Via laurapreponme.tumblr.com
An article on some website takes Billy Ray Cyrus to task for not condemning his daughter’s blatant acting-like-a-sexually-independent-young-adult in her latest video. (The article’s subtitle states “BILLY RAY CYRUS ENABLES MILEY BY APPROVING HIS DAUGHTER’S NUDE VIDEO FOR ‘WRECKING BALL.'”) When asked about her mostly-nude performance in the “Wrecking Ball video” (because a father’s opinion is the most relevant thing regarding anything an adult woman does), Billy Ray reportedly said:
“I’m a song man. A musician singer songwriter who loves all styles of music. But again…I come from the old school where it starts with an artist and a song …colliding if you will … in a moment where the song, the singer, the producer, the band and the listener become one. It wouldn’t have mattered if Miley would have worn jeans and a flannel shirt, a tux or a nun’s habit,” and that “her performance vocally on the tune reflects her root and sheer God-given talent.”
The author’s response to this supportive father, who is clearly proud of his daughter’s musical chops?
Seriously Billy Ray! It would have totally mattered! She might actually be taken seriously instead of the butt of every joke.
An expression of concern about a young woman being “the butt of every joke” is utterly, completely meaningless when it comes from the people making those jokes.
The author also seems to lack understanding of how much control a parent has over their 20 year-old offspring, and seems to have a determination to keep Miley in her comfortable (for the author) child-star box:
If Miley’s parents actually disciplined their daughter, maybe she would stop her inappropriate behavior and become a good role model.
It goes on:
What parents want their little girl gyrating all over a stage in front of millions of viewers? Well apparently Miley Cyrus’s mother and father of the year.
It goes on and on, but I won’t subject you to the rest. That last quote is followed by perhaps the one sentence with which I partially agree, but not remotely for the same reason as the author:
Could they please put her clothes back on and make her put her tongue back in her mouth?
I really don’t care what Miley Cyrus does, except to the extent (a) that she does things that are racist or otherwise actually damaging, and (b) that people’s responses to her are unintentionally hilarious and revealing. The only thing where I agree with the above author is on purely aesthetic grounds: the tongue thing is gross, but I resolve that issue for myself by not watching Miley Cyrus. I found her VMA performance tacky, unsexy, and otherwise problematic, but it was not because of the amount of skin she had exposed. Robin Thicke bugs me on many levels, but the VMAs are well-trod rhetorical territory.
The author of this article laments Miley Cyrus being the butt of jokes, but she is also the topic of conversation. Constant conversation, lasting weeks now in a country with a five-second attention spa—SQUIRREL!!!
It is about equally likely (1) that she is a troubled youth acting out in a desperate plea for help; or (2) that she is brilliantly gaming everyone who acts offended and horrified by her performances, yet cannot look away from them or stop talking about them. You’ll notice from a screen capture I took that the article, while so, so concerned about Miley’s sexualized antics, still embedded the “Wrecking Ball” video. Given the fact that she has grown up in show business, I’m much more inclined to believe the latter than the former.
