuddle become an awkward three person hug. Third-wheeling for the win. Of course, I’m the last person to be talking about PDA. I’m no doubt much worse.

But I digress.

My flatmate has a lot of male friends, so she was perfectly happy going out for coffee with crash guy. The dilemma lay in the fact she wasn’t sure if crash guy was attracted to her, and whether she should say she had a boyfriend.

Here’s the problem, you see. She could either A, randomly blurt out that she had a boyfriend, and suffer the humiliation when crash guy said he wasn’t interested in her that way, and just wanted to be friends anyway, or she could B, not tell him until it came up in conversation naturally, and then run the risk of leading him on if he was interested in her.

And while the topic did end up out in the open, apparently Sacha came across as too friendly to be “just a mate”. This is what gets me: although she made it perfectly clear she was not interested in anything except friendship, crash guy still got offended later on when his advances were spurned. This man, who expected her to drop her boyfriend of two years for him, seemed to think even though she explicitly said nothing would happen, something still would.

I can’t help but think that a large number of guys moaning about being dumped in the mythical “friendzone” are people like this – people who think a girl owes them something if they befriend them. In reality, what’s happening to the girls left friendless and alone after the men realise there’s no chance, is “flingzoning”, a word that Sacha coined today which I felt perfectly summed up the situation.

We’ve heard every sob story in the book about the self-professed “nice guy” who meets a beautiful girl and tries to treat her like a princess, ever hopeful that he can one day become her prince, when he is suddenly thrown headfirst into the deep, dark, “just friends” pit. The princess then runs off with every douchebag under the sun, only to have her heart broken multiple times while the nice guy watches on, weeping silently and whispering “I would have treated you right”.

But, my friends, you don’t hear the princess’ side. What about the girl who meets a guy, clicks with him, and rejoices in the fact that, hey, she’s made a new guy mate and he seems pretty cool and unsleazy? What about the girl who immediately gets kicked to the kerb when her new guy mate finds out that, actually, he’s not getting into her pants? I’ll tell you what: that girl gets flingzoned. Or girlfriendzoned. Depends on what level of nice the “nice guy” is.

To everyone who has ever complained about being in the friendzone: you can’t force love. You can’t force attraction. If you get friendzoned, it’s either because she’s not interested in that way (and there’s no law saying she has to be), or you need to man up, stop complaining, show her how you feel and find out if the feeling is reciprocated. It might be, and you’re never going to find out if you sit back mumbling about how unfair your life is.

Emotional investments

I’ll admit, when I read the news that Cory Monteith had been found dead in his hotel room, I clapped my hand to my mouth in shock and thought – hoped – for a moment that it wasn’t true.

I’m sitting here still trying to wrap my head around the fact, and feeling a little bit guilty about how sad it’s made me. I mean, I never knew him, I didn’t have some kind of mad, celebrity crush on him. What reason do I have to feel sad about the passing of a celebrity I never even met, when other people around the world die every single day? The death toll from the train explosion in Quebec has risen to 33, and a third person has died from the plane crash in San Francisco. A one year old boy named Atreyu Taylor-Matene died in Auckland on Friday from head injuries. These are awful, horrific things to be happening, and while I feel a twinge of sadness for it all, it’s difficult for me to mourn those deaths. What makes them any different from Cory Monteith?

When a celebrity dies and the world goes into shock, pictures usually start circulating on the internet showing starving African children and a caption along the lines of: “one person dies, the whole world mourns. Millions die, nobody cares.” It’s sad, but it’s true, and I wonder what makes us so invested in the life of a star that their death takes precedence over those who die every day in much worse ways.

The reason, I believe, is that – particularly with television and movie stars – we watch them so much and see them acting and being somebody that we start to feel like we know them, even though they’re simply putting on a mask. We see them slip into a role and become somebody else, and that somebody else has emotions and fears and dreams, and we’re sitting here in front of our TV screens rooting for them. We start to love who they pretend to be.

When the actor dies, the character dies too. Sure, you can replace them sometimes, but it won’t ever be the same. Nobody can be that character in the same way, and you won’t connect with the new actor in the exact same way.

Despite all the ridicule it receives, and all its cheesiness, I actually enjoy Glee. I liked Finn and I was always hoping he’d end up with Rachel. I wanted things to work out and I wanted that happy ending for them. Now there’s no Finn anymore, and while this makes me horribly guilty to admit, that makes me pretty sad, because now we’ll never see what would’ve happened.

So that’s what I think it is. I think that we become emotionally invested in a celebrity’s life because we see them lay their character’s soul bare. I’m sure there’s a whole raft of other reasons it upsets so many people when a celebrity dies, but this is one that occurred to me while I asked myself why Cory Monteith mattered more than a stranger in a plane crash.

 

Internships, internet stalkers, and abusive biting

Day two of my internship at Stuff.

I’m sitting in the newsroom. It is gigantic. Well, it looks gigantic to me at least. There are big bowls of fruit all around the place that we can just help ourselves to. I saw a woman carrying round a bowl of lollies before. I like this place. I mentioned to my Dad yesterday about the fruit bowls, and he made some joke about how they might be bits of fake fruit to look pretty.

“Well, I ate one of the bananas so I certainly hope they weren’t fake,” I replied.

Kevin Norquay, (I’ve recently learned it’s pronounced ‘Norky’), pointed out all the newsroom cliques. You have the digital staff, the Dominion donut, and us, the national news people. He told me the digital staff are like the naughty teenagers and the Dominion Post reporters are the disapproving adults.

I’ve been punishing myself a little bit by looking at comments where people have shared my gamer piece online. I think the thing that gets me the most is that people assume I’m drawing from horrible stereotypes, even though it’s all drawn from personal experience. If I was trying to stereotype I probably would have gone on about glasses-wearing, acne-covered hermits that haven’t been outside for several months and burst into flames when they step into the sunlight.  Somebody’s been stalking my blog and posting pictures of me somewhere and “negging” them, but the pictures and comments were deleted from the thread by the time I read it. My curiosity remains unsatisfied.

For some reason my thumb is sore today, so typing is quite painful. This may be the end for me.

I have a more serious, actual news story going through today focussing on domestic abuse against men, an issue that I’m quite close to, having a family member who had just that happen to them.

I don’t know how we change people’s attitudes. We’re living in a world where it’s acceptable for a woman to hit a man and she’s just “expressing her anger”. If a man “expressed his anger” there would be Hell to pay. I’m tired of it.

I said to my boyfriend the other day, “Sam, do you ever feel like I physically abuse you?”

“No,” he replied, “except maybe when you bite me.”

I have this bad habit of getting annoyed with Sam and biting his shoulder or arm in frustration. Not hard, just enough so he knows I’m annoyed with him. Guess I oughtta stop that. Frustrated tickle attacks it is.

Woe is me

I’ve come across this article on the newswire today that has managed to really grind my gears. Considering it’s on a controversial topic, abortion, I suppose there’s no surprise that gears are being grinded. It will probably have that effect on a number of people, for one reason or another.

The article, from the Los Angeles Times, is about a bill that has been passed in North Carolina imposing new licensing requirements on abortion clinics. They now  have to meet the same medical standards as outpatient surgical clinics, and apparently that’s sacrilege, according to a large number of pro choice protestors who seem to be foaming at the mouth over this one.

On top of this, there will be other requirements for the clinics. “The bill also imposes restrictions on doctors who perform abortions; prohibits abortion coverage by health plans participating in federal health care exchanges under the new health law; and allows health care providers to refuse to provide abortion-related services.”

Here’s what gets me. First of all, this shoddy excuse for a piece of journalism is blatantly taking an angle of ‘the state is against women, they’re oppressing us’, with little effort to give the story any balance. The writer seems to want to cram in as much about how everyone is angry as they possibly can, and ignore the fact that a lot of the requirements in this bill make sense. Second of all, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this bill.

Why should people be so angry that abortion clinics need to meet higher medical standards? Oh, right, here’s why:

“This package of anti-women bills . . . could close all but one clinic in the state.” That was a paraphrased quote from Suzanne Buckley of NARAL Pro-Choice N.C.

So this seems to be where half the problem lies: the abortion clinics in the state are nearly all in such a condition that they will be unable to meet these medical standards required of them. Am I the only one thinking that it sounds better if they’re shut down then? Don’t we want the best possible care for these women while they go through (for the most part) and incredibly invasive procedure? If the clinic can’t meet the necessary health requirements then tough cookies.

Now, I’m not sure I follow the part about coverage by health plans, but I’m assuming we’re talking here about the state paying for the abortions. If that’s the case, then honestly, I don’t see the problem. I don’t see why the government should be paying for them. These women say they don’t want the government making decisions for them about their bodies, yet they want them to pay for it? Seems a little ridiculous to me. You made your bed, now sleep in it. That being said, I don’t really know much at all about health plans in the US, so my opinion here isn’t entirely balanced or reliable.

But here’s the one that makes me angry: people kicking up a fuss if healthcare providers choose to deny abortion-related services. Just because abortion is made legal doesn’t mean that doctors should be forced into performing them, much in the same way that churches shouldn’t be forced to perform marriages between homosexuals simply because gay marriage is legal.  If I was a doctor, I would certainly not expect to be forced to do something that I believe is immoral and wrong.  I would rather lose my job than commit what is, in my eyes, murder. No doctor should have to do that if it goes against their beliefs.

There’s some other bits and pieces mentioned in the article that people don’t like that I also believe they need to get over, but I won’t go into those now. However, it does appear that the way the bill was introduced was sneaky and underhanded, tacked on the end of an unrelated bill with no public notice. I’m not sure how this works: is it a requirement that they notify the public first? If so, then that’s pretty low of them, and I would agree that they have a right to be mad about that at least.

This post may be highly offensive to some people who don’t hold the same views as me. I’m tired, however, of watching article after article churn through the papers constantly voicing the opinions of people who believe their rights are being severely infringed upon when really it’s about fairness and health.

Come on, pro choicers, you can’t have everything you want.

 

What’s cheating?

A couple of days I came across this article and have been waiting until I wasn’t dead on my feet to write a post about it.

To sum it up, actress Mindy Kaling is saying that kissing other people shouldn’t be considered cheating, even after you’re married. “Ms Kaling rallies that because ‘Kissing in and of itself can’t create offspring or cause life-threatening disease,’ that it should be ‘treated like any other enjoyable (but legal) vice, such as alcohol or gambling.”

It’s pretty clear then, I think, that Kaling doesn’t really understand how a healthy relationship works. That’s a big call of me, I know, and take this just as personal opinion, but I strongly believe monogamy is the way to go. I simply don’t agree that open relationships are good, natural relationships, and I don’t think it’s ever as black and white as saying “this isn’t cheating”.

For one thing, anything can be cheating, even if you and your partner don’t agree on it. So long as one of you thinks it is, and you still go ahead and do it, that’s cheating. Granted, there are some ridiculously controlling people out there who might say spending any time whatsoever with the opposite sex is cheating, and in that case you’re probably better off finding somebody new or getting a counsellor.

I remember reading a Facebook post where a woman talked about how she’d come home from work early to find her husband watching porn. She was super upset and said that he’d told her he’d never do that, and that they both considered it cheating. The reaction that woman got was atrocious. Virtually every single comment on that thread – and there were hundreds – said something along the lines of “Watching porn isn’t cheating! Men have needs! Try watching it with him!” Maybe about three percent of the commenters understood how she felt about it, and stuck up for her.

You don’t get to tell somebody they’re wrong for seeing something as cheating. Sure sure, in this increasingly promiscuous day and age it’s becoming commonplace for people to sleep around, watch loads of porn, and even have sex with a complete stranger and never see them again. That doesn’t mean that everybody should now consider it right and natural. It doesn’t mean that people who still value intimacy should ditch all their beliefs and jump on the naked bandwagon.

But I’m getting off topic. What Kaling was saying is that couples should be alright with their partner kissing other people, because it doesn’t make babies and it doesn’t spread STD’s. To sum it up, she’s saying it’s just a bit of harmless fun.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think it’s harmless.

Kissing people is an intimate act. You may think you can share that with someone and it won’t mean a thing, but it stirs feelings whether you like it or not, granted that may be more common for women than men. Should we then be getting intimate with anybody we want “for the hell of it”? I don’t think so. I think that if you love your partner, like, really in love with them, then they’re the only one you should be intimate with – or want to be intimate with. If you share all that with the rest of the world, then what do you have leftover?

I could never see myself being alright with my boyfriend kissing other girls, not in a million years. It’s ridiculous to suggest that everyone should be okay with that.