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Wednesday, April 30. 2008
SEXY!
Wholesome …How phony is that word? So, Miley Montana, or is it Hannah Cyrus? Anyway, she posed for some “artsy” photos in Vanity Fair. No big deal. She’s a 15 year old pre-teen idol on a hit Disney Channel TV show. I’ve never seen it or the Vanity Fair photos, but now, as if Britney Spears is already old news, Miley Cyrus has caused a social and sexual crisis. The photos are being called “racy.”
Okay, I’m gonna take a moment to view them.
Geez … is that all? So, the media is in an uproar over these photos? Are they “inappropriate? Really? Please! And Bill O’Reilly wants to have a conference about them?
There is a lot of hypocrisy taking place of course! First of all, Disney is blaming Vanity Fair for “manipulating” the young star into posing for the photos, despite the fact that Cyrus’s parents and publicity machine were on hand for the shoot all day and even had a chance to view the photos for approval before publication. Little Miley herself is quoted as liking the pics and she even posed with her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus for one.
And there’s the charge, from Disney, that Vanity Fair did the manipulating of this 15 year old just to turn a profit. Wait. How many millions of dollars is Disney making with this 15 year old playing a sexy rock star on their cable channel? And they’re gonna accuse Vanity Fair of manipulating a 15 year old for profit? Didn’t know Disney was a non-profit.Both organizations, Condé Nast — which owns Vanity Fair — and Disney, are in business to generate revenues for profit. That’s what they do. Good journalism, on the part of Vanity Fair is their cache for credibility, but it’s their sexy stories that sell the magazine.
Disney has the wholesome reputation, from decades of churning out children’s movies and programs; creative works that have featured sexually appealing men and women as their central characters. From Snow White to Hannah Montana, the latter probably being their most sexually appealing character.
One can say Lindsey Lohan is their most sexual star, and they exploited that in the Herbie movies, but Hannah Montana was designed to be sexy.
It’s bullshit on the part of Disney. If anything, Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair will increase the interest in the young star which will increase Disney’s revenues, but they have an image to protect, so they complain about the photos, done by Annie Leibovitz, as harming the image of their character, when, in fact, sexy is part of what they’re selling in Hannah Montana.
Yeah, a few parents will be concerned that their daughters want to be Hannah Montana, and by extension, Miley Cyrus, but what were the parents thinking when they let their daughters idolize Hannah Montana in the first place? We had this same discussion nearly ten years ago when Britney Spears, still not old enough to vote, was posing in bikinis and lingerie for magazines from Teen Beat to Rollingstone.
Now, of course, Little Miley is apologizing for the photo spread, especially the pic of her in what appears to be her nude form slightly wrapped in a sheet. Please! Her MySpace photos are far more explicit! Of course, those have been taken down, now that there is this controversy. LOL! As the chat room abbreviation goes.In a similar vein, on HBO the live CostasNow discussed the nature of sports media today, with a segment on the pervasive and growing presence of the Internet. Think about it; with sports stars and movie/TV stars, the Internet has given far more access to the fans than we have ever had. Used to be we’d get lucky and meet a celebrity at a fast food joint or department store.
Now, we can see the stars as they are off the publicity bus, in their private lives, because we have miniature cameras in mobile phones that are now able to connect to the Internet. So we can see photos and video of Matt Leinart doing beer bongs at a private party with four hot young women.
Hey, he’s what, 24, good looking and the starting quarterback for the St. Louis Cardinals. He’s doing two women at a time — and how many of us men, either openly or secretly, envy that — and partying like every other young man his age. The difference is, of course, he’s a big media magnet, someone who is in the news, creating news, because of his athletic abilities.
His celebrity status gives him privilege, but it also gives him a lot of scrutiny into his private life that doesn’t give the rest of us any concern. Matt Leinart, and Miley Cyrus, are set up to different standards then their peers and because of the aggressive nature of the media to get “the story” their private lives will be on display in the newspapers, television, radio (figuratively) and most aggressively, on the Internet. Quite frankly, if he wants to do beer bongs with some little hotties, by all means!Didn’t used to be that way. Never knew Mickey Mantle was an alcoholic until long after he left the game. Didn’t know his knee injury was a direct result of his drinking. Didn’t know Rock Hudson was gay until … hard to say. But it wasn’t publicly acknowledged until his was dying from AIDS.
The reason: their private lives were kept private by the media so we didn’t “know” about Mickey Mantle drinking the night away with Billy Martin (and any other drinking buddies).
Now, their private lives are fair game, and not only that, their lives are entertainment. Look at the host of television shows, on broadcast and cable, devoted to dishing up the gossip on celebrities. Most of them suck too! Does anyone watch The Soup? It’s all geared around the private lives of celebrities.
One of the most popular Internet gossip sites is TMZ. They seem to get all the great “news,” they’re the ones who broke the story about Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant when he was last arrested for DUI. Think of that: last arrested for DUI. Then there are sites like You Tube where you can see video of just about everything, short of genitalia and female breasts, which seems pretty absurd, considering everything else we can see — and download — from that site.
Wholesome? Since when? What are the qualifications for “wholesome?” For that matter, what is considered “pornography?” We don’t know. There are no set boundaries for either word.
Merriam-Webster’s defines Pornography:
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornē prostitute + graphein to write; akin to Greek pernanai to sell, poros journey Date: 1858
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
and Wholesome:
Function: adjective
Date: 13th century
1: promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit
2: promoting health of body
3 a: sound in body, mind, or morals b: having the simple health or vigor of normal domesticity
4 a: based on well-grounded fear : prudent — a wholesome respect for the law b: safe — it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go down there — Mark Twain
So, the question is: can some of the photos of Miley Cyrus, even as Hannah Montana, be considered pornography if they elicit a sexual response from some viewers? You know there are a lot of teenage boys who are having their first, albeit solo and private, sexual experiences looking at her photos. That being the case, is she still “wholesome?”
Certainly Disney can make all the claims they wish regarding their property; Hannah Montana the character is property and they can even squeeze their star into portraying that “image” in her life away from the character, but the reality is, there is a certain amount of sexuality being sold by Disney to promote their program. The people who decide these things at Disney know there are millions of teenage boys who are busy fantasizing about their property, much the way I did for Haley Mills so many years ago.And they also know there are some dirty old men fantasizing about her too. Honestly, I’m not one of them. But whatever brings the attention, and by default, ad revenue, it’s all good. Disney knows the Vanity Fair spread isn’t going to do much damage — if any — to their property, but they have to act as if they are offended because perception is reality for most Americans. Truth really isn’t relevant.
I’m just waiting to see Miley show up on the Internet, proving she doesn’t wear panties while doing beer bongs in her SUV driven by her bodyguard. Now that would be a departure from her Disney image.
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