Okay look, if Annie Leibovitz wanted to take my photo, I’d let her. I admit it.
But I wouldn’t let her or Vanity Fair near my kids.
I used to like Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. I have three young girls, so of course the wholesome star was high on my list.
Actually, I still like Miley Cyrus. What I can’t stand is our elite culture and how incredibly blind it is. Wow, did it fail her.
This week, Vanity Fair featured very sexually suggestive photos of Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old Disney sensation, apparently wrapped in nothing but a silk sheet, complete with naked back, rumpled hair, and slightly pouty look.
The photos of G-rated star, who earned Disney one billion dollars last year, give new meaning to the expression, “what were these people thinking?”
Disney executives, who are waking up with heart burn and will be for several days come, are not the issue here. Nor is Miley herself, who at 15 is still something of a child. Her brain, like other 15-year-olds, is woefully lacking in ability to make good judgments.. (Seriously – “executive function” doesn’t develop until the early to mid twenties, and no we didn’t’ need brain scans to tell us that.)
The issue is Vanity Fair, Annie Leibovitz, Miley’s handlers, and ultimately Miley’s parents, who were on the set of the shoot, though there are conflicting statements about whether or not they saw the final portrait.
But again, “What were they thinking?” They put a 15-year-old girl in a sexually provocative photo. Period.
Here’s the scary part: I don’t think they were “thinking” at all. Though apologies have been issued right and left by Miley, her parents and even photographer Leibovitz, there’s no reason to believe that the people behind the photo shoot thought at the time they were being particularly provocative with the alluring photos of a young apparently naked but for a silk sheet.
Seriously. This is what they know, this is our sex-soaked culture, this is what they are surrounded with. It’s in the air they breath. These are the “elites,” and the photos just show that they are utterly out of touch with mainstream America.
Moms everywhere, including this one, are going nuts over the photos of Miley. Why? Because we had all told our kids that we thought “this one” was different. She wasn’t Paris or Lindsay or Brit. She seems to have a really solid family, and to be pretty wholesome. And you know what? All of those things are probably still true. But now we have to explain to our kids that yet another young teen sensation is in the middle of a scandal, and this one promoted by the very people who were responsible for guiding her and protecting her.
But from Vanity Fair on down, the people involved in the shoot are apparently stunned at the negative response to it by Miley’s fans – and their moms.
Um, DUH!
As pathetic as it is to sexualize a young girl, no matter how “arty” the photos, what’s worse is the fact that the braintrust behind this firestorm couldn’t see it coming. That tells us everything we need to know about elite culture today.
What were they thinking?
The answer is, they don’t think anything. . . of us.
**
Betsy Hart writes on media issues for the Chicago Daily Observer and other publications. She is the host of “It Takes a Parent” on AM 1160 Chicago-Thursdays at 2PM.
Joyce Marie says:
I agree. The issue is bigger than this portrait. We have a distorted view of beauty and sexuality. It's destructive and insidious. I applaud parents who teach their daughters that they are more than their outward appearance. They should be supported because it's a difficult message to convey in a culture that doesn't support it.