In retrospect I should have listened to Gerard and just not know what it is that Miley Cyrus gets up to these days, but before I read Gerard’s Tweet I went on Twitter, so it was impossible. I’ve managed to not see her entire VMA performance, however, or her Wrecking Ball video, although I did end up watching a bit on an interview on Chatty Man a few Fridays ago when I’d exhausted my Friday DVD binge allowance.
So I may or may not be qualified to talk about her.
Much like the rest of the Internet.
Miley Cyrus is Punk as Fuck
This Noisey/Vice piece was posted on Twitter and Frank RT’d it, or something, which was interesting in itself since he spent twelve years in a sort-of punk band (although we all know that they were the most punk of all punk bands so maybe the lack of MCR in the universe has in some way allowed for Miley to be considered punk in the first place?). Anyway, the article is basically suggesting that Miley is more punk rock than certified punk rock bands because she actually does not care about Hannah Montana or what it says about a woman when she dances next to Robin Thicke while he’s singing that song… she does it because she wants to and she can.
I think I’m okay with that. I mean, she’s perfectly within her rights to live how she chooses, weed laws aside, and she doesn’t owe anybody anything – not least those Hannah fans who are probably my age now anyway and have almost certainly spent more Saturday nights getting wasted than I have. So should parents just turn off the TV when she starts dancing half-naked like they would when any other half-naked lady starts dancing? Are people just pissy because she used to be all cutsie and Disneyfied? Have people not noticed that Zac Effron and Demi Lovato have been to rehab and that One Direction look like LA Ink clients? Children growing up isn’t a new thing, and she’s not going to be the last teenager who sticks two fingers up at her elders, publically or otherwise.
Then came this:
Sinéad O’Connor’s open letter to Miley Cyrus
I found this on The Guardian‘s site via Twitter because Sinead’s website is down – surprise! I also agree with it. The entertainment industry does not give a shit. That really shouldn’t be news to most of us, not after Amanda Bynes/Lindsay Lohan/insert fallen star here ended up in rehab/in a mental illness facility/dead etc. I’m really glad that someone who has been aged twenty-something in the music industry and is now forty-something and still in the music industry, mostly intact, has taken the time to point this out. Just as a stark reminder that if you’re in a magazine and you’re halfway attractive, people will buy that magazine because they want to get off, and they’ll read the article if you’re lucky. That’s the way the world works and until all parents teach their children that it’s not cool to look at a person and judge them purely on their underwear size or something, that’s the way it’s going to continue to work.
I think Miley probably knows that. Maybe that’s why she’s so punk rock. I mean, we all know what happens to the punk dudes who don’t clean up their act, right?
I might edit/continue this later. Not sure whether or not I’ve found a new soapbox.
Francesca's Thoughts 