In her latest desperate act of depravity: Miley Cyrus performed a live-sex show with a drunken Santa at an LA radio show Christmas concert. The performance included mock anal sex, rear-end flashing, and Brazilian waxed-models who were dressed in a fashion that left nothing to the imagination. In essence, it was a pornographic-shoot in front of an audience. It would be easy and simpler to just disregard the whole seedy event. Yet, the entire mess reminds of this passage from 1 Corinthians: “It is absolutely heard, that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as the like is not among the heathens…”) That 2,000 year old sentence precisely describes just how low America has fallen. For, we now celebrate the most base, the lowest society has to offer, and the unashamedly degenerate. It’s like an orgiastic celebration in the muck of our own decline.
Because we have allowed ourselves to gradually accept and tolerate a digressing series of moral capitulations (starting with the abandonment of the Hays Code, the proliferation of “the pill,” the legalization of abortion, the decriminalization of porn, and the normalization of cohabitation) we have become a culture that is literally unshockable. This state of sensory catatonia was internationally instigated by the first post-porn phenomena: Madonna. This revolutionary performer, whose impact has yet to be fully understood, redefined what could be done in front of a general audience. In her most significant work, the music video for “Open Your Heart,” she literally busted out of a back-street peep-show and made the vilest form of wanker voyeurism a legitimate expression of American taste.
The generations which followed, had a heavy burden to carry. For, they inherited a public, and their offspring, that had already been fully indoctrinated. This required a new tactic of sensationalism. While Madonna, did have some legitimate talent, manly seen in her expert debasement of Classic Hollywood imagery, those that followed had less of pool to draw upon. Being uneducated, but technically sophisticated, they have continually turned to modern pornography for inspiration. Whereas, Madonna emerged from 1970s porn films, such as “Deep-Throat” and “Behind the Green-Door,” that were crass, but because they premiered in theaters, needed to contain some sense of narrative and story-line, the performers of today grew-up with direct to internet content that is blatantly dominated by straight-to-sex scenarios and disgustingly graphic close-ups. Therefore, they have abandoned all pretense of artistry; epitomized by the ugly performances of Cyrus.
What should concern us all: Where will the future take us?