Color me bored, not shocked.
Yesterday morning I did something I've never done before:
listened to a Miley Cyrus song. It made me think of Duns Scotus and I’ll bet
you don’t know too many people who can say that with a straight face.
I was previously able to escape Miley because I don’t have
cable and good old WUMB doesn’t play her music. But the uproar over her VMA
routine made me curious enough to seek an online video. I wasn’t shocked by Miley’s
performance because that’s exactly what it was–a performance that no rational
human should confuse with music. Instead of quaking with outrage or fearing the
moral corruption of America’s youth I roared with laughter at the tacky
banality of it all. And, like I said, it reminded me of Duns Scotus–sort of.
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| Duns Scotus |
That name probably doesn’t many ring bells. Scotus is Latin
for Scotsman and Duns the Scotsman lived a long time ago (1268-1308). Although
he is considered by scholars to be one of the most important thinkers of the
Middle Ages, his very name gave us the English word “dunce,” a person too dense
to learn. Scotus wrestled with some of the weightiest questions imaginable, but
he is often discredited as the author of the ultimate stupid question: How many angels can dance on the head of a
pin? Leaving aside the possibility that Duns wasn’t the first to ask that
kind of question and probably never posed it that way, it’s actually a very
profound way of contemplating the differences between the natural and supernatural
realms. If the latter exists, it would not be subject to the laws of physics.
In a Duns/dunce-like way, the answer to the question is: As many angels as want
to twerk and they can bring dates. No pin could contain them.
Scotus may have asked that “dumb” question because he was
the victim of bad timing. Brilliant as he was, he had the misfortune to follow
in the footsteps of one of the most stunning intellects in all of Western
history: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Aquinas was the apex of a
religious/intellectual movement known as Scholasticism. The anti-intellectualism
of the modern evangelical movement would make Scholastics spew if they were
around today. Scholastics didn’t battle their culture or its ideas; they
engaged in intellectual query that sought to harmonize faith, reason, and
science. Aristotle occupied a lower throne than Jesus, Moses, and the prophets,
but only slightly lower. The problem for Scotus was that Aquinas was so good at
this kind of thinking, that he answered most of the good questions! (He mused upon 631 of them in his Summa
Theologica.) The Scholastic movement hung around for another century or so, but it was on the downslide by the time Duns came along. And,
really, what more was there to add to what Aquinas said?
By now you must think I slipped off the stripper pole. What
the hell does this have to do with a twit like Miley Cyrus? Let’s go back to
timing. I’m shocked all right–shocked that anyone would be shocked by Miley’s
twerking. Have such people been living in a bubble even bigger than my
cableless living room? The whole point
of a lot of pop culture is to shock. Or did you think The Beatles really
preferred Edwardian suits, or that Mick Jagger was simply ‘more comfortable’ in
purple stretch pants and a leopard-print open jacket? Pop music has been the
repository of outré costuming forever: Little Richard’s pompadour, Elvis’s
tight-trouser gyrations, the glitter gay of Liberace and Elton John, the
androgyny of Alice Cooper and Prince, glam rock, Flower Child psychedelia, punk
safety pins and Mohawks…. But let’s hand the crown to one who topped them all:
Madonna. Love her or hate her, Madonna didn’t just push the envelop; she ripped
it open and tore it to shreds. Expose the hypocrisy of virgin versus whore
images of women? Consider it shattered. Parody religion? Check–several times
and several traditions. Nudity and lesbianism? Flip the pages of Sex. Death by copulation? See Body of Evidence (1993). Foul language,
bullet bras, crotch shots, bondage, celebrity marriages and breakups, cowgirl
sluttery, Kabbalah mysticism, outspoken political commentary…? Done that. Hell,
the woman has even gotten away with playing a wholesome mom who writes
children’s books.
Did Madonna leave anything? If she did, Lady Gaga and Katy
Perry grabbed it. So what’s a half talent like Miley riding the coattails of
her old man’s career to do? The VMA spectacle was an attempt to push boundaries
(plush toy sex anyone?), but it’s a vacuous flop–and not just because she
can’t really sing or dance very well. It failed because Miley doesn’t have a
vivid enough imagination. Her act is just soft porn with a Disney twist. In
other words, it failed because it is neither original nor shocking–it’s just
stupid and lame. What a dunce!
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