<![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I don't blame Liebovitz or VF. She's an artist with a license, and Miley and her parents indulged that license and signed the release. Moreover, they agreed, reviewed, and approved of the final product in the studio. I never would put my child in Liebovitz's studio. Some people, even parents, will do almost anything for money. And it's their right to do so, even if it's morally depraved. The real scandal is that consumers reward the depravity by continuing to support the Cyrus/Disney brand.

volshmiel

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I don't understand the controversy. It is because she looks topless due to a camera angle? The girl is naked from the waist up with nothing but a sheet anyway. If they didn't want sex here, why did she agree to dress up like a post coital Marilyn to begin with? I smell a PR move here. Lets give Miley an edge now that's her fans love the dirt.

Bellyboop

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Or, better yet, we could stop acting like sex is a dirty, dark, evilevilnonojesus secret, educate our children to understand it and embrace it. SAFELY.
And then "hypersexualizing" teens in a print magazine would no longer shock parents who refuse to believe that their children weren't just outside playing "doctor" with the neighbors.


eric

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @it takes a train to cry: Care to elaborate as to why it's Disney's fault besides naming past screwups that they've hired?

They are a COMPANY, not a family or friend or a church or whatever you need to keep you from turning into a hollow loser - just like Vanity Fair, you can't blame them for doing what makes them money, it's why they exist.

They are a company made up of a number of individuals making decisions. They should all have some kind of ethic in line with the company mission, but some lose touch with moral responsibility (shocker!) and make a mistake. It strikes me as terribly odd to treat "Disney" like one great sentient entity responsible for something like this.

That said, Annie Leibovitz has also worked for Disney, so there must be at least one executive pulling strings here. That person should be fired, and it should be public.

Since her parents, who are ultimately responsible, can't be fired (dang!), it might make those of us who care feel a little better if someone lost a job at VF, too. And Annie Leibovitz can enjoy the extra smudge on her increasingly cheesy reputation, whatever.

ObtuseIntolerant

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Hamud Too true. I ran a photo studio in 1980's SoHo and she was one of our more infamous clients. While most photographers paid their bill somewhere around the 30 day mark, AL would resolutely fail to pay up before six months had past. Her assistants were a sullen and browbeaten lot that intimated they were staying just long enough to find new jobs. Ouch! I am currently reading Susan Sontag's ON PHOTOGRAPHY and can't help wondering what she really thought of AL while she was dying on camera. I don't get it.

LaurieBrownSucksALot

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Married To The Sea

raincoaster

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @rosaluxembourgeoise: I'm with you. She is not wearing a top, she's holding a bedsheet to her naked boobs. This isn't some classic debutante portrait, it's a sex pose. I have no problem pointing out (for the billionth time I'm sure) how naked all the women are in Annie's portraits, and how clothed all the men. And Miley Cyrus, handicapped as she is with THOSE parents, isn't a woman yet.

But now she's definitely more attractive to one-handed magazine "readers." Good work, Annie.

I'm not going to discuss whether or not the shots are beautiful: that is besides the point. Leibovitz has shot many, many people she didn't ask to go topless for her. Whether that was because they were more powerful than she is or because they are less sexually attractive than Miley Cyrus I do not know.

But I do know that if a woman was sitting on a park bench looking at schoolgirls and remarking to passing strangers how much more beautiful they'd look topless and dishevelled, holding bedsheets to their chests, she'd be carted off relatively quickly as a weirdo.

raincoaster

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> "There are rare times when it falls to the photographer, or the publisher, to save someone from their own bad judgment."

Pot, meet kettle. You (referring not just to this scribe, but the collected editorial consciousness of this enterprise, whatever either of those things actually are) should not need some anonymous commenter to tell you that the media ALWAYS will give its subjects enough rope to hang themselves with. It's a wonder anyone talks to the media, or sits for photos at all, but, oh, that's right, the rich and famous among us are starved for even more riches and fame, and the rest of us shits just can't get enough of them, or their eventual pratfalls.

You should be questioning the disingenuousness of this whole operation, not whether Annie managed to steal away poor Miley's virtue before her numerous handlers, reps, agents and mom noticed.

raconteur

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Oh, and if Gawker does feel like Miley is being exploited way to add to it by displaying the photos... Good job!

Woeful

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> She isn't naked like the media is perpetuating. I mean, we all naked under the cloth we have covering us... It's a non story that has been hyped into a fantastic PR stunt! I mean, you know what you're getting when you hire Lebowitz to do a shoot: Yoko and John, Demi Moore, Miley Cyrus. Of course they knew, Miley is too big a business not to know... You've been Punked!

Woeful

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> They hate her in the West Village after she fucked up 3 historic town houses,she doesn't give a shit about anything.

Saxon 212

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @maevemealone: Ack! "Rode hard and put away wet" is the worst saying ever! It makes me feel ooky.

lalalina

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @Hamud: Here's the Reiff quote:
"She would not have had the time to mourn herself and to become physically unrecognizable at the end even to herself, let alone humiliated posthumously by being "memorialized" that way by those carnival images of celebrity death taken by Annie Leibovitz."

And just to spread the blame around- Cyrus is not just any girl. She's a show-biz pro who should have realized at some point that she was sitting on a stool, clutching a sheet to her not yet fully-formed chest. I mean, she's young, but she doesn't strike me as stupid.

woolfman

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @rosaluxembourgeoise: Each in their own way have a penchant for exploitation that is both ghoulish and imperious.

SheWalkedWithAZombie

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @izzodee544: Yeah, my bad. I meant I was agreeing with you and trying to confront some of the Leibovitz hate...I just lack a light touch.

skahammer

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @Hamud: That is a domestic portrait that makes Mommy Dearest look like the Donna Reed Show.

SheWalkedWithAZombie

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @skahammer: I think we're making the same point? it's only sexual if you make it sexual, it's not like she's spread eagle sucking on a lollipop ala britney's rolling stone cover... so you're saying you can see this as non-sexual so I shouldn't expect that other people could see it as non-sexual? I don't know you kind of lost me.

also yes I was just bustin' yer balls

izzodee544

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @rosaluxembourgeoise:
Crap. Here's the correct link: [gawker.com]

rosaluxembourgeoise

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @Hamud:
We're on the same page, but you make a much better case than I did. Again, not much can be expected of a cancer pornographer.

rosaluxembourgeoise

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @Hamud: Sontag, kittenish? I don't know about Leibovitz, but Sontag just isn't lolcat-able. Plus, AL took better, more important photographs when she was alive. Whatever you can say about how Sontag treated her underlings, at least she was more legit as a functioning intellectual than Leibovitz. We all know Annie was the well-connected-pseudo-arty foil for the smart gf. Happens all the time here in LezzieLand, I assure you.

helenanapier

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> she's not that young... weren't you people boning at 15? what's wrong isn't that we see her as sexual, it's that we're turning her into a victim for being sexual.

HyphyForLifey

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @izzodee544: I realize you're just breaking balls here, but you've made me want to give this another try.

Think of it this way: I used to teach junior high school, and I was occasionally around young girls who presented themselves (intentionally or not) in a way that sometimes could be interpreted as "sexualized."

But in order to do my job, I had to believe that I was able not to have sexual thoughts about these girls.

Now, my view is that that was possible, and I succeeded.

It follows that other adults can probably do it too.

So with one's own reactions out of the picture, what exactly is the part that is offending people here? The fact that other people are having sexy thoughts about this girl? Or the fact that she has something to sell?

Either way, I'm afraid there's just no end to these feelings of offense. People are going to have sexy thoughts about other people (plus animals and inanimate objects), and have things to sell, until the end of time. I find it to be plenty enough mental effort just to make sure my own thoughts remain relatively pure. Is it really worth it to worry about everyone else's consensual, commercial arrangements at the same time?

skahammer

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> "[Leibowitz] has become primarily a machine for generating ginned-up controversy...Furthermore, the celeb-shocker bit is no longer shocking. It's just wearying."

So shut the fuck up already.

nycheartbreaker

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Hamilton failed to connect the Annie-is-geigh dots to the fact that she took a slutty pic of a little girl.

Imagine if a male photog did the same thing....a straight male photog, that is.

Code6Charles

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Okay, I'll give you the pouty, red lips and the tousled hair. It sort of screams "sexy!" at the top of it's voice. But why are we so quick to infer that nudity equals sexuality? I mean, are we going to insist that baby girls be covered up on top even when they have not hit puberty? I'm not saying these photos were right... I think Annie's know's better, for reals. But I also think that we are really quick to squash any tiny hint that our children are human beings with bodies, and those bodies have sexual parts. A fifteen year old's bare back is not an exploitative image... the way it was presented in VF, yes, that is exploitative.

kityglitr

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> In Swimming in a Sea of Death, David Rieff's profoundly nutty memoir of the death of his mother, Susan Sontag, Rieff makes a very nasty remark about Liebowitz's post-mortem photos of Sontag.

Given Sontag's kittenish personality, you gotta figure that Liebowitz, in order to have remained for Sontag's lover for so long, has to have a fairly kittenish demeanor herself.

What seems to have really welded these two gals together was the delight they both shared in the savage and sadistic mistreatment of underlings.

In other words, I don't imagine Liebowitz much cares what other people think or feel.

Hamud Ibn Hamud

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Why does it matter?

Miley is not just a 15 year old girl. She is consciously this country's (only) non-animated role model marketed as being "appropriate" and G-rated for little girls.

Miley's audience is primarily made up of girls age 4 to 10. I am shocked to find in raising a 5 year old girl, that it's pretty hard to keep little girls in this country from turning into sluts by age 6. Consider Cyrus' competition.

It doesn't matter whether sophisticated adults think it is perfectly fine for 15 year olds to be recognized as young WOMEN. It matters that a media culture is making Miley young girls' only chance to preserve a little of their childhood, while simultaneously, courtesy of VF and Liebowitz, turning that on its head.

As for Liebowitz, she is a pretty good photographer, doesn't say or do much new or interesting anymore, and knew exactly what she was doing. Nobody understands images and pop culture better.

As you say, somebody needed to be an adult.

momwithapast

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @maevemealone: Yeah. It's not the bare shoulder that's the issue. Girl looks like she just got fucked. It's inappropriate, but I can't seem to muster enough indignation to care.

caustin

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @i_win_wtf: a shoulder is only erotic if you think 15 year olds are erotic. so I may be suspicious but you're a perv. I WIN!

izzodee544

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Why isn't anyone talking about the picture of her with her father? It's creepy. It's like the Before picture to the After Sheet Shot.

raphaela

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I think the picture itself is rather banal but the fact that Miley looks like she's just been rode hard and put away wet is the scandalous aspect. The look is moaning post coital...

maevemealone

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @WasatchMan: Indeed, they did. It's going to be a good harvest next year.

afraidofauntieem

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]>
+ Watch video

I expect more from a Dad named "Billy Ray."

Sirened

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> So Gawker thinks that this is Annie Leibovitz's fault, and totally wrong, yet continues to publish American Apparel ads on its site? Is it okay to create photos such as these only if the teenagers in them aren't famous? I like this site, but I think you should start practicing what you preach.

maemae

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Dad, why are all these pages stuck together?

lalalina

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> This kid's just another commodity to buy and sell. She'll be used up and spit out by the time she's 18. Sad.

CharlieSays

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I find the most erotic part of the woman to be the bewbies. -zap branigan

hypocriteoath

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> From the thumbnail picture on the front end of the site I thought I was looking at a Bratz doll reenactment of the photo shoot.

4Cats

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @izzodee544: I am not saying that I am offended by this photo, but seriously, if your definition of "erotic" depends on whether it's showing a shoulder or a pussy, I must say that your seduction/lovemaking skills are under suspicion.

Niko Bellic

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> On a side note: Did VF just leap from covering items of interest to baby boomers, to writing about a tween aspirational figure...skipping anything of interest to those of us aged between, say, 12 and 50?

God, dad. You did it again.

EvidenceOfAbsence

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I was tired of this story by 11:30 this morning.

lizzybennett

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @nozzle: Yeah, Herb Ritts knew how to photograph hot babies.....tastefully.

CopyofBlueboy

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> her parents could have said no to the story.

IamnotStarJones

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Tell me again why she warrants a photo spread in Vanity Fair? And anyone who thinks that photo is "arty" seriously forgot the silent "f" in that word. Silent but deadly.

thecomicscomic

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Mussed bedroom hair, smudgy looking red lipstick, clutching a bedsheet. Ya, that's some high fashion Ms. L.; what's so original, provocative or groundbreaking about this picture? Aside from your subject being a 15-year-old?
I'll tell ya, if some scuffy/average man put of scan of this picture in his briefcase (or uploaded it onto his computer) and tried to cross the border, he'd be taken into custody.


ThereMustBeAPony

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @rod: ...yeah. Pretty much.

Seeking controversy, Leibovitz stooped to semi-nudity and cliche. That said, moral indignation, "wild nights for jailbait," and "sexy time marketing" don't really mix.

Staff meeting time, guys?

EvidenceOfAbsence

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Sex sells. And everybody involved knows that.

the Librarian

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Leibovitz - hacky for a while and just livng up to expectations. But the thought of Miley's creepy 'ol daddy Billy Ray on the set watching and approving ...eww.

skewedcurve

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> ok I just don't get it are people ACTUALLY offended? it's her shoulders. if she was in a swimsuit no one would care. when you see nipple you can get all outraged, for now focus on more important things. like, can I bum a cig?

izzodee544

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I just came in my pants a little bit.

cugat

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @Pope John Peeps II: just call it "artsy"

izzodee544

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @Hez: Exactly. Miley and her agents have just given consent for the rest of the entertainment industrial complex to view her as an actual human being with a sexy future and not just the 20-years later, live action Gem that Disney & Achy-Breaky Daddy created.

And again, Gawker, it's a pretty boring picture & a more boring critique...

jackvinyl

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> We don't need new talent in glossy mag photography. What we need is more Bruce Gilden: [www.magnumphotos.com]

vulturesquadron

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> We should just buck the trend and go the whole other direction on Gawker. Her and Taylor Momsen should just make out. Naked. On camera. Kick it up a notch. BAM.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @sharpeiboy: Good point. This debate is best reserved for The View.

mattymcd

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> The disaster that is Britney has everyone on edge. Did those South Park boys call this one right, or what?

WasatchMan

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @jackvinyl: I agree with your last point, in that this whole thing smacks of those racy Jessica Biel photos that came out when she was desperate to leave 7th Heaven and be seen as a grown-up sex symbol, despite major backlash from the show's conservative fan base. Regardless of any token apologies she made, it always just seemed like calculated collateral damage to me.
So Miley (who's clearly been enjoying taking saucy candid shots for a while now) publicly backtracks and wrings her hands alongside the moralizing MiniVan Majority to great effect after the pictures have come out, but the mission of transitioning away from the Disney image is accomplished, and that's probably all that mattered.

Hez

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Isn't this the same sequence Britney Spears went through?

famousauthor

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @mackintosh-toffee: Naught shite. The pics of Daddy and Miley look like shots from a fotoplay of Lolita. My cringing cringed.

GregorMendel

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> What's making it a big deal is the publicity machine posing the question of whether seeing a non-naked 15 year old girl is somehow vulgar. I'm sure it's a "hot topic" on The View today. I also bet people who never bought Vanity Fair before are buying copies as "collector's items".

If I were Annie or Miley, I'd do the exact same thing over again and not change a move.

Bravo.

sharpeiboy

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Well-written. Smart.

Dusty in the Wind

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @rod & WackoJacko: And might I add: Seriously.

Shut up, Gawker.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Ironic given that Graydon Carter was very hoity-toity about Roman Polanski's taste for the teenage after losing to him in court ("As a father of four children, one of whom is a 12-year-old daughter..." etc.)

And that said Pole screwed Samantha Gailey after he'd been commissioned to photograph teenage beauties of the world for Vogue Homme...

Still, it is inarguably cyclical what is considered appropriate. Eva Ionesco's mother photographed her for Playboy when she was eleven, in 1976. (She appeared in Polanski's The Tenant the same year.) Two years later she did Penthouse.

At least Miley Whatsit has actually pubesced.

The main problem with Annie Leibovitz is that regardless of age, the people she photographs look as if they have died and been stuffed and varnished. I often wonder: does she perhaps deploy that method popular in the Victorian era (also a hot time for child photography) of bolting the subject to the wall and leaving the shutter open for several days?

trilbylane

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Lebowitz will never be remembered as a "child exploiting one trick pont," she will be remembered for her body of work, not one bullshit story that a few hacks tried to sensationalize.

mattymcd

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> If VF had used Bruce Weber for this shoot then there'd be no controversy. He'd surround Miley with a squadron of half to fully naked 15 year-old A&F muscle boys and no one would bat a lazy eye or play the exploitation card game.
It's different for girls.


phlox

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> This is the last place in the universe that anyone should be decrying any sort of exploitation. Think about all the mentally disabled people you mock on a daily basis: Julia Allison, Lindsay Lohan, Perez Hilton, everyone at n + 1...

StonedAndDethroned

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I give the Christians about a week until they start why its even more indecent that SOMEONE LIKE Annie take these kinds of shots.

Sadly, Miley is another young girl in the long line Hollywood has created just to tart out and destroy. Its just in today's digital world, it only takes 6 months to be the next Brooke Shields.

ArtfulSlinger

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together, and we discussed the picture...

So, based on this, pedophilia would be OK as long as you discuss it with the child first?

And with the whole "I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted (in your ignorance of art)" I have to say this:

I am not sure if Annie should stop taking photos or not, but she should definitely stop talking.

Niko Bellic

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Let's all thank god the Clintons didn't pimp out Chelsea like THIS!

bytememehard

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @rod: EXACTLY.

WackoJacko

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> This story is one of those taking only slightly longer to fade away as the average Gawker post--which has maybe a 2-3-hour shelf-life. (Does anyone actually keep up with all comments on all posts here?) Ephemera, ephemera, it's all ephemera. And what's new about teenage girls being sold by their parents as sex objects? It's the p's' sick greed, though the Leibovitz leer is definitely gross, I have to say. Gross, gross woman.

annasballs

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]>

[gawker.com]

But it's okay when Mr. Denton does it, right?

[gawker.com]

rod townsend

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> [Sans snark]
Am I the only one who finds this circle jerk of reactionary Puritanism somewhat hypocritical? The media, and particularly Gawker, as arbiters of morality in a media culture that routinely and constantly sexualizes children?

[Avec snark]
What's next on the menu of moral degradation? The exposed ankles of minors? Disgusting!*

*Sorry, the snark fails me.

Kim Gordon's Panties

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @VivianDarkbloom: it's also F'd up to listen to anything Whoopi has to say so... I don't know where that leaves us.

hypocriteoath

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> your point is salient, Hamilton, but, as far as I can see: scapegoats are always the relatively benign, perhaps banal, quite possibly impotent cover for something far more malevolent, insidious, systemic. hence, I distrust the pointed finger.

TheologicalSong

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Also, unless Annie also doubles as the VF photo editor, your entire thesis isn't suitable for wrapping a virtual fish in.

Unless that's virtual fresh Chilean sea bass.

But now I've been trolled, again, on this monumental non-story.

Cut that out! (pwease?)

McCheeburger

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Whoopi Goldberg threw Miley under the bus on the View and defended Leibowitz for this. It's fucked-up to blame the child.

VivianDarkbloom

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I agree with all of this. BUT! As annoyed I am at VF's decision to do this, Cyrus and her parents' decision to let her do this, Leibovitz's decision to do this, I am exponentially more annoyed at US the gawkers, not necessarily the "Gawkers" but the masses who have such an inconsistent vision of what's okay. This kind of sexualization of youth is completely and utterly prevalent in this country--why then do we keep having these seemingly random blowups over what's outrageous and what's not? What renders some stuff mundane and other stuff, worthy of such vitriol? Is there a clear delineation between what VF did and any of the shit you read in Seventeen or see on myspace, facebook, and EVERYWHERE else?

WackoJacko

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> This always seems like a fairly thin wire to be venturing out on.

I mean, suppose a viewer of the offending photographs -- maybe a somewhat worldly-wise 16-year-old -- states that she doesn't find the shots to be especially "sexualized" at all...and that to her knowledge you, the critic, are the only person who views the photos sexually. Where does that leave you?

skahammer

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Jeezo. HamNo seems outraged. Outrageously outraged.

& here are my reasons for feeling silly about the whole thing:
1. She's not topless, she's sheet-full.
2. Leibovitz showed some restraint, with an over-simple, classic, art pose... all this outrage about an image so boring makes little sense.
3. Nobody over 14 should care about Achy-Breaky Montana much anyway & that includes Vanity Fair & Gawker & you & me.
4. Everybody involved is a big winner. Miley & fam can begin transitioning the girl into the adult realm (which she needs to do to maintain viability longterm), Vanity Fair gins up some page views and talky-talking, & Leibovitz can still claim she's got what it takes to stir up trouble, validating her outrageously high day-rates to the magazine industry at large. Oh, and now Gawker & Hamilton Nolan can add themselves to the ever-expanding winner's circle for this page-view generating response.

The only loser here is Lindsay Lohan and her Marilyn Monroe booby-shoot that didn't manage to outrage anyone...

jackvinyl

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Well ethicical judgements aside, i think it is just a lame photo, regardless of who/how old the subject of it is.

Miley does look like a teenaged prostitue, but since when was that a new idea for "Hollywood" to exploit its young in that way? Brooke Sheilds in "Pretty Baby" anyone?

It is hard to imagine Leibovitz going for anything other than underaged hooker in that photo. And the other ones of Miley lounging with her dad are just as awful.

The steely grey of her images, again and again and again, just tells me Leibovitz is just done.

And VF covers in general have a habit of this.

The one part of this rant i do agree with is, find some new talent!

mackintosh-squidbrains

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Leibowitz is a successful photographer, but not a very good one.

vulturesquadron

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Any statement that kicks Vanity Fair in its simultaneously sycophantic and self-regarding ribs is okay by me.

Any chance of more?

Smitros

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @McCheeburger: Agreed. I love how this "outrage" is immediately followed by a post about a 17 year old who has been constantly referred to as "jailbait".

ExecutiveIntern

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Adrants listed the number of current trainwreck actresses who grew up performing for Disney, including headliners Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. I have to agree with them: it's Disney's fault.

it takes a lot to laugh

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> You've attacked both Vanity Fair and Leibovitz? I'd watch yourself in the West Village, Hamilton Nolan, lest the white-haired hordes beat you with their Aboriginal artifacts and Saarineen chairs.

JorgeLuisGorgeous

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Well stated, Hamilton. I take exception only to your claim that Liebovitz ought to know better, as this implies that she might be expected to exercise sound ethical judgment. It's too much to expect from somebody who published the photos of the dying and dead Susan Sontag, gracelessly admitting that she would have disapproved of those shots being made public. Creepy, exploitative, hurtful, and useless.

rosaluxembourgeoise

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> @donmiguel: I know that one of her songs that plays on the radio is sampling Corey Hart's "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" because every time I turn on the radio, I hear it, and get Corey Hart stuck in my head.

tunamelt

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Is anyone here a Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus fan? Why is this girl so famous? Friends with daughters go nuts for her shows and are up in arms over Nakedshouldergate.

donmiguel

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> "The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."

Very little makeup??? Let's talk about wardrobe, please!!!

In Other News...

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> What it comes down to is that young women, let's say "teenage girls", have a sexuality that nobody feels comfortable with. Why make it their fault? When I was 15 I was..ahem..no longer a virgin. It's not that rare, people!

It's sad that we've become so puritanical that we've got to make girls feel bad for becoming women. Having a budding sexuality is not the same thing as flashing your cooch or passing out with coke up your nose. This is NOT a scandal.

janey24

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> "Do not sexually exploit minors."

I can't help but note that The Gawker seems to be engaging in a "Do as I say, not as I do" approach in this very regard.

*Golf Claps*

McCheeburger

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> "Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together, and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it." Yes of course, because Annie values the professional opinion of a 15 year old. Yeah, ok.

seaclops

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Actually, anyone at Vanity Fair even caring about a 15 year old star of children's programming is just a bit premature in general.

It would have been easy to just never pursue the article/photspread but if they didn't then perez hilton would still be blogging about her as would sites like... gasp, Gawker.

How much Miley Curus coverage has THIS site put up in the past few months? quite a bit. The fault lies squarely on many shoulders and to try to call Leibovitz out on it is creating scandal for scandal's sake and is no better than what she did, except maybe worse... for being so hypocritical.

hypocriteoath

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Should I be feeling guilty that I don't remotely care whether Miley Cyrus is doing nude-ish photos?

Also,@SecureLocation, agreed. This is not topless.

TheGintheCity

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> At least until she's 19 and a cokewhore, that is.

JDel

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Well put. I figured she had at least another 4 or 5 years before posing topless in a magazine like this. Hopefully everyone involved (parents, Miley, Annie) can learn from this experience and keep it from happening again.

JDel

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> What's the big deal? From the pix I've seen the girl is only showing a bit of shoulder. You can see a lot more skin at the local mall on any given Saturday

SecureLocation

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> I want to railroad Annie out of her profession! Has anybody ever defied rigor mortis through her lens?

I miss Herb Ritts.

nozzle

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> It's not just the photographer here lets be honest. Her parents were on set and that should have been a judgement call on their part. had that been my daughter it would have been a No from the second it was suggested. I smell a cyrus publicity stunt.

tawni

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> the manufactured outrage just leaps off the page

harbl_madness

]]> <![CDATA[Why It's Annie Leibovitz's Fault]]> Calculated move to gets loads of publicity for all concerned. Leibovitz is past her game and needs to retire.

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