Published: May 01, 2008 06:47 pm            

‘Controversy’ calculated career move

I can’t say I’ve paid much attention to Hannah Montana.

Thankfully, I have no kids, so I’ve had the choice to ignore the phenomenon. But owning a TV and possessing access to high-speed Internet, there are a few things I know about Miley Cyrus, the young actress who plays Hannah Montana.

One is that she is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, the man responsible for the immortal “Achy Breaky Heart” and one of the best mullets of the ‘90s. I also know that she is worth millions upon millions of dollars. I caught her pre-Oscar interview with Barbara Walters, so I’m aware that she believes her Christian upbringing will keep her from becoming the next Britney Spears.

So I possessed enough background knowledge to get the gist of the controversy surrounding her recent pictures taken by famous photographer Annie Lebowitz in Vanity Fair. Basically, Miley Cyrus has this squeaky clean image, and the most-talked-about picture reveals her bare back — whoa! Scandalous. I’m sure a five-minute search of MySpace would reveal pictures of 15-year-old girls that would have us all weeping for the state of America while simultaneously commending Miley Cyrus for her moral restraint and decency.

The creepier picture from the Vanity Fair shoot is the one of Miley draped across her father’s lap with her bare midriff exposed and his arm wrapped around her in a protective, intimate embrace. Many articles/bloggers have pointed to the implied sexuality of the pose, which mirrors any number of trashy romance novels. It’s obvious the picture is meant to be provocative. For one, I can’t imagine striking a similar pose with my father for, say, our family Christmas card: “Dad, c’mon you really need to pull me tighter to you. Be confident and kind of aloof but also possessive of my body!”

The picture is definitely a tad unsettling, but I don’t think it’s sexual. I focused more on the tattoo on Billy Ray’s perennially bare arm that reads “music changes everything.” I’m guessing he realized music changes everything once his career tanked in the mid-‘90s, but I’m guessing he got the tattoo around the time his daughter made her first $100 million. Billy Ray appears to me like any other father of a successful pop star. Viewed this way, the tone of the picture isn’t sexual but covetous.

What’s really stupid about all of this fake controversy over these innocuous pictures is that anyone is pretending to be offended — including Miley Cyrus, who denounced the photos. Please! At this point in her career, Cyrus and her entire family are business savvy and fluent in the language of showbiz. They knew exactly what the pictures would look like. My guess is that this is the opening gambit in Miley’s bid for greater pop stardom. Her tween fans will soon be teenagers, and I have no doubt Billy Ray fears his daughter being tossed aside along with the Barbies and Bratz dolls.

Britney Spears recorded “Hit Me Baby One More Time …” when she was 16 years old and for the next few years she maintained in the press that she was a virgin while making a lucrative career out of suggesting otherwise in her songs and videos. (And like Miley, Britney also got her start on the Disney Channel.) Miley is perfectly poised to do the same.

The only aspect of this that annoys me is that I will have to read about it. I’m honestly not sure I can take another Britney Spears. I came across this story concerning Miley Cyrus’ “controversial” pictures at the Web sites of major news organizations. Now I don’t have a problem with Cyrus becoming a coy, self-aware teen pop star sexualizing her image in exchange for money and fame, but I find it annoying that the public has to participate in this storyline. From the beginning, Miley Cyrus’ career has been about making a ton of money. Part of making a ton of money is generating publicity and remaining relevant. Therefore, of course Cyrus will eventually be like every other teen pop star!

If parents are worried about their kids losing Hannah Montana as a role model then they shouldn’t buy US Weekly or watch E!, and they should block Perez Hilton and TMZ on the family computer. I was a huge fan of the first “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” growing up, and the fact that Corey Feldman, who voiced Donatello in the movie, was most likely coked out of his mind at that time in his life didn’t change my impression of the film. Nor did it cause me to ponder if cocaine might be the right choice for me as well. Feldman’s coke habit also didn’t impact my enjoyment of “The Goonies” or “Gremlins.”

Why? Because I was 9, and I didn’t care about Feldman’s personal life.



Jeremiah Tucker writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.

        

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