Should We Leave Mylie Alone?
theophilus April 30th, 2008
I’m watching Extra last night and the story about Miley Cyrus and her Vanity Fair photo shoot came on. I heard about the story earlier in the day. Being the father of a kindergarten girl who idolizes Miley/Hannah, I went on the Vanity Fair website to read the story and see the photos in question.
Wow, I have to admit I was deflated by what I saw. Not only were some of the photos with just her questionable, but so too were the ones with her and her dad. What horrible judgement by Billy Ray. When I got home, my wife and I asked our daughter if she saw the photos. She said that she had seen them on Good Morning America (so much for letting her watch a news program). We quickly had a little talk with her – a learning moment.
But, why are we surprised about the photos? The stories on Extra following the Mylie Cyrus story were about a hot dress that Gywneth Paltrow was wearing, video footage of Britney Spears clad only in a towel at the gym, and how a very pregnant and unwed (but engaged) Jessica Alba is guest starring with Elmo.
We have sexualized our society to such a degree that we really shouldn’t be shocked when things like these photos come out. The good news is that people seem to be drawing a line - enough people appear to be genuinely upset about the photos. But too much of the story is about whether Mylie is jeopardizing her billion dollar machine – not whether she is jeopardizing her childhood.
For her sake, I hope this story gets off the front page quickly. I hope she and her parents have learned a lesson and her parents protect her with every fiber of their being. I hope they realize that something that starts innocently enough can escalate into something salacious without them realizing it. I hope Miley doesn’t try to grow up too fast. I hope the photographer and the folks at the magazine – all of whom knew what they were doing – think twice before again exploiting a teenager. I hope people don’t rush out to buy this garbage.
And I hope my daughter and her peers realize that growing up too fast is just not the way to go.
But even if Miley stays away from any more questionable photography sessions, our girls are still going to have to deal with a highly sexualized society that too often fails to draw the line in the messages we send those who don’t know better.
In the meantime, I’m going to go and find some books about female saints for my little girl to read.
