The moment Miley Cyrus took the stage in her nude latex
costume and “twerked” upon Robin Thicke, her image was forever changed. Miley
the Movement became evident to the general population when she shaved her head,
bagged the good-girl look and spoke openly of her drug use. The media has since
followed her every step, documenting what they refer to, as her downfall.
However, the current debate over America’s sweetheart is whether this is just
growing up, or the inevitable downfall. There seems to be a relatively accurate
formula for the “good-girl” persona that is put in the spot light; they rise to
fame at an early age, go through puberty and grow up in their early years under
the watchful eye of not just their parents, but the whole world, and soon
enough, without fail, they break. While
Miley’s twerking is unsightly to some and she needs to learn to keep her tongue
in her mouth, she is not breaking car windows with umbrellas (Britney Spears) or
getting continuously arrested for drunk driving. While referring to herself as a “movement”
can come off narcissistic, Miley wants to separate herself from everyone else,
showing the world that she is breaking away from this stereotypical portrayal
of a good girl gone bad and revealing the true “bad bitch” she really is.
While Miley populated twerking, twerking was actually born
out of New Orleans' bounce music scene. It is a hip hop sub-genre centered
around call-and-response vocals and the endlessly sampled Triggaman beat. The
first reference to twerking in a song is DJ Jubilee's "Do the Jubilee
All" in 1993, which features him telling the crowd to, "Twerk baby,
twerk baby, twerk, twerk, twerk." Much like twerking, the bounce music
scene has been getting more national attention over the last few years (Fuse).
Girls now a days see twerking as a way to grab
attention and show off their bodies or even to do it as a profession. Recently
a 22-year-old pre-kindergarten teacher out of Orlando, Florida began her
twerking career by posting short videos on vine with herself twerking. She was so
good at it that she now has more than two million followers and more than 673
million views. As a result she has now quit her job and solely relies on twerking
for a living, making a six figure salary by having brand products in her videos
and making appearances for promoters. Her philosophy on quitting is as follows;
“What I make in six seconds would take me like four months to make as a pre-K
teacher.”
https://vine.co/v/MYLbqYWQVDI
https://vine.co/v/ML7EaIql9pl
The twerking trend is something that brings up many questions about how females sell their bodies. It can easily been seen that there are things in society that question the respect a woman has for her body. The answer to this question depends on each person and their level of privacy. I think that what is evident in the twerking movement, and even Miley and Movement, is that society is moving to a point where privacy is not really considered. Twerking at a party or for a video is not something that is scandalous for many people. I have even been to family parties where the older women are attempting to twerk! I think that it could even be argued that there is a “butt” movement happening because of the twerking movement. We’ve all heard Nicki Minaj’s song “Anacoda” and Iggy Azalea’s new song “Booty” featuring Jennifer Lopez. Not to mention, the popularity of pictures of Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea’s butts. Workout magazines constantly encourage squats and bikini bottoms are getting smaller and smaller. This trend speaks again to women selling their bodies, but on the other hand, may just be evidence of people becoming less private and conservative.
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