Gawker
Miley Cyrus apologized to America yesterday for appearing in a Vanity Fair photo spread, her torso wrapped only in what appeared to be a bedsheet, her hair tousled, her lips painted bright red. Viewers of her Hannah Montana are mostly aged 6-14, and their parents worry this is just another attempt to sexualize their young kids. It's true there was something unseemly about the whole thing, in particular Vanity Fair gloating in its Cyrus profile that "the topless but demure portrait accompanying this article could be seen as another baby step, as it were, toward a more mature profile" and asking, in a caption, "Um, was Cyrus—or Disney—at all anxious about this shot?" But there's also something absurd about the outraged reaction to the whole thing, including allegations of exploitation by Disney and a parenting website suggesting readers burn Hannah Montana products in a bonfire.
Cyrus is hardly the first teenaged minor to adopt a sexual pose, however vague, in the media, and Vanity Fair is hardly the first glossy to run topless pictures of an underaged minor — the Times' T Magazine did that in December in a move staunchly defended by the editor of the main Times Magazine.
The difference between Cyrus and teen stars who have gotten away with this sort of thing is that Cryus is supposed to be making $1 billion annually for the Walt Disney Company by selling a wholesome image to younger girls.
A Disney spokeswoman called the Vanity Fair shoot "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines." As opposed to, say, a situation created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell a television show or the products advertised in them.
Cyrus seems to have no trouble appearing in sexualized pictures without Annie Leibovitz whispering in her ear, as at the Vanity Fair shoot (where her mom and other minders were present). Pictures surfaced last week of Cyrus exposing her bra and midriff and cuddling with a boyfriend. Not that the star should be ashamed of her tame teenaged experimentation.
This isn't about exploitation or morality. It's about, on the one hand, a move studio looking to preserve the profits that come from selling a particular character increasingly divorced from the actress who plays her, and on the other a set of parents freaked out about anything remotely sexual and unwilling to serve as an intermediary between the media and their children.
[Times]
(Images via Vanity Fair)
Comments
From Hannah Montana to Lina Lolita. Jem would never stand for this.
So, will her first lesbian lover be Britney or Lohan?
And who will take her cocaine/meth virginity?
Did anyone really expect the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus to gain early admission to MIT, where she would get her Ph.D. in astrophysics at age 21 with her thesis on cosmic inflation?
Barefoot and pregnant by age 17 and thrice married by age 27. Did the Spears children teach us nothing?
Also, notwithstanding any other implications of this (non) story, that's a damned ugly image by Annie and seems more befitting of an ad campaign for The Witches of Eastwick Reloaded.
@drunkexpatwriter: If her and Jaime Lynn Spears decided to raise Spears' baby together as teenage lesbian mothers, I'd pay their rent until the end of time.
I'm not nearly as skeeved out by the cover as I am by this picture from the same photo shoot.
[i305.photobucket.com]
not cool!
@BeAgrestic: So what if Billy Ray posed with his girlfr... ohhhhhh.
@drunkexpatwriter: Jamie-Lyn Spears.
@McCheeburger: I think we all did. Thus the disappointment.
I am positive this will work out for her, just as Britney Spears' iconic Rolling Stone cover in the schoolgirl uniform launched her on the road to....
Oh, Miley. Make the reservations at Promises now. Your parents will not step up to help you.
@drunkexpatwriter: Wait -- is this a call for volunteers?
I'm not seeing what the big deal is. The image looks artistic and painterly, not provocative. The folks who are reading it as "blatantly sexual" are the ones with issues, not Miley.
i cancelled my VF subscription because of this. not going to write letters or make a speech or anything. i just didn't want pictures of a half-naked child in my mailbox.
Why doesn't anyone blame the photographer? Annie Leibovitz strives to be oh so controversial all the time. It's starting to get annoying. And she's such a big deal that saying no to her is a total Hollywood "faux pas". I blame it on Miley's inexperience to deal with Hollywood. But she needs to learn fast if she doesn't want to end up Lilo and Britney's clone.
She is definitely headed to Britneyville and because of that I feel I can pile on starting now -- so ... what is WITH that girl's weird mouth?
And does she not look 43?
That's the spittin' image of my middle school yearbook photo. Under it was my favorite quote: "I can't live without your love and affection."--Nelson
@dumblonde: Okay, I'll concede that much. Annie Leibovitz is rather infamous for overshadowing her subject with her own vision and pushing her subjects in "directions" they normally wouldn't go in. And VF seems to indulge her an awful lot. But I'm still not seeing the problem with the photo in question. I think it's beautiful.
@BeAgrestic: Ewww! @McCheeburger: And, yes! She looks like some urchin from Oliver Twist. And also like Anna Paquin.
@hummingpenguin: Yes, naked children freak me out. This is why I refuse to change my kids' diapers or give them baths.
@Our Lady of the Massacre: not just that, if you read the article and look at the pictures you see that her mother, father, youngest sister, and several handlers were at the shoot. multiple people could have stepped in and said something to annie leibovitz. and the photo isn't bad, just the smudged lipstick makes her look a little like a just-ravaged lolita.
"This isn't about exploitation or morality. It's about, on the one hand, a move studio looking to preserve the profits that come from selling a particular character increasingly divorced from the actress who plays her, and on the other a set of parents freaked out about anything remotely sexual and unwilling to serve as an intermediary between the media and their children."
I appreciate when Ryan editorializes, because he's often TOTALLY CORRECT.
@CodePink:
+ Watch video
I'm all for sexualizing practically everything but children. She is a child and that picture is not appropriate. Besides, isn't she a devout Christian? I guess she's the same type of Christian as the Simpson girls are...
The real tragedy here is just how hackneyed a photographer Liebowitz has become. Haven't I seen this shot like 100 times before from her?
And I dont think the father-daughter snugglefest will hurt. Seemed to work for Serge and Charlotte...
The real tragedy is what a hackneyed photographer Liebowitz has become. Why do I feel like I've seen this shot from her like 100 times before?
And I dont think the father-daughter canoodling will hurt her career. Seemed to work for Serge and Charlotte...
Jinxy, cut her some slack- her Dad was not a minister like Joe Simpson.
@JinxyMcDeath: Young Britney Spears liked to go on about her favorite bible verses as well. Does Christianity make them do this? Quite the reverse.
It's as much a part of the marketing as the schoolgirl outfit and the lollipops. It's all part of the Hot, Sweet, Jesus Loving Virgin Package. Gets the old fellas good and hot.
@zkemeny: I dunno -- the French are reputedly a leeeetle bit more open-minded about that kinda stuff than the residents of the American Bible Belt.
But yes on the photo. Could we retire that gray-white backdrop, please?
Who reads Vanity Fair anymore, anyhow? Certainly not my 4 y/o. Sure, she's a Hannah/Mylie fan, but she also thinks Jack White is her boyfriend. Me thinks that if she doesn't pick up this copy of VF, she'll do just fine. Until, of course, she starts hanging out with LiLo, etc.
Annie Liebowitz is over.rated. That picture is nothing more than an overprocessed Photoshop hack taken w/a SLR.
VF, you can get better and for less headache and less money. Let me point you to a place called Flickr...
@overunderover: The thing about Jack White being your imaginary boyfriend is that he might be your imaginary brother, too.
Pedophile? Pedophile!? That's a pretty big word for a 10-year old!
From a sociological perspective, I find the reaction to this photo of far greater importance than the photo itself.
I do not find the photo remotely pornographic or even mildly suggestive. However, having watched Hannah Montana, a show filled with your standard teenage girl crushing on boy, and vice-versa themes, and Miley Cyrus wearing a wig that makes her look like a baby hooker, I'm more than a bit confused by the fuss.
Compared to some of Brooke Shields efforts, from some 25 years ago, this is remarkably tame and, at least to me, completely asexual photograph. A Cyrus in a Teapot?
Perhaps as the USA continues to slump towards neopuritanism this kind of overreaction will become the new normal? Thank you, John Ashcroft. Lady Liberty's boobs were giving me the wood.
Yay us.
I think she looks kinda busted. That's all.
She doesn't need to apologize for the nudity and the red lips. She needs to apologize for the plain old UGLY.
@McCheeburger: Lady Liberty isn't 15.
@JinxyMcDeath: Unfortunately.
@moff: I suppose I'll know if/when she changes her last name.
@JinxyMcDeath: And Miley Cyrus is not flashing her booblets.
Your point?
It's called repositioning a brand. The apology and feigned concern by all concerned are just the means of straddling two demographics, the teens/tweens and the Olds.
Cadavery!
Why is Vanity Fair even covering this second-rate overhyped Daisy Mae?
@McCheeburger: Uh...you were the one who compared John Ashcroft covering Lady Liberty's boobs with the public outrage over this photograph. My point was to uncover a flaw in your analogy - Lady Liberty is not a 15 year old nor an actual person. I just don't think that puritanical fascism is analogous with hypersexualizing our youth role models. I ain't here to fight, I mostly agree with your conclusion.
@JinxyMcDeath: Actually, I wasn't making an analogy. Just highlighting one of the more egregious and fatuous examples of puritanism run amok on the American stage.
No harm intended.
@the Librarian: With another Kennedy cover too...snooze (Yes I understand its the 20th anniversary)
Maybe parents shouldn't get over invested in a particular celebrity? Aren't tweens over Hannah Montana already. They're into Vampire Weekend or something now. Those parents paying 1000s for tickets last summer lost their minds. Their daughters aren't even going to admit they ever liked her this summer. At least the morons who pay so much to see Van Halen, The Police, or the Stones have 30+ years of fandom. They aren't going to change their minds between now and the concert.
The only thing "unseemly" about this picture is the fact that she looks like she literally just woke up on a slab at the morgue.
I understand that she's only 15 and she's showing her back and whatnot, but sex is the last thing I think of when I look at this picture.
While this photo mildly irks me, I find public Outrage of the Oprah variety distasteful. I also think that labeling people who don't like the photo "neopuritans" is simply the flip side of the dvd-bonfire coin. The photo doesn't have to be showing her boobs for it to be sexually suggestive: red lips, bedroom hair, satin sheets, bare body. Her gaze tells us this is after the act. It's tasteful and mature, which in turn suggests an older lover, not a boy her own age w/ whom she's just had some fun. "Cyrus exposing her bra and midriff and cuddling with a boyfriend" sounds sweet and lively, whereas this photo bears Leibovitz' trademark lifelessness (the color tone and sheet has a mortuary quality). Even worse, she looks like Shannon Doherty.
"Her gaze tells us this is after the act. It's tasteful and mature, which in turn suggests an older lover..."
That went from an interesting posting to super weird in less than four sentences.
@minx: You really have a knack for reading into things. Forget her gaze, I've never seen anyone cover up their chest after sex, except on TV, in shots like this, and a girl I dated that would never take her shirt off, for anything.
I have a weird habit of looking at advertisements & asking the how-why of what's being sold by deconstructing the image - Leibovitz is certainly as deliberate as an ad exec.