Another Britney?
April 28, 2008 by fsford
It’s official: the Britney/NKOTB of this tween generation is Hannah Montana a.k.a Miley Ray Cyrus (that’s right, Billy Ray’s daughter.) She has a platinum album, a #1 box office movie of her concert tour (that sold out and had mothers scalping for their baby girls), and a hit TV show on Disney. She presented at the Oscars and is everyone’s favorite. She is a juggernaut of cute.
I did a quick tabloid check this morning, and imagine my surprise when a news story about Miley fit right in with my Con Law II outline: somewhere in between Obscenity and Sexually Explicit Non-Obscene Expression in my Bonfield outline. It turns out this 15-year old superstar just did a shoot with Annie Liebowitz for Vanity Fair and there’s quite the furor over it…
Here’s my take on it: I’m a little more creeped out about the picture where Miley is draped all sexily across her dad’s Achy Breaky Crotch than I am about the nearly-nude photo. I think the one by herself is actually very pretty, regardless of her age.
People have been raising the question as to whether or not this star is on her way to becoming another Britney Spears. I say no. I think that Britney’s chemical imbalance contributed more to her breakdown than her tween-sex-symbol-status. It couldn’t have helped, but it wasn’t the reason she snapped.
However, I do disagree with Miley’s choice to issue an apology over this shoot. Both of her parents were on the set with her when she shot the photos and they saw digital stills after each shot before approving them. She clearly meant to do it and was proud of them - after all, this is a big break for her. She shouldn’t have to apologize, unless the big, bad, House of Mouse is twisting her arm.
What do you think: do we have another Britney meltdown on the horizon? Or is this just a tiny starlet trying to make it in the mainstream adult audience?
Steve Wieland
fsford
timhilton
smahieu
Morgan N. Engling
maryiowa
jaimiesuzi
jarens
kevinjames
brieanne
lcm
Andrew
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enwinfield
i don’t think she’s another britney, but i don’t like the photos. she looks sick in the nudie one and like a victim of child molestation in the other.
UGH! I too am INFURIATED that the “House of Mouse” as you so elegeantly put it strong armed her into an apology. It’s Annie freak-in Liebowitz people! Having just viewed the Vanity Fair exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery that is just packed full of our lovely Annie I can say one thing–anyone who is anyone in this industry who actually gets the eye of Annie should be jumping up and down for joy.
Miley is another Britney to the extent that the media has decided to bastardize what little ‘art’ is actually left in entertainment. A true entertainer or actor or performer grows in their range and depth of skill. Instead of seeing this photoshoot for what it really is (a childhood star dipping her toe in a new pond), they have to make it scandalous and sexual. They did it with Christina after ‘Genie in a Bottle,’ Fergie and the whole ‘Fergalicious’ thing, and perhaps most memorably, Madonna (for those of us old enough to remember when Madonna didn’t have a British accent).
It annoys me. To pieces. And how sad to have to downplay such an amazing accomplishment–a Vanity Fair spread with the master
Sad.
i nominate “achy-breaky crotch” for the best blog wordplay of the day . . . possibly the week.
i have no opinion on hannah. i’m too busy reading Faust to be bothered by disney child stars. and by “Faust,” i mean Real World recaps on http://www.tvgasm.com
One thing is for sure: we can’t blame Lil’-Miss-Montana’s behavior on her father’s parenting skills… I mean he may be party in the back, but he’s clearly all business in the front (at least he was back in the day). On a more serious note, I think you’re right – she should have skipped the apology even if the pictures were a little risky. It’s okay to be proud of stuff that’s a little out there and a little unacceptable to some.
Flemming, I agree completely that the mildly incestual father/daughter picture is creepier.
As for the Madonna, Brittany comparisons, I think we’re seeing a new beast in Hannah Ray. With Brittany, she always kind of denied that she was in any way using sex to sell her albums, or others were using it to sell magazines. Which is unlike Madonna, who was always VERY aware that she was doing so and shouted it from the mountaintops.
Hanah Ray seems to acknowledge that she’s being sexualized, has willingly participated in it, and now is saying that she’s shocked by it.
For more on this analysis, read Chuckl Klosteman’s AWESOME Brittany interview from Esquire from a few years ago that was in his latest book:
http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/ESQ1103-NOV_BRIT_wjump
she does look a little ill….
I agree with this take on it: http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/hannah_montana_bares_her
My only comment here is that if I were making the dough that this 15 year old is, I would do whatever the hell everyone told me to.
She has a BILLION dollar enterprise around her from our slave labor overlords at Disney and you know she is getting a nice share of that.
So in recap
1) people offer you hundreds of millions of dollars; you do whatever the hell they tell you to do and shut you mouth or legs or whatnot as applicable
2) wait until your 21 and have enough to support your likely lifelong coke and binge drinking habit while socking enough away to buy 5 or 6 cars after you drunkenly crash them into California Highway Patrol cars while swearing about jewish people
3) Sell out to playboy at age 18 or 21 so all the pedophiles that dreamed of you as a 15 year old child star get their fill (i.e. make million here as well)
4) Enjoy life, mocking the people that mocked you about this cover and stuff, from your terrace mansion in Hollywood or NYC or something, and always remember to tell would be nay sayers how much richer you are then them and when they figure out how to make hundreds of millions of dollars they can talk to you.
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/04/29/news_of_miley_cyrus_pictures_crash_vanit
What’s creepiest is that people are crashing the Vanity Fair website to see those pictures.
I was more creeped out of the pics with her on the bed with that guy and pulling her top down to show her bra to the camera.
They’re crashing the Vanity Fair website to see them because they talked about them for TEN minutes on the Today Show the other day (and I imagine longer on some other even trashier shows). It’s weird how they make a story out of how some people think something is a big deal and then they actually are the ones making it into a big deal.