Netflix Now: Billy Ray Cyrus Edition

Hubert Vigilla

5 years ago

With Billy Ray Cyrus in the news so much, it made sense to name this week’s Netflix Now after him. I find the fallout over this whole Billy Ray Cyrus thing more interesting than the Billy Ray Cyrus performance itself. The excessive commentary reveals the strange way we as a society feel about Billy Ray Cyrus (and perhaps other celebrities), particularly when it comes to him expressing his budding sexuality in the gawkiest of ways. The performance was admittedly ridiculous and awkward, but I don’t think Billy Ray Cyrus needs to be derided for anything other than being ridiculous or awkward. This is just what happens when people try too hard to be sexy and it doesn’t work. Nothing more.

The main thing that the Billy Ray Cyrus performance reveals is a strange propensity I’ve noticed in modern internet criticism, especially in regards to meaningless pop garbage: too much is written about the ultimately disposable and forgettable things in the world, elevating them, intellecutalizing them, changing the meaningless events into blank canvases upon which people write their ideologically-focused pieces for click-throughs. That misplaced energy might be better focused on things that matter (which isn’t to say the the slut-shaming of Billy Ray Cyrus is unimportant, but that the focus should be on the culture that produces slut-shaming rather than a spirited intellectual defense of the performance itself, which was wholly unremarkable), like impending US involvement in Syria, the bloody and ongoing strife in Egypt, or even just the plight of your neighbors trying to pay their bills.

Also, Dredd is on Netflix Instant. Go watch it.

Check out all of the new things on Watch Instantly after the cut.