If she was just a little bit bolder, and a decent amount wiser, Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball could actually have been an intelligent, provocative statement on how women are taught to objectify themselves. As it stands it's more than a little sad.

Watch it. You should. Yes, it's derogatory. And naively, grotesquely sexualised. Many people are criticising this video, and Miley herself, as a "wank fest". But I watch this and I see several things, most noticeably, failed potential for a provocative statement on how women are objectified within society, more often than not, by themselves, and how this objectification demeans men as much as women.

Firstly, the lyrical content. Yes, rather than simply watch Miley licking a sledgehammer and writhing naked bar her Dock Martens, it is relevant to watch the video in conjunction with the song it promotes. This is a song bemoaning the loss of a relationship, and admitting a fair degree of fault for the way in which it went wrong. And specifically, refers to a lack of intimacy in the relationship, and in the attempt to heal it. The protagonist of the song, as with the protagonist of the video, goes in with a skewed view of how to bond with another human being, that in the romantic stakes, she will only be valued as a sexual plaything, and as such, must bit her lip, wriggle and writhe no matter the discomfort level of lying naked on rubble, and lick EVERYTHING in an effort to maintain her erotic image, her levels of attraction. Miley has been criticised for this left, right and centre, yet if you look to the words of the song, she acknowledges that the approach is wrong, that intimacy, personality, rather than sexy sexy sex sex is ultimately what people want, what they stay with. Sexy might turn your head for a time, but without intimacy it doesn't hold your attention or your heart.

[Excerpt]


I came in like a wrecking ball
Yeah, I just closed my eyes and swung
Left me crashing in a blazing fall
All you ever did was break me
Yeah, you wreck me 

I never meant to start a war
I just wanted you to let me in
And instead of using force
I guess I should’ve let you in
I never meant to start a war
I just wanted you to let me in
I guess I should’ve let you in 


So far, so full of potential. The recognition that girls are taught that men only want them for sex a) demeans them, b) demeans men by assuming that men want less than women do, and c) showing how going in with all your sexy bits a-shaking to try and salvage something only further emphasises the lack of closeness, the lack of viable relationship.

If this was what this video had sort to achieve, this would have been awesome. Someone, rather than just sexualising themselves, opening demonstrating the pain and futility of this kind of debasing behaviour. Women are taught that they are only valuable as tail, then are derided for thinking of themselves that way, and this is something that needs to change. The social objectification of women, that women align standards of beauty with identikit features and sexuality with behaving like a triple X porn star. Women need to reclaim womanhood, and actually learn something. Women are attractive. As they are. For their imperfections, and their perfections. For their humour, their hobbies, their skills, for the way they treat people. In this, women are attractive in exactly the same way as men. And when women find men (or other women) interesting based on quirks of personality, compatible humour, intellect, sense of evil, mutual desire to take over the world whilst monologuing about it shamelessly, women need to remember that they are being assessed in the same way as they assess. Yes, a guy may check out your arse. But if he's looking for more than one night, he'll be looking more closely at your personality. And portraying the failure of recognising this, the horrible pain on both sides of someone debasing themselves to what they are (wrongly) taught that they are, portraying that would have been brave.

If this had been the cause Miley had sought to align herself with, the massive nudity, and writhing and licking may actually have worked with this. Unfortunately, recent gold bikinis and racially subjugated backing dancers mean such a theory as to hopeful intent cannot wash, as does her decision to employ Terry Richardson as director. Richardson, of whose work Rie Rasmussen said "He takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures of them they will be ashamed of. They are too afraid to say no because their agency booked them on the job and are too young to stand up for themselves. His 'look' is girls who appear underage, abused, look like heroin addicts … I don't understand how anyone works with him." He is a photographer that allegedly gets every body naked, tries to bed his models, and then gets his assistants to photograph the acts taking place for posterity, or just to embarrass conquests further down the line with exibitions such as Terryworld. Yes, this would be the man to employ if you wanted to make a statement about women being more than objects, and the soft porn styling of the video further reflects this, the lack of nuance, the soft edges remove any potential statement, other than "Look at me! I'm not Hannah Montana any more! Look at me, I've got boobs! And a vagina! And I want to use them! I'll do anything you want... No really, I will..."

All I'm going to say is, she's young, and having grown up as a Disney clean teen, she appears to be embracing the virgin/whore dyad with relish, instead than exploring how such offensive pigeon holing can be erased, and society can learn to view women, and their sexuality, as equal to that of men. Women are not "good girls" or "bad girls", we have our desires, just the same as men, and these are perfectly natural. We are not less for wanting to do something for which there should be no moral judgement so long as both parties are consenting adults.

I hope Miley develops a more nuanced portrayal of herself, I really do. Ultimately, for all the (failed) potential, this video reminds my of being in the supermarket, and stumbling on the uncomfortable sight of a child of about 8 mimicking the gyrations and gestures of a Britney Spears video. At such a young age, girls are already taught that this is what makes girls valuable, and this is upsetting and unsettling, and fails to provide young women for a model of themselves based on worth, instead chopshopping them into a commodity, slightly less valuable than the sum of their lady parts.