When a Kiss Isn't Just a Kiss
Britney and Madonna shocked television audiences in 2003 when they locked lips at the MTV Video Music Awards. Even for performers known for their boundary-pushing behavior, their same-sex kiss seemed risqué at the time, a deliberately provocative takedown of a longstanding cultural taboo. It was also striking evidence of just how much an act that was once the province of the porn culture had seeped into the mainstream.
Fast-forward seven years and what was once shocking has become so common it happened twice on live television in just the last few days.
During a performance of her new song "Can't Be Tamed" on Britain's Got Talent, Miley Cyrus grabbed one of her female dancers, dipped her and feigned an aggressive kiss. A couple days later, while being presented a lifetime achievement award at the MTV Movie Awards, Blindside actress Sandra Bullock ended her acceptance speech by smooching Iron Man 2's Scarlett Johansson.
It's worth mentioning that Cyrus' moves were choreographed to titillate. Bullock's weren't. In fact, she and Johansson either really were or acted like they were embarrassed by their public "face time." In a word, it felt awkward, and Bullock immediately said, "Now that we have done that, can we please go back to normal?"
That's a good question, one that implies that their behavior isn't normal.
Neither Miley nor Sandra has confessed lesbian attraction. Neither has Katy Perry, who's engaged to a man but came to fame on the wings of her hit "I Kissed a Girl." Neither has Christina Aguilera, who's married but still flirting seductively with women in the video for her latest hit, "Not Myself Tonight." Neither have Britney or Madonna. So if these kisses aren't "genuine" expressions of love or even lust, what are they? What motivates these women to pretend to feel things they don't?
Ultimately, these entertainers' actions aren't, I don't think, about promoting homosexuality (which is a related, important, but separate issue). Instead, the issue of homosexuality is—crassly—being used to drum up more of that centuries-old celebrity mainstay: attention.
The Ghost of Kisses Past
Once upon a time, even as late as the mid-1990s, it "sufficed" to show some skin and sing sexually suggestive songs. But the game's now changed, and in a big way. According to an MTV article chronicling the history of "girl-on-girl pop culture moments," this particular same-sex fixation got started with the 1998 film Wild Things, which "saw Neve Campbell and Denise Richards share multiple scantily clad and sweaty moments." Up until then, continues MTV, such imagery had been quarantined to the realm of pornography. Afterwards—suddenly—a new "shock and awe" tactic locked into place, giving entertainers a new corridor down which they could run to stir up quick controversy … and therefore publicity.
To suggest that these women are merely desperate for attention, though, is to invite a flurry of protest as artists of all stripes scurry to defend such behavior on the grounds of … artistry. Very rarely, if ever, will the women who've embraced this new "freedom" admit they're just submitting to a depraved male fantasy in the hope of garnering a headline.
Miley's latest miscue offers a telling case study in this phenomenon. At 17, she's accelerating through the teen-queen-morphs-into-sultry-siren playbook faster than almost anyone on the long list of peers who've already walked that road. Commenting on her latest video, "Can't Be Tamed," Rolling Stone contributing editor Rob Sheffield talked about how she was doing little more than imitating Lady Gaga's highly sexualized, highly stylized approach to the medium. "Everybody who makes a pop video these days wants to cop her style," Sheffield writes. "Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera are just the latest stars to dress in Gaga drag, going for that decadent Sprockets art-porn vibe. They're totally shameless about it, but then, shameless is part of how Gaga has redefined pop cool—to the point where 'cool' and 'shameless' look the same."
Miley's response to the criticism of her girl-on-girl playacting illustrates Sheffield's point as she angrily denounces anyone who would question her "artistic integrity." On her blog, she scribbled, "During my performance I supposedly 'KISSED A GIRL' and this is the newest thing to cause controversy. I promise you I did not kiss her and it is ridiculous that two entertainers cant even rock out with each other without the media making it some type of story. I really hope my fans are not disappointed in me because the truth is I did nothing wrong. I got up there and did my job which is to perform to the best of my ability. I just want to put an end to this right now and just say one thing to everyone out there making this performance such a big deal. GET OVER IT! NOTHING HAPPENED. THERE ARE WAYYYYYYY MORE IMPORTANT THINGS IN THE WORLD."
Shameless only begins to cover it.
The Ghost of Kisses Future
In just over a decade, then, we've gotten to the point where a teenage star with a popular kids' show on Disney Channel can simulate same-sex clutching and kissing onstage and insist, with a straight face, that it's no big deal. And in fact it probably isn't for Miley, partly because that decade of change we've been discussing is exactly the decade in which she's lived most of her life.
Sandra Bullock, of course, is old enough to know that such escapades are more demeaning than they are empowering. And maybe she does, given her apparent wish to put her intimate interaction with Johansson behind her as quickly as possible. Still, it's telling that this trend is now so well established that even an Academy Award-winning actress of Bullock's caliber doesn't seem to be able (or willing) to resist participating in it.
So with Sandra submitting and Miley making the most of it, millions of fans and even casual observers—many of them young—have started second-guessing. They're now a whole lot less sure of their own grasp on morality, sexuality and what constitutes objectification.
Here's where the human race started: kisses serving as just one part of a private sexual union that physically and spiritually cements the marital bond. It's an act in which two people "become one flesh," in Scripture's terms (Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:7-9). It is a covenantal bond—a connection in which both people promise lifelong fidelity—that ties their souls together. It is a life-giving connection of physical and spiritual unity that itself results in new life.
It's already more than clear where we are now: kisses serving as public endorsements of sexual promiscuity—at first designed to stir up controversy, now just casually thrown out as chunks of chocolate to an already corpulent crowd. The biblical perspective on the purpose and place of marital sexuality is as beautiful and pure as the image of sex presented in pop culture is tarnished.
So the only question that remains is where we're going next.