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It's everywhere by now, and surely you've already seen it -- Miley Cyrus did a shoot with Vanity Fair, and the 15-year-old Hannah Montana star's cover shot features her looking over her naked shoulder, holding a satin bed sheet (or something that looks like one) over her naked front.
Nakedness! On the cover of a magazine! From a minor who is not just a tween idol, but one who's been owned by Disney and continually praised for not making the same mistakes other pop stars have!
The ensuing media storm has been extensive, and no wonder. From the New York Times to unknown bloggers, Ms. Cyrus is a hot topic right now.
What are the issues here? I'd say there are many. There's the matter of Cyrus being a legal minor, for one. There's her celebrity status and -- along with it -- her association with Disney and the whole "role model" position she is therefore to assume, like it or not. There's the debate of what is "appropriate" and what is "artistic," and we could talk about that for days, maybe even weeks or months. There's the matter of sexuality in America and its expression and where one places lines and whether there is a single standard one can pinpoint. And of course, there's the parenting issue.
Opinions are flying fast and furious through the blogosphere, that's for sure.
Jamie Lee Curtis blogged on the Huffington Post about it, first sounding as though she wasn't sure what the big fuss was about:
Apparently young Ms. Cyrus has apologized for something she was told would be artistic and now feels embarrassed about. I feel for her. Of course she is embarrassed. She is a young girl. She shouldn't have to deal with any of this. I don't feel that she was duped. I know the integrity of Ms. Liebovitz and the magazine and I know there were people present at the shoot that should have been looking out to make sure that this didn't happen. In the offending photo she looks tousled and soft and vulnerable and yes...even sexy. She is fifteen after all, and the word sex is starting to come up. I seem to remember a fourteen/fifteen year old Brooke Shields commenting that nothing came between her and her Calvins. There would be no problem if Ms. Cyrus doesn't represent something that is counterintuitive to that image.
At the end of her piece, though, she does give a nod to the age issue which I think is rather telling:
I know how Miley feels. I too was a little embarrassed by my recent topless "scandal" and the subsequent parodies, but I am an adult woman. I protected myself during the shoot and I can take the heat. I only wish that her guardians had protected her.
It's not clear to me whether Ms. Curtis wishes she'd been protected from having the pictures taken or from coming under scrutiny afterwards, however.
BlogHer's own editor Shannon had very recently held Miley Cyrus up as an example of how to handle fame without succumbing to the loss of balance and normalcy, and now she's furious to see what's happened here.
Jane at What About Mom? disagrees with Shannon about the ensuing talk with her children having to be a hard one:
But one thing about the handwringing bothers me. While I can only imagine how hard it is to have to explain to young sons about topless photos, I think we might miss a great teaching moment as parents if we approach it as Shannon seems to, angry that there’ll have to be an “unpleasant conversation in our house tonight, about modesty and decision-making and growing up too fast.”
[...]
First of all, the conversation could be pleasant, I think. [...]
But I think the greatest lesson to be learned here is about peer pressure, and how it can trick even parents, even sophisticated (one imagines), fame-experienced grown-ups. [...]
Miley's dad Billy Ray had a chance to be a real hero on that photo shoot, to stand up and say, "No. In our family we don't take off our clothes in public." And then to his daughter, he could have said, "Honey, you can say no to ANYONE. You never have to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, and if anyone ever asks you to, I hope you’ll come to me for help."
If he wanted to get real mushy, he could've added, "Miley, you and me, and your mom (and sisters and
