• Home
  • Videos
  • Pics
  • Blog
  • Modules
  • About Us
  @TheSocyCinema

@thesocycinema / videos

“Eating the Other": Racial Representation and Miley Cyrus

2/2/2014

0 Comments

 
PictureMiley Cyrus twerks during an MTV performance.
Tags: art/music, culture, media, race/ethnicity, bell hooks, cultural appropriation, othering, popular culture, racism, representation, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2013
Length: 3:33
Access: YouTube

Summary: The music video for Miley Cyrus’ hit 2013 song “We Can’t Stop” is full of hip-hop tropes, from beats and backtracks to the twerk dance move for which Cyrus became infamous. Instructors can use this clip as a touchstone for classroom discussions about cultural appropriation and representations of otherness in popular media. Instructors can direct students to watch the video while keeping an eye out for how Black women are represented. Black women appear in the video, but only as a backdrop for Cyrus’ twerking along to the line “all my homegirls here with the big butts.” Cyrus' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards also featured Cyrus performing on stage with all Black female dancers around her. Although the use of hip-hop and Black culture by white musicians isn’t anything new, Cyrus’ performance functions as the appropriative practice bell hooks calls “eating the other.” In hooks’ terms, ethnicity serves as a spice or seasoning to give more flavor to an otherwise bland and mainstream/white performance. In the context of mainstream consumer culture, otherness is commodified and used as a way of adding value to a product. For example, when Cyrus was asked about the song, she said, "I want urban, I just want something that just feels Black.” Instructors can have students consider: What does it mean for something to “feel Black” in the context of popular culture? Is Cyrus’ appropriation of twerking problematic? Why or why not? 

Submitted By: Anya M. Galli

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Tags

    All
    00 To 05 Mins
    06 To 10 Mins
    11 To 20 Mins
    21 To 60 Mins
    61+ Mins
    Abortion/Reproduction
    Aging/Life Course
    Art/Music
    Biology
    Bodies
    Capitalism
    Children/Youth
    Class
    Commodification
    Community
    Consumption/Consumerism
    Corporations
    Crime/Law/Deviance
    Culture
    Demography/Population
    Disability
    Discourse/Language
    Du Bois
    Durkheim
    Economic Sociology
    Education
    Emotion/Desire
    Environment
    Food/Agriculture
    Foucault
    Gender
    Globalization
    Goffman
    Government/The State
    Health/Medicine
    Historical Sociology
    Immigration/Citizenship
    Inequality
    Intersectionality
    Knowledge
    Lgbtq
    Marketing/Brands
    Marriage/Family
    Marx/Marxism
    Media
    Methodology/Statistics
    Multiculturalism
    Nationalism
    Organizations/Occupations/Work
    Political Economy
    Politics/Election/Voting
    Prejudice/Discrimination
    Psychology/Social Psychology
    Race/Ethnicity
    Religion
    Rural/Urban
    Science/Technology
    Sex/Sexuality
    Social Construction
    Social Mvmts/Social Change/Resistance
    Sports
    Subtitles/CC
    Theory
    Violence
    War/Military
    Weber

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @TheSocyCinema

    .

    Got any videos?

    Are you finding useful videos for your classes? Do you have good videos you use in your own classes? Please consider submitting your videos here and helping us build our database!

     

    Creative Commons License
​About Us      |      Facebook      |      Twitter      |      Pinterest      |      Tumblr
Creative Commons
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Pics
  • Blog
  • Modules
  • About Us