First of all, Sinead is right. Just like she was right about The Pope, she is also right about Miley. Her open letter was brutal and frank but not mean, and I admire it because (1) Sinead knows the music business and is not lying or exaggerating about what it has done to people and what it will continue to do to people so long as they allow it to continue, and (2) even though there is a maternal tone to the letter, Sinead is actually treating Miley like an adult. Some people have expressed that her letter is condescending but I don't think it is at all-- I think Sinead is offering advice, and for Miley the adult thing to do would've been to reply with an open letter and politely decline the offer.
Instead, what does Miley do? Re-post tweets that detail Sinead's troubles in the past. So in other words, Sinead was wrong about one thing: Miley Cyrus is not mature enough to be treated as an equal in an open letter.
And this is what it's all about, by the way: maturity. Not slut shaming, not raunchy musical numbers, not risque videos or tongue wagging... the bottom line is, Miley's new makeover is her attempt to shed her kid image and show she's an adult. But she's not. She may be on the verge of 21, but she is actually less mature than most girls her age. And the proof is in her actions and statements.
Let's get the "slut shaming" issue out of the way once and for all by comparing Miley to someone who has provoked similar controversies: Madonna. Back when Madonna was Miley's age, she was hanging out with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Fab Five Freddy, dabbling in the New York art/punk/music scenes. By the time she became world-famous, Madonna was firmly in control of her image: she told her stylists how to dress her, she told her make-up people and hair people how to do her up, she told her PR people what was cool and what sucked, and she owned her image. It was never foisted upon her, and when labeled a 'slut' or a 'tramp' she was able to defend herself or (better yet) ignore the accusations and move on. Madonna, moreover, never seemed desperate for approval-- she couldn't give a fuck what anyone thought... just ask Kevin Costner!
Miley, by comparison, grew up with Billy Ray Cyrus as a dad. The closest she has gotten to rubbing elbows with the cool and edgy was when her dad was cast in a David Lynch movie. Otherwise, she has been handled for most of her life by people who work for a cartoon mouse. She has no style of her own, so all this recent mish-mash is her attempt to create her own style. Of course, it's as authentic as a pair of pleather pants, but her handlers insist it's what hot this year so it must be cool!
When accused of being a 'slut' or whatever, Miley needs to be defended by others. She cannot defend herself, or rather, she can't defend herself coherently. And doesn't that defeat the purpose of stepping out into the limelight as a quote-unquote adult? The fact is, if she's all grown up now then no one needs to defend Miley and no one should defend her. So why is everyone trying to spin it like Miley is some innovator when she is actually a huge poseur?
Yes, that's right-- she's a poseur. She's that girl who goes away to college and one day shows up wearing a Pixies T-shirt and claiming she has always loved Sinead O'Connor, even though every single thing she's done up until that point contradicts this information. Maybe Miley really is a closet indie-rock fan, and maybe she did discover Sinead O'Connor all by herself while listening to Juicy J's rough mixes of her newest album. But her career up until this point has never betrayed that, and so we must ask: is this latest persona just an act too?
If it is, then that's cool. Madonna, Britney Spears, David Bowie, Prince... the music world is made up of performers who shed their images like snake skins. But the difference is, none of them looked like they were going to fall over because they can't walk in heels. Not that Miley doesn't look comfortable in heels-- that's a metaphor I used to describe what I see is happening: Miley wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to be a big girl but she hasn't earned it yet. I mean, even Britney had the sense to release a song like "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" before she jumped into "I'm A Slave 4 U"...
Another thing: Amanda Palmer from The Dresden Dolls is not one to take Sinead O'Connor to task for her open letter to Miley. I think her letter was weird in its defense of Miley, and besides-- who asked for her opinion anyway, even if it was an open letter? Didn't Ms. Palmer & Margaret Cho lampoon Katy Perry for her song "I Kissed A Girl" a few years back? Talk about slut shaming. I guess if it gets approval from the LGBT community then it's OK to bash a vacant pop star for trying to be edgy.
And along with maturity, it boils down to edginess: so many pop stars these days have no edge. If Miley thinks her VMA performance was edgy, she needs to find tapes in the MTV archives of presentations that were ten times edgier than what she did. If she had come out the gate doing Wendy O. Williams of The Plasmatics, then I would've given her props for being edgy. Instead, she came off as a little girl playing dress up (or dress down, if you prefer) and managed to make something that could've been playful and sexy into an embarrassment.
So, to recap: Miley is a poseur. A girl who's had everything handed to her all her life now wants the one thing that money can't buy: credibility. It has nothing to do with sex, celebrity, or fame. It has everything to do with a 20 year-old with more money than all the people in her age group put together trying to act like she is older and more mature than she is, and not understanding the difference between actual haters and people who want to lend a loving but firm hand.
Perhaps right now as we speak, Miley is pretending that she has always loved the music of Bob Dylan. And maybe she will hear his song "Just Like A Woman" and maybe the chorus will resonate with her, not as an opportunity to seem cool and edgy but as a true reflection of where she is right now.
I don't dislike Miley Cyrus-- I just wish she would be more honest. But that's hard to do when you're a child of privilege trying to negotiate new terrain in a world full of critics and big meanies. And professing to love an artist whose last hit came out before you were even born then turning around and dissing her when she makes an overture is as intellectually dishonest as it gets.
I always say, you gotta take anything a person in their 20's says with a grain of salt. I didn't start saying that, of course, until recently. I'm almost 40, and I look back on my thoughts and actions back in my heyday and shudder. I thought I knew it all, and hell-- maybe I did know a lot. But I didn't know it all, and I'm still learning. But I would've never admitted it when I was 20, and I don't expect Miley Cyrus to admit it either.
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