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| Maybe it's time some writers got out there and twerked |
Had they not done so, I, myself, who do not watch music awards, would have been entirely unaware the event had occurred, or at least would not have had recurring visual images of Miley in a vinyl bikini stuck in my head. One thing you have to give Miley is she certainly can stick out her tongue. How does she do that? Is it meant to look sexy or just deranged?
Celebrity culture has morphed to the point that entertainers finding they've drained the last drop from their meager pool of talent can set out to deliberately offend their audiences and be even more famous for that. I have never watched Honey Boo-Boo, but no one living in this hemisphere can be unaware such a creature exists; she and her white-trash family seem the target of universal contempt, and yet she thrives, she thrives. Or that other guy who sang "We Saw Your Boobs" at the Oscars. Everyone agreed this had no place in the popular culture, and talked about it incessantly online for a month.
There was a time - and can't you just hear the Old Fogey in my voice as you read those words - there was a time when shocking or inappropriate behavior ruined stars instead of being a shrewd career move. Fatty Arbuckle comes to mind as just one example of a star whose career and personal life were sunk by his involvement in a Hollywood sex scandal. Of course, Fatty's escapade resulted in a woman's death, and no celebrities have resorted to murder to stay in the limelight. Not yet anyway.
The Decatur Book Festival is coming up this weekend, and it occurs to me published authors might benefit from Miley's example. If readership is flagging, maybe a few writers could do a sexually suggestive dance together? Maybe during a reading there could be a "costume malfunction" and someone's boob is "accidentally" exposed? Maybe a sex tape could be released?
I only offer these thoughts as a reader and writer myself, a man devoted to the written word.
Maybe a few of us should get on camera and twerk.
