Friday, May 2, 2008

Montana Exposed (sort of)

Some of you may look at the above picture and see controversy. Others may look at it and see a young girl rushing out of bed, late for first period English. I look at it and honestly say, "So what?"

Is it because she's suppose to be this wholesome, innocent role model for our own teenage daughters? Lest we forget that we entrusted our children to Britney Spears just a few short years ago; was there not the same controversy when she went from innocent to indecent in just one album?

Did the moral fabric of the family unit get torn to shreds and stomped into the floor like a fiery bag of feces? No. Did terrorists really learn to fly planes because of it? Probably not. Did teen pregnancy spike because of it? Only if you lived in a Mormon Compound.

The truth is that this is a mild example of bad judgment on the part of Vanity Fair. In their defense, artistically the picture is pretty good, I mean Ann Leibovitz did the photo shoot, not Hustler. However, Vanity Fair is a magazine marketed to adults; maybe a fifteen year old girl shouldn't be posing in such a provocative position (she does look a little loved up).

At least wait until she's seventeen.

6 comments:

yoggoth said...

A Disney spokeswoman, Patti McTeague, faulted Vanity Fair for the photo. “Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines,” she said.

How was she manipulated? Maybe she just wanted to take the pic?

Last week, Gary Marsh, the president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, was quoted in Portfolio magazine saying, “For Miley Cyrus to be a ‘good girl’ is now a business decision for her. Parents have invested in her a godliness. If she violates that trust, she won’t get it back.”

Thanks Gary, maybe she'll be okay without 'godliness' or as a 'good girl'. Maybe she'll just be a person and end up less screwed up than Brittney.

yoggoth said...

By the way, putting titles on the posts makes them easier to see on the side.

ninquelote said...

I heard that quote from the Disney spokeswoman. All I have to say is that Vanity Fair didn't manipulate her to sell magazines any more than Disney manipulates her ever second of the day to sell TV shows, CD's, DVD's, concert tickets; I mean the list goes on and on.

PS Sorry about the title, I forgot it. I will add one though.

Little Earl said...

This is a topic which, by its very nature, affords my opinion little weight. It's up to the parents of America (I guess this includes you, N) to decide just how sexy they want their little girls to be. I think Disney is trying to walk a fine line with 15-year-old stars like this, because they surely want them to come across as cute, but they don't want them to come across as sexy. Since she probably wouldn't be half as rich and famous as she is without Disney's help, Miley Cyrus should probably do whatever they want her to do. But personally, it takes a special kind of photo shoot to offend the likes of Little Earl.

yoggoth said...

"Since she probably wouldn't be half as rich and famous as she is without Disney's help, Miley Cyrus should probably do whatever they want her to do."

I don't understand this argument. Disney wasn't helping her, they were making money. She doesn't owe them anything but what's in her contract.

"I think Disney is trying to walk a fine line with 15-year-old stars like this, because they surely want them to come across as cute, but they don't want them to come across as sexy."

Of course they want her to look sexy, just not so sexy that they lose plausible deniability. Sexy + cute sells more than just cute. Ask Gary Coleman.

Little Earl said...

From the Internet Movie Database:

Hefner Wants Cyrus To Pose For Playboy -- When She's 18

In the wake of the row over Miley Cyrus's photo spread in Vanity Fair, Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner has indicated he would probably ask her to pose nude for his magazine in three years, when she's 18 and of legal age. Interviewed on the syndicated TV show Extra, Hefner remarked, "Sure she'd be welcome in the magazine. Very pretty lady." As for that Vanity Fair photo of her holding satin sheets around her with her shoulders and back exposed, Hefner said, "To make such a big to-do over something as innocent as those photos, I think is a reflection on how schizophrenic America is about sexuality."