Miley Cyrus' tongue creates ruckus

A wise man once said, the tongue is like a sharp knife, it kills without drawing blood. Had Miley Cyrus read that somewhere? Nopes, it seems. For, at a recent awards, she unleashed that pink mass of tissue and muscle like an alien proboscis, as she stroked, rolled, licked and felt the song’s syllables — and people’s imaginations.
The audience, as it were, lapped it up.Post-performance, netizens battered the poor lass (objectionable, inappropriate, cheap, they said) as Miley went on to admit in an interview, “I am so f***ed up”. But we were left wondering what the bedlam was all about. Human beings have used the tongue — the science books call it a muscular hydrostat — to do much more than just manipulate food in the mouth. And sticking your tongue out can mean anything from aggression to embarrassment, rebellion and a come-hither attitude.
Tongue in pop
Miley is hardly the first pop icon to let it hang, so to say. For their 1971 album, Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones had their famous logo — a shiny red tongue popping out of a pair of lips — as album art. The iconic image was born when the rockers felt the images associated with them till then were getting bland and they needed something “anti-authority”. The new visual was reportedly inspired by Mick Jagger’s thick lips and tongue! For another rocker, Gene Simmons, his on-stage persona complete with white face paint, graphic eye makeup and lolling tongue has had audiences identifying him with something sinister. Taking about his long tongue, he once said: “It’s no different than a girl with big breasts or bright lips. It’s sexual power”.
Holly licks it!
In films, the use of the tongue spans all sorts of situations — from sinister to comic and downright sexual. In The Mask, Jim Carrey’s alter ego flaunts his larger-than-life sexuality in an unforgettable scene, where his eyes pop out and his tongue sweeps the table on seeing Cameron Diaz. And how can one not remember the scene in Scarface where Manny (Steven Bauer) tells friend Tony Montana (Al Pacino) that to pick up a chick in the US all one had to do was poke one’s tongue out. But as the sadistic sociopath Joker, Heath Ledger gives the gesture a menacing edge as he frequently flicks his tongue out to lick his scars... and ask, “Why so serious?”
Culture curry
Sticking out your tongue has various connotations in different cultures across the globe. “Back off”, the Maoris seem to say, as they follow up this gesture with glottal grunts and hand movements to ward off enemies. At the other end of the emotion spectrum are the Tibetans. If you’ve watched Seven Years in Tibet, you’ll remember that Tibetans stick out their tongues on seeing Brad Pitt. While the film offers no explanation for this weird custom, but we know that in Tibet, the gesture is accepted as a greeting. Legend goes that a ninth century king, Lang Derma — infamous for his cruelty — had a black tongue. Tibetans were afraid of his reincarnation and over the years, sticking one’s tongue out to show its pink colour and prove one’s innocence has turned into a customary form of greeting. In the New World, totem poles showing hanging tongues signify death and are sometimes planted on the graves of American Indians.
Tongue sutra
The best tongue story is of course Albert Einstein’s. The scientist had spent his birthday posing and smiling for photographers, when another one, Arthur Sasse, asked him for a smile. An irritated Einstein stuck his tongue out to ruin the picture. However, the picture became so famous that Einstein actually made copies of it to send it to relatives as a greeting!
Miley’s tongue may not have turned so iconic yet, but she has some hope as far as fetishing over body parts goes. In case you didn’t know, Dolly Parton is her godmother!