I may be getting too old to be shocked, but Miley's desperate attempt to gain attention during a live production when, as we are warned at every opportunity, "anything can happen" was pretty mild when compared to some of the escapades I've seen on TV in my day.
Even before the MTV video awards came on the scene, with their Madonna-Brittany smooches, Lady Gaga meat dresses and plunging JLO necklines, artists managed to astound the stodgy masses with their antics, especially in the nether regions. 'Twerking' is today's 'Dirty Dancing'. It doesn't look half as sexy or enjoyable when performed by the juvenile Miss Cyrus as the gyrations of the lusty dance crew in the popular movie. The reaction to her 'moves' don't really seem that provocative when compared to the continental panic that ensued when Elvis made his debut on Ed Sullivan and the cameras had to cut 'The Pelvis' off, way above the knees, so to speak. (I remember straining in vain, to see, on my 17" black and white and very blurry Sylvania, what the girls in the TV audience were collapsing over).
A few years later, while the Beatles innocently bobbed their mop-tops up and down to "She Loves You", Mick Jagger was flaunting a codpiece full enough to make Anthony Weiner shrivel with envy, as he pranced around the stage complaining about not getting "Satisfaction"!
Did we all survive? Somehow.
Janet's nip-slip, Madonna writhing on the floor in a pointy bra...can any of this compare to the shockwave that ran through the art world when Manet thrust his "Dejeuner sur l'Herbe" on an unsuspecting public in 1862? I doubt it. All the ranting and raving going on last week on everything from "Entertainment Tonight" to "Morning Joe" served only to emphasize, in the words of Peter Allen, "that everything old is new again".
Yes, those who don't remember history are condemned to be shocked, over and over, by the same old thing....after all, a tush waving in the air is really nothing new.
Just go to the zoo in the Spring.
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