Miley Cyrus Knows What She's Doing

I agree with my fellow moralistic scold, Rod Dreher, that the MSM handwringing over how Miley Cyrus's handlers should have known better than to let the fifteen-year-old pose for the Vanity Fair photo that she's now apologizing for is more than a little ridiculous; the whole thing looks like a staged controversy, not a real blunder. If you're trying manage a transition from tween sensation to alluring grown-up star, doing an artsy, sexually-suggestive photo shoot and then hastily apologizing for it seems like a brilliant career move - you reap the benefits of the Vanity Fair treatment while simultaneously distancing yourself from it. And I also agree with Poulos that the photo in and of itself isn't problematic. You can make perfectly tasteful art, as he says, from the "worshipful celebration of the fecundity of the pubescent female body." The problem comes in because we inhabit "a culture in which 'worship' seems to mean corrupting unceremoniously and kicking to the curb." One day you're posing for Annie Leibowitz; the next you've ended up in the Britney-Lindsey-Paris circle of celebrity hell.

Where I part ways from James and Rod, though, it on what this incident portends for Miley's future trajectory. Precisely because I think the Cyruses are stage-managing this whole "controversy" - and doing so pretty adeptly - I'm inclined to think that maybe, just maybe, they have enough worldliness and self-awareness to navigate Miley's adolescence without letting the celebrity machine grind her down into Britney Redux. That machine isn't evil because it corrupts every young woman who steps into its gears; it's evil because it preys upon the weak and the damaged and the dumb, the girls who aren't equipped to deal with the intersection of their celebrity and their sexuality, and with the culture's desire to use them up and throw them away. And while this whole phony controversy doesn't make me think that highly of Miley Cyrus and the people around her, it does make me think that they might be smart enough - and, yes, cynical enough - to play the system, rather than letting the system play them.

Comments

Clearly this post is Douthat's rebuttal to his critics in the comments section that he never addresses the important issues like torture, the Iraq War, unemployment, gas prices or the national debt. Well this one will certainly shut them up.

Posted by Will | April 29, 2008 11:09 AM

As Will points out, you've been enduring a lot of complaining here in the threads about your avoiding discussion of the major issues of the day.

Here's the thing: conservatism is always a perspective worth engaging. You are the spokesman for conservatism among the bloggers here at the Atlantic. Our country is in a rough spot right now. When you duck these issues, you are letting conservatism down, letting yourself down, and-- truly-- letting your country down. We need intelligent conservative thought in this country. George Bush and Jonah Goldberg aren't really getting the job done.

Maybe you just want to be the next Michael Medved. A lot of us expected more than that from you, but if that's all you want to be, that's fine, now get off to World Net Daily and let the Atlantic replace you with Reihan or somebody.

Any given post on Miley Cyrus would be fine, but the fact that you do this stuff in lieu of any substantive discussion of the serious problems is what has people upset.

To appeal to the careerist in you, I offer this chart. The movement conservatives you're hoping to appease are dying out. NRO won't look like it does now in ten years. I know you're petrified to write anything that will be judged to be politically incorrect by movement conservative overlords, but that dying movement should not be your lodestar-- for moral reasons, policy reasons, and for your own self-interest.

Thanks for reading this.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 29, 2008 11:23 AM

Right now her career is being cleverly managed, but couldn't the same be said of lots of those former child stars when they were her age? Where they go off the rails is the moment they leave the controlling influence of the parent, who has hitherto been their business partner as well. For most of us, when we reach 18 or 19 and go a little nuts, we don't really have the resources to do it in such a grand and glorious way as the Britneys and Lindsays of the world, and many of us are in a semi-cocooning environment that is very forgiving of such shenanigans--specifically college. When the former child stars reach young adulthood, they have an overwhelming desire for freedom, and literally no constraints. I don't see how Cyrus will be different, although she may have the strength of character or sheer canniness to avoid the worst outcomes. At the very least she can see her predecessors' wreckage as cautionary examples.

(Um, I'm ordinarily a pretty serious person who doesn't give much thought to Britney and Lindsay, etc. But I am having a serious case of procrastination right now. Sorry.)

Posted by RWB | April 29, 2008 11:34 AM

Darnit, on re-reading, some of that comes across as insulting. I'm sorry about that penultimate paragraph. I do hope to hear your perspective on what's going on in the world.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 29, 2008 11:36 AM

Why did I read this blog post? I used to have the good fortune of not knowing who on Earth Miley Cyrus is. (Of course, I'm not a subscriber to Vanity Fair.) Five minutes of my life I'd like back.

Posted by Bill | April 29, 2008 11:36 AM

The photo generating all the controversy reveals the ignorance of the average American. It is, as Leibowitz says, a classic composition; Art History 101. Too bad we become enraged by so little so quickly. (And too bad the MSM is increasingly indistinguishable from US Weekly.)

The photo in this series which is genuinely creepy is the draping of this precocious 15-year old across her father's lap. Honestly; have we lost our minds?

Posted by kairos | April 29, 2008 11:38 AM

I wonder what Miley Cyrus thinks about Iraq.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | April 29, 2008 11:46 AM

Mr. Douthat is not a public utility. What he writes is between him and his editors at The Atlantic. If you don't respect him, or just aren't interested in reading what he writes, the internet is full of things to read. Perhaps he is merely a cowardly careerist eager not to offend the NROniks. That's a particularly uncharitable assumption to make, though, and if he were really that much of a boot licker, would he not just ape the sentiments of whichever patron to which he wished to ingratiate himself? He wouldn't thus be the first careerist who sold out his principles for a paycheck. If he doesn't write about what you want him to write about, perhaps it's because, as he has declared, he isn't sure what to say.

Posted by TheOtherCyrus | April 29, 2008 11:51 AM

Ross is allowed to post on whatever he likes. There are plenty of voices out there debating whatever issues you guys are interested in reading about.

Better commenters please.

Posted by right | April 29, 2008 12:00 PM

Back to the OT. While Britney is a disaster, Christina Aguilerra seems to have turned out all right. Teen popstars/harlots come in pairs: the aforementioned Britney and Christina, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, Paris and Nicole, Avril Lavigne and Hillary Duff, Tiffany and that German lady that sang 99 Luftballoons. One turns out all right and the other goes into meltdown, there can be only one. The real question is who is paired with Miley Cyrus and which one of them will go insane like Britney or catch hepatitis Z like Paris Hilton. At least that's how it looks from my van down by the river.

Posted by matt foley | April 29, 2008 12:02 PM

Even in an age of contrived "controversey," this reaches new lows of absurdity. Congrats to you, Ross -- but please remember that "transition" is NOT a verb!

Posted by Miande | April 29, 2008 12:06 PM

There are plenty of voices out there debating whatever issues you guys are interested in reading about.

I usually agree, but not in this case for 2 related reasons: (1) Ross is writing from a social conservative's perspective at a general-interest magazine. If he were just some dude at blogspot.com, you would absolutely be right. (2) Sane conservative commentary is hard to find these days. (What does the stuff at NRO have to do with conservatism?) I think that Ross is capable of it, but declining to engage in it. And that's Bad for America.

would he not just ape the sentiments of whichever patron to which he wished to ingratiate himself?

Not necessarily, if he wants to be respected by non-echo-chamber publications and readers.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 29, 2008 12:26 PM

Ross -

You're a sick and twisted guy.

Posted by Marshall | April 29, 2008 12:58 PM

It may be a classic, artsy composition, but why, exactly, do we need classic, artsy compositions of topless 15 year old girls?

In fact, while there is a distinction between art and pornography, it is also the case that the line is blurry. Some of the photos in Playboy are quite artistic; some pornography, especially in the 1970's when budgets were higher, was probably more artistic than a movie like "Porky's" was.

But the key is that stuff involves adults. When you are talking about 15 year olds, why should we get into a discussion where we have to try to distinguish between artistic and nonartistic forms of nudity. Is there any reason this couldn't have waited until Ms. Cyrus' 18th birthday?

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 29, 2008 1:03 PM

Ross is allowed to post on whatever he likes.

That's right. Very good {pats head}. And we, the commenters, can post whatever comments we like. What a concept! What a country!

Posted by ed | April 29, 2008 1:23 PM

Ross is correct here, though. Miley Cyrus--or her handlers anyway--know what she's/they are doing. Much like the racist Mississippi GOP, Swiftboaters, right wing noise machine pundits et al know what they're doing. Rinse and repeat.

Posted by ed | April 29, 2008 1:27 PM

right pulls his lips off the Cheney spigot long enough to post: "Ross is allowed to post on whatever he likes. There are plenty of voices out there debating whatever issues you guys are interested in reading about.

Better commenters please."

If you don't like the commenters here you could always make your way over to Little Green Shitballs or freerepiglick.com and get nothing but wingnuts applauding each other, chuckles. Don't forget to put your flag lapel pin on first.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | April 29, 2008 1:50 PM

It may be a classic, artsy composition, but why, exactly, do we need classic, artsy compositions of topless 15 year old girls?

You don't. But that's not what this is, either. Maybe you need to take a look at the photo? http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/miley200806?currentPage=2

Posted by kairos | April 29, 2008 1:54 PM

kairos:

I've seen it. In the scheme of things, do I think these pictures are really a big deal? No. But, again, the people at Vanity Fair are grown-ups. They know that it will sell magazines to have Miley Cyrus topless and partially covered by a sheet, precisely because she's 15 years old.

It just isn't responsible to be taking "artistic" semi-clothed pictures of 15 year old female celebrities and putting them on magazine covers. It's sleazy. And I might add that a lot of the pre-18 year old Britney Spears marketing (including schoolgirl costumes straight out of porn movie plots) was even worse.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 29, 2008 2:03 PM

If you don't like the commenters here you could always make your way over to Little Green Shitballs or freerepiglick.com and get nothing but wingnuts applauding each other, chuckles.

I don't know what the hell your problem is Moe, but some of us at least have enough respect for the blogger to try to keep the comments to the topic of the post.

If you have a bottomless need to stake out your oh-so-thoughtful positions on the war, or torture, or whatever else has you hot and bothered today, then start your own blog.

Posted by right | April 29, 2008 2:44 PM

right writes: "I don't know what the hell your problem is Moe, but some of us at least have enough respect for the blogger to try to keep the comments to the topic of the post."

Well, neither one of your comments here have a fucking thing to do with the topic of the post, so I guess you're violating your own rule.

Which is, of course, typical conservative behavior. "Do as I say, not as I do." Go Cheney yourself.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | April 29, 2008 3:33 PM

If you have a bottomless need to stake out your oh-so-thoughtful positions on the war

The Iraq Invasion is a disastrous war crime sold on a pack of lies by the Worst [Presidential] Administration Ever. (And FYI, that postition doesn't really require much thought--it's incredibly obvious.)

Apologies if that's off topic, but right did bring it up.

Posted by ed | April 29, 2008 3:42 PM

The real question is who is paired with Miley Cyrus

Gotta be Carly Shay and/or any of the other budding strumpets at icarly.com

Posted by drjimcooper | April 29, 2008 3:55 PM

Matt Foley,

I think the correct counterpart to Tiffany would be Debbie Gibson. The 99 ballons chick was a one hit wonder.

Posted by Eric k | April 29, 2008 5:27 PM

I cannot believe all the hoopla over this teen-ager or these photos. Frankly, the so-called topless photo isn't, and the one where Myley is posed with her dad looks much more sexual. That is where the poor judgement came in. Who cares about looking at someone's back? Get over it! Hannah Montana isn't REAL. She's a fictional character played by Myley Cyrus. The photos aren't worth all this ridiculous reaction.

Posted by orienne | April 29, 2008 5:54 PM

Miley looks innocent and vulnerable in the picture, not sexual. She's not on all fours crawling into the camera wearing fishnets and nipple rings; she's hunched over, pale and scrawny, turning away from the camera. She's not posing so much as flinching.

What's racy about that? How the hell does this sexually "exploit" her?

Think about Prom dresses. Every prom dress I've ever seen exposes more skin, more suggestively, than this picture does.

Posted by JA | April 29, 2008 6:06 PM

JA, that's the genius of these photos. Vanity Fair knew well that they could say there wasn't much being shown in these photos, while at the same time reaping the magazine sales that comes from the photos being labeled racy.

It's the ultimate in cynical marketing.

Again, I ask, why couldn't this wait until she was 18? Is there any societal benefit whatsoever in taking a picture of a 15 year old female celebrity with her top off, even covered by a sheet? At best, this is harmless and cynically marketed. At worst, it is one more demonstration of how much money is to be made playing on underage female celebrities' sexuality.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 29, 2008 7:37 PM

I think the correct counterpart to Tiffany would be Debbie Gibson. The 99 ballons chick was a one hit wonder.

And Tiffany wasn't? In fairness, Debbie Gibson was my first instinct, but I narrowily opted against it. Certainly debatable.

Posted by matt foley | April 29, 2008 8:22 PM

This thread is beyond unbelievable. Everyone seems interested in the possible corruption of a savvy girl young enough to be my granddaughter, while the country's laws and civil liberties go to hell and the only party remotely capable of stopping it, let alone reversing it, is headed for a fatal collision with itself.
(Full disclosure: I have no grandchildren, and no immediate prospect of same. When I do, I'll start to worry.)

Posted by Henderstock | April 29, 2008 10:00 PM

She's not on all fours crawling into the camera wearing fishnets and nipple rings

That's the real scandal here! Come on, Vanity Fair, you get a young pop star topless for a photo spread and we're left with something as non-blood flow altering as that photo? Seriously? For shame, VF photographers. For shame.

Posted by Jeff | April 29, 2008 11:09 PM

Same script, different day. Brooke Shields & Calvin Klein invented the Lolitalization of a child star, and Britney Spears took it to the next level. Miley, like Britney, has a second rate signing voice and the Cyruses know they need to cash in now while trying to invent a second act. It's a shame they didn't give thought to how Britney turned out before they began to steer their daughter down the same path. You know you've reached a low when Bonnie Fuller is calling you on the carpet, here:

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/entertainment/March-April-08/The-Moral-of-the-Miley-Story--Sex-Sells.html

Posted by Mark | April 29, 2008 11:19 PM

That machine isn't evil because it corrupts every young woman who steps into its gears; it's evil because it preys upon the weak and the damaged and the dumb, the girls who aren't equipped to deal with the intersection of their celebrity and their sexuality, and with the culture's desire to use them up and throw them away.

And with mere tens of millions of dollars for recompense! What evil! What injustice! To hell with the entire corporate music-fashion-movie industry! It is corrupting several of America's adolescents!

Seriously Ross, it's difficult to imagine how someone with such delicate sensibilities as yourself managed to make it to adulthood. If this whole writing gig goes south for you, maybe you could audition to play the role of Kenneth on 30 Rock. You wouldn't even have to act.

Posted by Eli_Cash | April 29, 2008 11:20 PM

This may be the most stunningly out-of-touch post/comment thread I've ever read.

Posted by Korha | April 30, 2008 1:14 PM

Gotta go with Eli Cash here.

There are lots of "weak and damaged and dumb" girls in the world, and most of them don't have 100 million dollars to insulate them from their flaws, the way Britney does.

It's a strange sort of evil that takes Spears, who by all rights should be toothless and taking meth in a trailer park somewhere, and allows her to be a world traveler covered in jewels and catered to by a personal staff 24/7 instead.

Posted by Brian | April 30, 2008 2:10 PM

Even in an age of contrived "controversey," this reaches new lows of absurdity. Congrats to you, Ross -- but please remember that "transition" is NOT a verb!

Posted by Miande | April 29, 2008 12:06 PM

I'd just like to point out that noun > verb semantic shift is a completely natural linguistic process that happens to be extremely productive in English and has been for hundreds of years. This process is quite normal and well-attested. (Cf. the age-old 'paint', which is a noun and verb. I'm sure some old ninny centuries ago was telling youngsters that 'paint' could not be used 'as a verb'.) There's no good reason why 'transition' can't be used as a verb in an informal context such as this.

Sorry to be off topic, but that didn't seem like too much of an issue considering what's been said before me...

Posted by Seth | April 30, 2008 5:02 PM

In the pix, she looks like a rape victim with Heath Leger's Joker makeup slathered on her buck-toothed mug. Or as I like to call it, "art."

ICM or one of the other big talent agencies prolly went to Billy Ray Virus a year or so ago and said, "We're Team Miley! We only care about Brand Miley." With Billy Ray's "x" on the paper, they went into high gear to force Miley down our throats. Presto: She's on the Oscars telecast; She's posing for post gang-fuck pix in VF; she's getting seven figures for the tell-all story of her fifteen years on Earth; her phone's ringing off the hook with offers of all the woman-child roles that would have gone to Lindsey Lohan, if Lindsey could stop substituting alcohol and cocaine for food and rest.

We suck and Miley gets rich. It's a win-win situation!

Posted by Jamey | April 30, 2008 5:04 PM

The scandal with the picture isn't the amount of skin showing, it is the suggestiveness of the picture. She looks naked, her hair is tousled, and she is holding a satin sheet over her chest. It is overtly sexual. My biggest problem with this (and Britney) is that these kids are marketed to little kids, then they do an about face become sex objects, and everyone has to convince their 10-year old kid that taking nude pictures is wrong even though Hannah Montana does it.

Posted by bperk | April 30, 2008 5:11 PM

The real question is who is paired with Miley Cyrus

Easy - Vanessa Hudgens.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | April 30, 2008 5:19 PM

It's not like all stars get ground up and spit out. Beyonce's doing fine, thank you, and she started when she was 16 or 17 or something. Hillary Duff is fine. Rihanna seems to be doing all right, as does Ciara. As is Christina Aguilera, for that matter. Brittney's implosion is spectacular and takes up a lot of space, which can distract from the fact that, even among the very famous who start very young, it's kind of unusual to lose your shit quite so spectacularly.

Posted by NoahB | April 30, 2008 5:43 PM

I agree that something had to be done about Zito, but moving him to the bullpen isn't it. He needs to start some games for the AAA or AA team and work out his problems, whether they be psychological or mechanical, in a lower-pressure environment. (By the way, Ross, "Cy" was sort for "Cyclone", a nickname bestowed for his speed. His real first name was "Denton".)

Posted by Mike | April 30, 2008 5:55 PM

"It's a strange sort of evil that takes Spears, who by all rights should be toothless and taking meth in a trailer park somewhere, and allows her to be a world traveler covered in jewels and catered to by a personal staff 24/7 instead."

What's all the surprise about these peckerwood Lolitas?

Back in the 50s, Nabokov tried to imagine what an American version of the old French novel would look like. By French novel he had in mind a comedy of manners whereby some bourgeois smuck would break social taboos and upset fundamental bourgeois institutions because of what he ridiculously thought was sublime romantic love.

Since the great French obsession with adultery was passe, and Americans after all were really obsessed with the purity of children (not their wives) and making money (rather than being great lovers), Nabokov couldn't just rewrite Madame Bovary with American names and places when he wrote Lolita. He figured that the real American love story would be about how an over-cultured pedophile would see himself as an artist and lover as pursued sexualized American children but would lose out to a popular artist who was really a pornographer who sought to commercially exploit the child (Clare Quilty).

In other words, the American novel would be Larry Flynt writing endless variations of Poe's Annabel Lee on NAMBLA stationary.

Poe put it this way:

"I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me."

Replace sea with trailer park, and the coveting angels with the coveting consumers, and you've got your peckerwood Lolitas and Calvin Klein ads and Britney.

Posted by zembla | April 30, 2008 5:59 PM

Anybody on this thread remember the "culture war"? Attitudes about this kind of thing are related to attitudes about "family values" and sexuality in general. Turns out they has a surprising relationship with political attitudes.

Posted by guyminuslife | April 30, 2008 7:51 PM

Google hits as of 5:34 PDT April 30:

Miley Cyrus 15.9 million

Ron Paul 25.3 million

Say, did you know that Ron Paul's book, "The Revolution: A Manifesto," is in the bookstores now?

Yeah, it's in the bookstores now.

Posted by Joe S. | April 30, 2008 8:37 PM

This issue is actually a little deeper than a staged controversy. Ross, you basically say, "That machine isn't evil because it corrupts every young woman who steps into its gears; it's evil because it preys upon the weak and the damaged and the dumb, the girls who aren't equipped to deal with the intersection of their celebrity and their sexuality, and with the culture's desire to use them up and throw them away." which in Hollywood and in the entertainment industry is undoubtedly true. However, what will the entertainment industry do with a young girl who is making gobs of money for herself and her Disney sponsers, who will neither fall onto the gears and get eaten up because her family is looking out for her best interests and is hopefully trying to steer her in the right directions? The entertainment industry is expecting a fall from grace with this girl. She is everywhere and even though she has had minor brushes with being somewhat provocative and very mildly controversial, there doesn't appear, in the near future, a career stumble in her future. So what will they do? They will essentially ignore her over time because she will actively miss stepping onto the gear grinders of entertainment. She will only be marketable for a short time as she transitions from teenager to adult. The only prayer she has is that her talent doesn't steep into mediocrity, although it is questionable right now if it isn't already at that point, as movie and record deals start getting piled on.

Then she will have to really step up her A game in order to compete with all the other transitional stars for the limelight. She will get no favors when it comes to the really good stuff, so the only thing that she will have at her disposal is to actually learn acting, continue to sing and put out tween albums, or have her handlers start to exclusively create entertainment for her to appear in and then try to hawk at producers and studio heads. Her biggest fear right now is that she will be ignored because this gig is nearly up. Manufactured controversy? You bet. It's the only gig in town right now. Just my 2 cents.

Posted by Asmodeus | April 30, 2008 9:03 PM

Dilan Esper posted: "And I might add that a lot of the pre-18 year old Britney Spears marketing (including schoolgirl costumes straight out of porn movie plots) was even worse."

What is suprising to me about this whole Miley Cyrus "controversy" is the extent to which the prostitot look pioneered by Britney et.al. has become so commonplace that no one even blushes at Miley's stage costumes. A Miley "slideshow" at MSNBC.com shows her in one stage outfit consisting of a t-shirt with multiple rips in the chest and a mini-kilt with the hem a few inches above what appear to be mid-thigh-high leg warmers. This is far more provocative than the VF pictures, and yet passed off as nothing more than tween fashion.

Let's be clear: Miley's "protectors" do not object to marketing her sexuality - they object to the sight of her skin. They need Miley's clothing to cover their own hypocrisy.

Posted by noyatin | May 1, 2008 10:04 AM

A pairing between Tiffany and Nena (99 Red Balloons) makes no sense. Tiffany was born in 1971 and became popular in 1987. Nena was born in 1960 and became popular in 1984. She's eleven years older than Tiffany. Contemporaneous accounts were always pairing Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, and the comparison is valid today.

Posted by Adam Villani | May 1, 2008 1:44 PM

Handlers? What type of word is that? Is Miley owned by somebody or some company?

How could a person have a "handler" and what are they handling?

That is an interesting choice in words.... Please clarify who these people are.

Posted by JR | May 2, 2008 6:32 PM

Handlers? What type of word is that? Is Miley owned by somebody or some company?

How could a person have a "handler" and what are they handling?

That is an interesting choice in words.... Please clarify who these people are.

Posted by JR | May 2, 2008 6:32 PM