Sexualisation, or the queer feminist provocations of Miley Cyrus

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4367449
AutoresKate Smith (0000-0003-4077-1996, Lancaster University, autor correspondente), Kate Mcnicholas Smith (0000-0002-3997-1942, Lancaster University)
Ano2017
Volume18
Fascículo3
Páginas281-298
Data de publicação2017-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoFeminist Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1464700117721880
OpenAlexW2741859957
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas29

Miley Cyrus has increasingly occupied debates at the centre of feminist engagements with popular culture. Evoking concerns around young women and 'sexualisation', Cyrus emerges as a convergent signifier of sexualised media content and the girl-at-risk. As Cyrus is repeatedly invoked in these debates, she comes to function as the bad object of young femininity. Arguing, however, that Cyrus troubles the sexualisation thesis in the provocations of her creative practice, I suggest that this contested media figure exceeds the frames through which she is read. Thus, I ask: what kinds of insights might be possible if we were to transform the terms on which we approach this figure? Considering a selection of the images and performances that constitute the Cyrus archive, this article proposes a reading of Cyrus as performative provocation. Mobilising an existing sensibility of queer feminist struggle, Cyrus emerges as a disruptive, albeit contradictory, figure. Questions of privilege, limit and possibility emerge in this discussion, as well as what constitutes feminist struggle

Aesthetics · Art · Femininity · Feminism · Girl · Literature · Performative utterance · Queer · Sensibility · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Music History and Culture · Psychology