Defamer
We're so confused. An extra day's digestion of the Miley Cyrus/Vanity Fair photo "scandal" hasn't cleared much up for us in the way of morals, betrayals, exploitations and career management of the young Hannah Montana star, but the public meltdown has alerted us to a more basic truth that is helping guide us through the fog of outrage. This isn't about Miley Cyrus without a shirt on or if she's been seen somewhere in her lingerie, or if her father dropped the ball.
It's simpler than any of that; this whole thing comes down to a picture of a 15-year-old looking like she just got the shit fucked out of her. And if there's anything America loves more than a war, it's teenagers fucking.
And a culture war about teenagers fucking? Sign us (and Bill O'Reilly and Hilary Duff and the women of The View and...) up! We should have seen it coming last week when 14-year-old Taylor Momsen was seductively featured in her underwear on the cover of New York Magazine's Gossip Girl issue. Not to be outdone, the gang at VF — expert flesh-spotters from waaayyy back — coaxed their own peek at the bare back of a billion-dollar Disney franchise, adding signature flourishes of bedhead and smudged lipstick. To hear Cyrus tell it in VF, it was an "artful" touch by her photographer, and "you can't tell Annie Leibovitz no."
Subtle rape inferences aside, Disney can tell Annie Leibovitz no, and a few hundred million dollars' worth of Hannah Montana franchise decline will only illustrate how quickly the company would have interceded had it had the chance. The kicker, of course, is that the plunge is inversely proportionate to our interest in seeing Miley Cyrus (and Taylor Momsen, Hayden Panettiere, Lindsay Lohan and, years ago, Brooke Shields and God knows who else before her) appearing rode hard and put away wet. Is it right? Is it wrong? It doesn't matter, because teenagers fuck.
In fact, we were once teenagers fucking — underage, illegal, the whole thing — and we recall this being an issue then as well. The social critics who decried us fucking were helpless against our hormones and the mass-culture monolith that endorsed it all the way; the Miley Cyrus case reaffirms that dynamic more than a decade later. Except now, faced with the most mainstream "perversion" yet, a little more intellectually honest approach is required.
For starters, nobody was exploiting anybody — at least not any more than VF would have otherwise. A publicist probably blew it somewhere along the line, but Miley Cyrus is 15 — at least a year older than her target demo — and she knew what she was doing. She made a choice, and her apology was not for offending her fans but rather for acknowledging that, again, teenagers fuck. She is a teenager, and if she's not fucking yet, then she will be. This is not debatable. Naturally it would be criminal, but like millions of other law-breaking, fucking teens, she and her partner(s) will gleefully do it anyway. Hopefully they use protection.
Also, teenagers fucking is a billion-dollar industry. Juno, for example, would not have been a lucrative, laureled darling of both the Christian right and the hipster left had she and Paulie Bleeker not A) fucked and B) kept the baby they conceived. Superbad was a more pointed argument for the appeal of teenagers not only fucking, but fucking well. Then there's Gossip Girl and the cult of Britney, the latter of whose teen sexuality only spiked as a cultural commodity after she became a mother in her 20s. Crazy! But as the previous generation's iconic teenager fucking — with a partner like Justin Timberlake, natch (yes, guys are also teenagers fucking) — that's part of her brand.
Finally, while we respect the values and basic laws protecting minors from sexual abuse and exploitation, we do not think one photo or the tone of those around it compromises social order the way, say, a polygamist sect or a basement full of kids made with one's own daughter might. This is Miley Cyrus growing up in public like hundreds of teens before her and countless more to follow. She's a sexual creature at 15, just like the rest of us were, are or will be. Hannah Montana has its own universe, and if teenagers don't fuck there, great. Here, however, teenagers fuck, and love it or hate it, that's the world we crave. It hardly seems like news.
Comments
well said STV. well said.
The only thing I'll say, and I'm not disagreeing with the notion that teenagers fuck, but is it not unreasonable that the fact that teenagers fuck not be CAPITALIZED on? And I don't find the pictures of Miley particularly salacious; what sticks in my craw is this endless public pimping of young sexuality, which is not at all in the interest of the teenagers fucking. It's not at all about celebrating the sexuality in a like, for lack of a better word, holistic, natural, or dare I say it, realistic way (because frankly if Miley Cyrus had just gotten fucked as you say, I'm sure that's not the pose or image she would be in--and probably none of the rest of us would be either). It's the same old come hither eyes, and airbrushed faces, and "playing with sexuality" that is ONLY, ONLY, ONLY about turning a broad audience on to make money, no matter what the impact or consequences or implications of that might be and with all this rationale about how "tasteful" it all is. I don't know about anybody else but that's what pisses ME off about this, and about ten million other scenarios like this in our current culture and in the past, with Britney and others.
i'm just conecerned about how much she reminds me of the dark knight trailer in this picture. is this my fault? the media's? ANNIE LEIBOVITZ'S??
@mydeadgayson: concerned. WAY TO GO PAL
This is probably one of better articles I've read about the MC debacle. I fail to see how people can be upset with her when she is just following what society wants from its young starlets of today. At 15 she's acting like any other 15 year old would in attempting to emulate other tween stars that came before her. Unfortunately she has the likes of Britney and Lindsay to look up to, so no wonder she ended up looking tossed...
If she were French and she posed like that for a French magazine.. you know the rest.
You know what bothers me about this photo (beyond all of what has been said)?
Her ribs are visible through her skin.
Team cheeseburger!
@Benovite: Roman Polanski would be calling?
Didn't a movie about a teen girl who got preggers -- and not in that Immaculate Jesus Mom way either -- but by having sex just win a few Oscars?
I love how people forget that age-old tradition of frisky teens when it suits them. I thought her Myspace photos she took herself were a lot worse than anything Annie did for VF.
And didn't this same "shock" happen when Britney was a teen and barely clothed on the cover of Rolling Stone years ago? Glad to see we've moved on...
[www.rockolymp.de]
the one thing wrong with this article is that the writer seemed to get off on using the f-word too much.let's show a little bit of class please.maybe this is why our teenagers actions are going downhill.
Yes, the Puritans did start this country, didn't they.
I think part of what's got BillO and the wingers in such a fake ass outrage is the fact that Miley has been spending a lot of time lately carrying on about Jebus.And once you start with the Jebus talk,you can't let on that you might fuck once in a while.It's some kind of rule.Booty and the Lord don't go together.
Did anybody watch The Blue Lagoon on TV this weekend and feel way more creepy than when looking at this photo? Just wondering...
Gee Miley's Dad, just imagine all the Dateline perverts jerking off to this photo.
It's gross. So sad to be 15 & have noone looking out for you, only for your paychecks.
Excellent rant. Well written. The way some folks are blogging (qouting scripute etc,) you'd think she'd done a hard core porn.
How do I reach these kiiiids??
We dirty old men just have a new young little whore to look at.
She's no victim. Over and over again young girls in the spot light run the whole way to take off their clothes for the cameras.
We are who we are.
Thank god it wasn't Little Miss Sunshine.
Lolita, party of one.
@WackoJacko: It's frequently amusing to me how outraged self-styled bleeding-edgers tend to be about capitalization on anything, let alone the prurient -- that is, until they turn into senior managers and VPs themselves and/or their stock options vest.
very, very well said.
Very very well written piece.
I don't understand Annie Liebovitz's lighting technique, if you can call it that. Every single one of her subjects look dead. Dull eyes, dull poses. dull dull dull. Oh, I don't think that a 15 year old should be shirtless in a national magazine photo either, even with bedsheet on the boobies. But Liebovitz has now gotten yet more undeserved press out of the controversy, which is of course what she wanted and knew that she'd get anyway.
Am I the only feller to keep missremebrin' this youngun's name as Smiley Virus? But, she shore has a pretty mouth...Reminds me of a kid I knew back in juvie.
It's a reality that teenagers f..k. Hell, it was a reality 20, 30, and so on...years ago. I think that what is different about what we are seeing today with Miley and many other teen stars. 20 yrs ago this photo would never have seen the light of day. Even if someone thought it might have been a good idea. It simply would never have seen the light of day. I'm going to date myself but I remember 2 Disney stars who were huge in their time: Annette Funicello and haley mills. Both started very young, but I can't remember either of them being in a scandal while still in their teens. Now lets move to the present. Britney, Christina, Lindsay, Jennifer, Jamie-Lynn and Miley. If these are suppose to be role models. What is exactly are they suppose to be models of what?
Loving the Rants feature - keep 'em coming!
My problem with the photo shoot has to do with raising a 11 year old daughter that likes Hannah/Miley and having to explain to her that Miley and her daddy sold out for cash. Just like everyone else you see on TV. To make my job harder in trying to raise a worthwhile human being instead of someone who doesn't think twice about showing her boobs and dropping her skirt. Sounds prudish doesn't it? Like I'm a Bible thumper or something huh? I'm not. I just despise making a sexual object out of kids cause that is what she is, a kid. So let's call her what she and her daddy is. A whore.
Here's the problem with criticizing Miley Cyrus (as opposed to criticizing VF or Annie Leibovitz) for this: If we're saying the problem with depicting her as a sexual creature is that she's a minor, and therefore unable to give her informed consent, then she must logically also be unable to give her informed consent to this photo shoot. QED, it's someone else's fault.
Not that I'm saying we should vilify AL or VF. But it might be kinda fun.
I'm fine with teens being sexual beings (as Lord knows -- or Lord, I hope you don't know -- I was). But I do find it annoying when teen sexuality is used to push/pimp product. Until you're of age and you're old enough to know what you're getting into you should be discovering your sexuality the same way we all did -- changing into trashy clothes in the school bathroom because our parents wanted us to wear khaki kevlar; playing "Seventh Heaven" in a walk-in closet at our friends house; or a sloppy groping session with your bi-curious teammate after track practice. Sure you wrote about it and told your friends about it and maybe (for better or worse) there were pictures, but no one was using you going down on your 17 year old boyfriend in a movie theater to sell cherry-flavored lip gloss and T-shirts at the Gap.
Yeah, he dumped you afterwards and screwed your friend giving her the herps and then you had to explain that you had given both of them the herps tangentially. But once again. No one sold tickets to that depressing show.
@It'stheRooo: Way to stand beside the point. Would you like your picture taken with it?
@The Black Snob: Precisely. Precisely. Precisely. Precisely. Precisely. Precisely. Precisely ...
I didn't fuck as a teenager, and a shocking number of my friends didn't either. We were NOT religious. And we all thought everyone else was fucking.
Also - the sexuality Disney sells is tween-level sexuality. Not this 15yo for adults Vanity Fair bullshit which I find wrong. They are not ignorant of the fact that their audience (who are more 4-14) are sensual creatures interested in that stuff.
Anyone who has been to a Jonas Brothers concert should be aware that there is sexy for the young uns and sexy for the grown ups. They are hot. All the kiddies love the 15 year old and are afraid of the 18 year old, while all the girls over 14 and the moms love the 18 year old (some the 20yo I guess).
@ObtuseIntolerant: Agreed. I think people forget that. Disney is selling sexuality like "The Patti Duke Show" but with designer clothes. A sexuality that does not involve the more prurient, hormone-laced parts.
Disney's sexual parts are all hairless and smooth like a Ken Doll's.
And as no teen, tween or 10 year old reads Vanity Fair this is just part of their usual, flagrant display of female flesh for the hell of it. It would be different if they took sexually suggestive pictures of the male actors, but they rarely do. Only the young women and girls, over and over, all look like they tumbled out of a whorehouse after the sprinkler system cut on.
And I actually LIKE artful nudity and sexuality, but gah. Me and Vanity Fair had to break up over that Tom Ford Hollywood issue. They went a boob too far there.
Forget fucking. She looks like a vampire in that picture. Who wants to see teenagers portraying the undead?
This is why we don't have TV. Also, that kid looks hungry, why can I see bones in her back?
Graydon lost me with the endless spreads (ha) of Paris, Nicole and Lindsay a few years back.
I doubt her sales will go down. Never underestimate the pedophile market!
Seriously, that's what this is about, everyone's pretending to be outraged so people don't think they're pedophiles.
It's really just a girl in a sheet who looks like she washed up onto the shore or something. Reading that look as "just had sex" really says more about the viewer than the photographer, I think. Our country doth protest WAY too much.
Now get this whore out of my face.
Comment on Teenagers Fuck (And Other Lessons From The Miley Cyrus Debacle) I don't want to call this a scandal, because yeah, she knew what she was doing. But to outright declare all teens "fuck" is just using too broad a brush. I'm a teen, and I for one don't, nor do I intend to till I'm married, fuck. In fact, there are a lot out there that don't. Now obviously, this is a rant, and rants aren't known for facts, but rather for emotionally led opinions in order to vent. So I guess I shouldn't complain since in a calm time and place, you and I could probably agree that not all teens "fuck." Not that there's anything wrong with sex in the first place, just selling out to some guy or girl, that could be damaging in the long run. Call me a romantic, but I like there to be love in love making. None of this frivolous fucking or sellout sex. _________________________________________________________________ Back to work after baby–how do you know when you’re ready? http://lifestyle.msn.com/familyandparenting/articleNW.aspx?cp-documentid=5797498&ocid=T067MSN40A0701A
Yes, teenagers have sex. Yes, a lot of them do. The ones that get caught are usually the ones that get pregnant.
No, Miley isn't "uninnocent". She's just posing, but provacitively. Yes, she's young, but younger people have been in the spotlite for doing more things.
No, I don't think her sales will go down. Atleast she didn't do a Vanessa Hudgens... Disney will forgive her.
@TryThisAtHome: Have you seen her pic of Queen Elizabeth in a garden? She looks just as vampiric as Miley.
I miss Annie's photos from the 70's and 80's where they immediately hit the eye (my favorite is her portrait of the late Keith Haring).
I thought this was very well written, however I do have one comment.
"A publicist probably blew it somewhere along the line, but Miley Cyrus is 15 - at least a year older than her target demo - and she knew what she was doing.
As far as I can see, as a parent of a young girl, her target demographics are 4-9 year olds. How many 14-year-olds would be caught dead paying for tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. Look at all the Hannah Montana merchandise on sale at Target. It's all for little girls (along with High School Musical). She is strictly an elementary school phenomenon.
Which, makes this decision by her handlers to do these photos more troublesome, imo. Is a Lolita-esqe, just fucked-looking Miley more appealing (and lucrative!) image to market to her aging-up demographic? And if it is, isn't that troubling? I'm not saying this is anything new, but I do find it gross.
When I see a picture of The Jonas Brothers tarted up, wearing smeared lipstick and posed so they look like they've just had the holy crap raped out of them, then I'll know that America has finally reached sexual equality.
Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, free at last!
@Bercovici: Fine, but it's hardly as though Cyrus was alone in the photo shoot. I'm sure her entourage included stylists, parents, PR people, Disney reps, her BFFs, etc. Most of whom are adult professionals and all of whom participated and approved the final product.
She's a minor. Fine. One of her parents was there approving things, and it strikes me as hypocritical and shrill that they're playing the Poor Little Girl Alone card.
Leave Annie alone. She's blameless in this. She was around before, and will be around long after all of this fades. And Cyrus checks into her 5th rehab attempt.
I figured this would happen. I've lost all faith in any of these stars. All they do is use sex to sell. Little girls don't have anybody to look up to anymore.
Btw, you ruined Juno!
@pumpkinsoup: I don't disagree; I think the official industry demo is 6-14, but anyone over 12 is probably in a minority among them.
Say what you will about Britney and how stupid it is to follow that route, the crazy stupid twat made and still makes a lot of dough.
The question is Daddy Cyrus, whether you're willing to let your daughter do that.
Is the money worth that?
And as for the self-admitted creeps on the site, admitting to happily perving to pictures of 15-year-olds- I dedicate the creepy memory of having my friends' dads checking me out at the "Father-daughter" dance to you. F*ck you.
Yeah. I get the impression that Disney feel offended that someone has had the temerity to make use of their indentured servant for their profit, not Disney's.
Why is that vampire chick on VF? This cover looks like the sequel to Interview With A Vampire.
I think she knew exactly what she was doing, and don't see the point behind the apologies. The girl probably shits money at this point... does she need another $10mil?
@tempest: when shes older she's probably going to be embarrassed that she was so quick to fold under pressure from the public and pretend to be offended.
Clearly, we need a return to childhood executions. I offer two choices:
Option one. Miley's Law: Once you make a million dollars, we execute your childhood. From $1,000,001 onward, you are responsible for your own decisions. No more playing the innocent victim or manipulated teen- you are a businesswoman. Those youthful "mistakes" will now be called "strategic tradeoffs". You traded your childhood for a career. No takesies backsies.
Too much? Try...
Option two. Let's call this one Lindsay's Law. After a million bucks, we execute your childhood career. No more movies, TV shows, albums, concert tours, music videos, myspace pages, video games, dolls, toys, ghostwritten memoirs, licensed products or fast food tie-ins. Disappear. Have a normal childhood. Come back when you're 18. You'll thank us for it later.
Now that I think of it, there are a few adults who could use a career death penalty.
... and Vanity Fair sells magazines. The idea that anyone didn't know this would sell a TON of magazines is retarded. The idea of Miley is still fine, Disney will only make more money from all this. I wish everyone would quit acting like any of this was a surprise to anyone... if you shoot for Vanity Fair, this is what it will look like. They always show half-naked, bleached out people.
The whole media and everyone is acting like this is the most horrific thing, and "OMG WHAT IS SHE DOING?!?"
...and everyone forgot about Brooke Shields? ...and countless other teen models/actresses that have done the same, waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before this Miley Cyrus chick (which I find incredibly BORING).
So lighten up people, it's just another entertainer seeking your attention.