Miley Cyrus Wrecks Your Idea of Herself

September 27, 2013September 24, 2013 Mary Hendrie Leave a comment

So, I recently watched Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video, and I gotta say … I know everyone’s still pissed about her VMA performance, and I have some feelings about that too, but this video on its own is actually really fucking good.

People have been saying it’s disturbing or cheap or trashy, and I disagree. Women wear skimpy clothing and dance provocatively in videos for male artists all the time. Every day, we see women in the media used as props to make the men around them look better. A woman’s beauty and sexuality are used as a marketing tool for cars, beer, web hosting, you name it. What people can’t stand is that in this video, Miley absolutely works her stuff in way that benefits herself instead of someone else. She’s getting naked to sing a song and sell some records. She’s making money. Yes, it’s shameless. It should be. If a man had *ahem* assets like that, you bet he’d be working it to sell some records. Why shouldn’t Miley?

I’m not saying I agree with everything the girl does. I think her VMA performance (along with her video for “We Can’t Stop”) was a disaster because it treated black women’s bodies as a joke. I wasn’t fond of the dancing with Robin Thicke because his whole damn song is about date rape. And I don’t approve of twerking not because it’s too sexual but because the mere thought of doing it makes my back hurt. Yeah, so what, I’m old.

Anyway, I’m not some die-hard Miley defender. I’m not really a fan of her music. I think she needs more sane adults in her life. But as for her music videos, I think the strong reactions people have to her are more indicative of our own hangups than something wrong with her. If it freaks you out that much to see a woman acting sexy without a man around, maybe you’ve got some shit to work through. If you’re afraid she’s sending the wrong message to young women, maybe think about what message you’d like your daughter to receive and then have an honest conversation about that. And of course, if you simply don’t like what you’re seeing, you have options. You could go make something better.

Post Mortem: What’s wrong with this essay?

October 26, 2009 Mary Hendrie Leave a comment

Remember Assignment 4? Follow through, that was my task. And I did it. And then I got rejected. No biggie. I mean, at least I hadn’t labored over that essay for months or years trying to express just the right thing. Granted, that’s probably the main reason it was rejected. I probably need to spend more time on revision and honing in on exactly what I want to say.

Okay then, so noted.

In the mean time, here’s the essay, in all its naked, un-edited glory. I’ve posted it on The Nervous Breakdown, and the comments are open for your critique. Please note that constructive criticism is welcome, and I sincerely do not want a bunch of “Oh, it’s just lovely. I don’t know what those editors were thinking!” Because clearly, they had their pick of essays to publish, and mine didn’t make the cut. So, lets get to it.

What’s wrong with this essay?

Inner Critics: STFU Already

June 16, 2009 Mary Hendrie 1 Comment

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Who are your critics? Your mom and dad? Your high school English teacher or favorite professor? Who is it inside your head? Whose face do you picture when telling yourself why you can’t or shouldn’t do something?

For me, it’s the people I love most. I ask myself: How would this affect my husband if his coworkers were to read it? How would my parents feel if I wrote about our family in this way? What would my in-laws think if I wrote really risque scenes? By the time I get to the end of my list, I usually have a lot of reasons not to start on any meaningful writing, and what’s worse is that my inner critics have gone online and multiplied. Now, I also think: What are the trolls going to say, and how can I defend myself against their attacks preemptively? What will my childhood friends who grew up to become conservatives think when I write post on Facebook about my support for gay marriage? What will Twitter think? (No kidding.)

It seems like all the warm and fuzzy writing manuals I’ve read (you know, the ones that are 90% inspiration/motivation and 10% technique) suggest that one of the first steps in becoming a writer (or artist of any kind) is to shut your inner critics up. But of course, like most things, that’s easier said than done.

They suggest techniques like putting your inner critics in a box (in your head) and telling them they can come out when you’re done writing. Personally, this just makes me picture caricatures of my close friends and family being picked up by big, animated fingers and dropped in a box. It’s all rather weird and doesn’t actually accomplish anything except making me visualize in detail how my loved ones would be portrayed by political cartoonists.

I don’t want to engage in any cheesy psychological exercises, but I do need the mental freedom to put words on a page without obsessing, “What will so-and-so think?” Here are a few techniques I’ve used to shut up the inner critic and get some writing done.

Keep it to yourself: Keep a notebook that’s for your eyes only. I was lucky enough to have parents who respected their children’s need for mental space, so I was able to trust my notebooks and say whatever I needed to say. Keeping your notebook 100% private means you don’t need to think about your critics when you’re working in a notebook because you know they’ll never see it. You can always edit later if you want to share.

Drown them out: They aren’t real, you know. You can’t hurt them. So, do what you must to shut them up. If the silly visualization works for you, fine. But if you’re like me, it might take some actual force. I love to write with headphones on because when I’m listening to music I love, it helps me tune out the nonsense and tune in to what I’m working on.

Sweat them out: In my experience, the inner critic’s noisiness is often in direct proportion to the amount of stress I’m under, and I find that a good work out can go a long way toward soothing my nerves and quieting my inner critic. Turns out a lot of the criticism has nothing to do with my writing and everything to do with basic anxiety or insecurity, so just learning to tame the anxiety can really help.

Listen to them later: I guess the point of the box exercise was to allow your critics to withhold their comments until you’re prepared to hear them. The thing is, not everything they say is worthwhile, and anything really important will come back to you, but a lot of it is just anxious chatter. Just know that when you’re revising your work to print or post on your blog or whatever, you can apply the necessary filters then. And it is necessary to filter sometimes if you care about your audience, but that’s why we have a process called revision. If you put on all the filters right from the start, barely anything will get through, but if you pour it all out the first time around, you can sift through and pick out the good stuff later.

Cultivate your inner badass: I think it’s not fair that we all have these inner critics who are big nervous nellies and we’re supposed to just be stuck with them. So, I’m working on cultivating an inner badass. I need a little person inside me who can look those whiney, hyper critical little bastards in the eye and say, “Yeah, so?” I’m working on it. So far, she looks a bit like Tank Girl (couldn’t you guess?) and has a pretty foul mouth.

So what do you do to get past that nonsense?