Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke - a Symptom of Society

This past Monday at lunch I was sitting with a group of co-workers and we were discussing what we did over the weekend. One of the ladies asked if anyone had seen the Music Video Awards (MVA's) and the performance of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke. Now I am by no means a music expert, through my youth group I had head of Miley Cyrus during her days as Hannah Montana, I had no idea who Robin Thicke is. I tend not to keep up with Hollywood and other such celebrities. I often confuse singers and actors with each other, and often get accused of living under a rock. My own music tastes are very eclectic, I often will listen to Loreena McKennitt, Inkubus Sukkubus, Sarah Brightman, Nightwish, Trisha Yearwood, Cher and Celtic Woman. Therefore I am no expert in the quality of pop music, but I digress.

During the course of the conversation I mentioned that I had not actually seen this performance we were discussing, so one of my coworkers proceeded to pull out her Iphone and caught me up what I had missed. I will grant you, my initial reaction was not a pleasant one. I did not really like the music all that much, I was rather confused by the oversized teddy bear backpacks, I was uncomfortable with the use of the foam finger and the movement I have been told is called "twerking". All in all I must say I personally did not enjoy the performance, actually I felt rather uncomfortable as I watched. I noted to my coworkers that it was not my cup of tea and changed the subject. Over the course of the rest of the week I attempted to push the performance out of my mind. This proved to be a far more difficult endeavor than I had initially assumed.

Since I had first witnessed this event I noticed that every time I opened my internet browser there was an article on it, several people on Twitter had "tweeted" about the event, and even Facebook had a cascade of attention on this particular event. With that much exposure, along with it being the main topic of conversation at the lunchroom one could not help but think about it, or read what others had to say. How it was obscene, how they were disgusted by it, how she ought to be ashamed of herself. They also mentioned how ashamed Mr. Thicke should be of himself, a married man with children grinding himself into a woman who is 16 years his junior on national television.

Still more fingers pointed towards the executive of the MVAs, how they had to know in advance that the performance would look like that and therefore they should not have allowed it to happen in the first place. There were lots of fingers pointing and tongues wagging.  I did my best to ignore it until a young lady from my youth group that is on my Facebook page "liked" a photograph with a photograph of Ms. Cyrus and a quote from an interview she did:

"Haters are gonna hate, but they are also gonna click on your Youtube to watch it. I don't really care, you helped me break the record. And if you were watching it just to hate on me I now hold a record, so I win." - Ms. Cyrus.

Now I gather this interview was done very recently so I would imagine this is still her opinion after the MVAs. Many people are applauding this attitude, the "I don't care, I do whatever I want" idea she has put out is very popular, but something irked at me somewhat. It appeared to me that she did not care what she was breaking a record for, she cared only that she broke a record. The music video she was talking about breaking the record on was for the song she sang at the MVAs. I heard this song on the radio one day, she sings about partying all night, having fun, kissing anybody, dancing like they are at the strip club. Based on this information it would seem that this is what M. Cyrus wants to be known for. Mr. Thicke's lyrics for the song he performed are about sexual acts, calling a woman "bitch" and hitting her and pulling her hair. This is what he would seem to wish to be known for.

Knowing that these two individuals are idolized by the youth of today, and hearing their lyrics, I cannot hlp but think of some of my personal idols; Malala Yousafzai. The young lady who was shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating for children and women's education. Winston Churchill who led Great Britain through WWII. "The Famous Five", Nellie McLung, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Emily Murphy, Louise McKinny and Irene Parlby. The women who launched "The Persons Case" in Canada that led to women being declared "qualified persons" which allowed them to sit in the Senate. Each of these women also significantly contributed to women across Canada being granted the right to vote. These are the people that I personally believe our youth should be looking up to and idolizing.

I found myself getting caught up in the anger directed at these young people for their behaviour, for putting themselves out as such a spectacle. Then I began to ask myself what is so different about these two people. This is nothing new under the glaring lights of the public lime light. Think back to Madonna kissing Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilara, or how about some of Lady Gaga's apperances. And who can forget the Superbowl performance where Justin Timberlake tore off the front of Janet Jackson's costume? Is what people witnessed at the MVA's this year really that different. If you ask me the answer is no. And do you want to know why... we asked for it. With all the fingers pointing, the accusations flying and the name calling we forgot where we should be firmly pointing the finger. At ourselves.

Now before you get totally cheesed off on me, hear me out. Why do these people do this? Power, prestige, adoration, money? Actually it is all of the above. Lets look at each item starting with money because it is the easiest I can demonstrate. We buy their albums, we download their songs, pay exorbitant amounts for their concerts, their perfumes and designer clothing. Adoration, just go to a concert and listen to the screaming fans, and the thousands of letters and cards. Feeling like you are loved by so many people can be a very intoxicating elixir. Prestige, they get into clubs and restaurants and if they get arrested they can afford the lawyers to get them a lighter sentence. This gives them, in our modern society, a great deal of power.

But here is the secret, we as a society have given them this power, we have created them to be what they are. Think about it, if we did not pay them to act the way they do, or reward them with attention, would they be doing this. We as a society have decided that this is what we want. We want our celebrities to be crass, obscene and vulgar. We reward them for it with out twitter feeds, Facebook posts, watching them on Youtube and even (and I am certainly not immune) our blogs. We reward them with attention and then again buy buying their albums and their merchandise. Then we blame them for their crude actions . They are not the driving force behind this behaviour, we are! While I can holed them accountable for their behaviour, I cannot totally blame them for it, because as a society we have created them to be what they are.

We have forgotten our own power, we have created this reality and it is our responsibility to change it. If we decide that we no longer find this behaviour acceptable then we must take our power in our own hands and direct it elsewhere. We could direct this power to either buying albums of different artists, or spending it by going to a local dinner theater or play. As a Pagan I know that we create our own reality, if we want to change this reality we have to change where we are directing our thoughts, our energy and our money.

Yours Humbly

The Redneck Pagan




 

Malala

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/pakistans-malala-celebrates-16th-birthday-u-n-education-141322045.html

I have no words to describe my admiration and respect for this amazing young woman! I can only ask please share this article, watch the video and share!

Your Humbly

The Redneck Pagan

The Holocaust Survivor Part Two

They were taken to a shed and the survivor remembered there being more and more people coming into the shed, she remembered it smelled bad and one day all the people in the shed left, walked into a field and she remembered being tied to her mother's back while everyone began to dig a hole. A fog came up while they were digging and her mother dropped her shovel and crawled into the woods. A few minutes later the gunshots rang out, the people who had been digging their own graves had been slaughtered.

After going back into the woods her mother found their cousins, their cousins found forged papers for them and smuggled them into another town. Stating they were the family of a Soviet soldier they lived in a village pretending to be Protestants until the end of the war. When they returned to their village they discovered the textile mill had been taken apart and their home stripped of all their belongings. They were able to recover a family photo album and a shirt her mother had made by the only person in the village who tried to save their belongings from thieves.

The rest of the village was very hostile to the family, blaming Jewish people for the German invasion, so they left the village and walked. They ended up walking across several countries with a friend who would eventually marry her mother, bribing border guards along the way. They made it to a Red Cross Displaced Persons camp and the Red Cross was able to locate cousins that had moved to Canada prior to the war. It took over a year for them to be able to come to Canada, with only a suitcase apiece full of all their possessions. Before leaving Europe the survivor and her mother had gone to a cemetery where her mother buried a piece of soap, the soap had been made in a Concentration Death Camp from the fat and ashes of people that had been burned in the crematoriums.

They came to Canada, started new lives and freely practiced their religion. The Holocaust Survivors who came to Canada and lived in Calgary banded together, supported each other as they adjusted to their new lives, and attempted to move forwards from the horrors of their pasts. Years later, as Holocaust survivors began to pass away the survivor who came to talk to us felt it was important to come forward and share her story. When asked if she and her mother ever returned to Europe the survivor said no, “all that land is a cemetery to us”. The presentation closed with a question and answer session, and then the Holocaust Educator who had brought the survivor gave a small closing speech. She said "they were the witnesses, and now we have shared their stories with you so that you too are witnesses. And so that you will know what can happen, and help keeping it from ever happening again".

Her story took about an hour to tell, all the while telling it she had a very calm and dignified manner. Her story captivated the kids and even some of my worse misbehavers were silent. Anybody who did try to talk during the story was told by other kids to stop talking (a miracle in my books). My husband and I spent some time talking to the survivor afterwards, commenting on how well our kids listened to her. My husband remarked on the struggles we have had to make them listen to us and he commented that perhaps the problem was too much freedom, to which she replied “Never, never, never. There can never be a thing as too much freedom. We are so lucky to have such a beautiful thing as our freedom, I am grateful even today for Canada.”

The sad thing is her story is not unique across human history. For thousands of years we have been this cruel to each other, countless atrocities have marred our heritage. The Armenian Massacres, The Killing Fields in Cambodia, The Genocide in Rwanda, are all tragedies of the highest order. We know the most about the Holocaust because the Germans had documented everything well with Photographs, Videos, official documents and the still standing Concentration Camps. There is also the trials at Nuremburg where thousands of witnesses provided testimony of the atrocities. And finally there are the survivors, those that were dehumanized and beaten, those who had to struggle everyday to live when those around them were intent on destroying them.

These survivors, of all genocides and atrocities of our species, have a strength that is beyond our capacity to measure. They look at the face of the depths of which we as a species can sink, they see things that cannot be described accurately in words, experience horrors that we sitting comfortably at home cannot understand and have found a way to live through it, and begin again. Those survivors have a level of courage that I am not sure I myself would be able to attain on the best of days.
These survivors not only find the courage to survive, they find the strength to recall these events and recount them to us. They have taken upon themselves not only the burden of their past, but the burden of being our memory. They remember that which we do not wish to remember, but should never forget. They push past the pain of their memories to remind us of what we must never become.

Yours Humbly
The Redneck Pagan