Miley Cyrus has been
raising many eyebrows and causing quite the controversy due to her recent lewd
music video, Wrecking Ball. Many people have voiced their opinions about the
disgust that they felt while watching. Throughout the video, the camera shoots
to scenes of Miley stripped down to nothing but combat boots and swinging
around on top of a wrecking ball. Viewers have been quick to harshly judge her
and result to indecent name calling without looking deeper into her video. Listening
to the lyrics, you can get a general idea and basis on what the song is written
about but once you look beyond the apparent raunchiness and nudity, you find
yourself viewing a music video filled with strong and definite symbolism that
helps tell a story of heart break and pain.
The opening scene of the music video is a close-up of
Miley with faint tears falling down her face with minimal make-up. With a
combination of these, as a viewer, you understand that this song is going to be
one filled with deep emotional ties and is about much more than just sex appeal.
Miley can be seen holding a sledgehammer and throwing it over her shoulder. A
sledgehammer can represent various feelings, but in this music video, it
represents pain. With the sledgehammer,
she’s showing how she’s holding the heavy burden of the broken relationship on
her shoulders and that she’s trying to take on the pain as a way of dealing
with it. Whenever someone is going through a hurtful period of time, they generally
don’t want to show the pain they are feeling, especially when another person is
causing it. This is why Miley remains stone-faced and looks almost emotionless.
She doesn’t want to show that she’s hurting and tries to force herself into
believing that she is fine.
When
witnessing her kissing and licking the sledgehammer, many questioned as to what
the purpose of it was or just assumed that it was an act of publicity. If you
recognize the sledgehammer as a symbolize
of pain, you can then see that she is simply expressing and showing how she still
secretly loves the pain and uses it as a way of holding onto what little of the
relationship she has left. For letting go of the pain, is to let go of the love
completely.
The wrecking ball smashing through the walls would be the
easiest use of symbolism to understand. The wrecking ball shows that the love
she experienced came bursting in unexpectedly and broke down all her walls that
she once had up. It also shows how the love became destructive and eventually
ended up damaging her. Her choice in white clothing as she sits upon the
wrecking ball represents her once innocent and almost naïve mentality when she
first entered the relationship. By sitting on the wrecking ball, she’s telling
us how she was more than willing to take that ride and welcomed it in. We still
see Miley sitting on the wrecking ball, but this time, she’s stripped down to
nothing but combat boots. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that she wants
to just show off her body, she’s actually telling us how the love has stripped
her down emotionally, leaving her raw on the inside.
With the sledgehammer in hand, Miley can be seen smashing
down what’s left of the destroyed walls. With this, it is apparent that she is admitting
to and taking responsibility for allowing the relationship to deteriorate. She’s
admitting that some of her actions and choices lead to it all crashing down.
She remains emotionless throughout this scene, which can be interpreted as that
throughout the relationship she didn’t pay attention or care for it. Throughout
little snippets of the video, we can see Miley slapping and punching herself.
This is a way of telling herself what a fool she was for allowing herself to
become vulnerable and for putting herself in this situation. It can also be a
way of trying to harden herself up and to more focus on the physical pain,
rather than the emotional.
The final shot is of Miley lying in the ruble of the once
were walls. This is when the realization of the relationship being ruined sets
in for her. All she is now left with is the broken pieces and has to figure a
way to build herself back up separately from this relationship. The feeling of
regret and sorrow has now consumed her.
I
know many people will strongly disagree with me, for when I first watched the
video all I could think was “what a promiscuous cry for attention”. But once I
connected the lyrics and the music video, I realized that it was so much more
than that. I can now appreciate Miley’s music and respect her more as an
artist. She told an extremely personal story of a love-gone-wrong and has put
to use great symbolism in order to get that story across.
