Friday 29 March 2024

Can someone lend Miley a few clothes?

When even your best friend tells you on national TV that you should stop sticking your tongue out suggestively at every occasion, then maybe it is time you listened.

Watching one of my favourite shows Fashion Police recently, Kelly Osbourne looked straight at the camera and told her friend Miley Cyrus to cut it out with the lolling tongue already.

This was just after the now infamous MTV video awards twerking performance where Miley’s costume was pronounced by the oracles of fashion to be not only completely unflattering, but (probably to her chagrin) not even remotely sexy. I cannot wait for Joan Rivers to announce her verdict of Miley’s more recent outfits (and antics) some of which can be seen here.

I always find it awkward to write about this subject without coming across as a disapproving old prune. After all Miley is now an adult and can do what she likes. But this is more than just about the 20-year-old’s sudden desire to flaunt her wares in order to “reinvent” herself and sell her music. The former Disney star of Hannah Montana has a huge following from girls who grew up idolizing her, and like most celebrities she has become something of a role model. That means everything she does is emulated, from the way she has now chopped off her locks and shaved one side of her head, to her tattoos, and yes her new wardrobe (or lack of it).   And sorry but I do not subscribe to the post-feminist spiel that today a woman can behave, dress or undress the way she likes because she is comfortable with her sexuality and it is “empowering”.  Please someone tell me how licking a hammer and sticking your behind in people’s face is empowering. I’m all ears.

To me it still looks very much like using women as disposable objects to be ogled at for sexual gratification.

More than shocking I find this all so very predictable and very, very depressing. Miley is trying so desperately hard to be talked about (and succeeding) that short of shooting a porn film, I don’t know what she can do next. The thing is, as everyone has already pointed out, this has all been done before. Sex sells and from Marilyn to Madonna to Lady Gaga we have seen so many actresses and singers taking it all off and gyrating that it has become rather cliché and hackneyed.

Even the very talented Beyoncè and Rihanna keep getting raunchier with each video as they look over their shoulders with their eyes on the next upcoming hot young thing, fully aware that there are many wannabes out there panting to take their place.

The music industry is a fickle business and you can be at the top of the charts one week and forgotten the next, which is why Miley (together with her management and apparently even with the tacit approval of her parents) keeps coming up with different shock tactics to keep her high on the public’s radar. But when you get to the point where your various stages of undress are being talked about more than your music then it is probably time to re-think this dubious strategy.

The main aim seems to be to look sexy by leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination (when it is common knowledge that the sexiest women are those who merely give a hint or a suggestion of ‘what lies beneath’ so to speak).  Once you remove a woman’s mysterious allure by having her butt naked swinging from a steel wrecking ball, with the obligatory close ups of her touching herself, I think you have pretty much exhausted her repertoire of possible ‘sexy’ looks.

Oh, yes,  I almost forgot, she hasn’t yet done the faux lesbian kiss – but too bad, Britney Spears beat her to that one already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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