Miley Cyrus

Alan Melendez

Prof. Stallard

English 1B

23 July 2015

         She came in like a wrecking ball into Hollywood former childhood star turned pop star artist Miley Cyrus has been a figure of controversy for a while now. Miley’s career started in Disney’s widely popular and successful TV show Hannah Montana, were she portrayed a fictional and benevolent teenage pop star. Despite childhood fame and the adoration of millions of fans, the Miley that lives today is far from the average celebrity. Miley Cyrus went from a squeaky-clean beloved Disney star to a reckless and controversial icon of pop. One of the most talked about moments in Miley’s career that has stirred quite the debate was her performance at MTVs video music awards. In short Miley performed wildly, swinging her arms around to the music with no rhythm, grabs one of the African-American dancer’s rear and the highlight of it all, “twerking” on singer Robin Thicke. Audiences cringed and stared as their jaws hit the ground to see what Miley Cyrus had become; critic Anna Kooiman from the Los Angeles Times had this to say about the performance,   “This was just raunchy. This wasn't sexy. There wasn't any talent." Most of Mileys popularity is due to the scrutinizing and hating of her and her actions which is blinding them of the underlying truth. Although critics and audiences strictly judge Miley Cyrus for her abnormal life style and debatable choices, they fail to acknowledge the meaning behind her actions and how they are representative of different subjects in society.

          Childhood actors appear to be living the dream life, they have fun with friends and family and they get paid well but behind the veil of this false reality lay multiple problems child stars often face. Child actors essentially have a job whether it is a TV show or movie they are starring in it is a job and like in all jobs there is responsibility. However child actors have a higher level of responsibility; they need to memorize their lines and they’re constantly reminded of the millions of people watching them which can put them in a lot of pressure. Hannah Montana was a successful and high grossing TV show starring Miley Cyrus, according to Chloe Melas of celebrity based website Hollywood Life, Miley made as much as $15,000 per episode. That amount of money and money in general, are like sirens from Greek mythology they keep children acting with little knowledge of the consequences.

         As popular as Hannah Montana was, Miley must have faced the same issues with pressure as did many child actors before her. Since child actors are constantly reined in by studios and managers as opposed to acting out and getting detention in school as normal kids would. This kind of pressure may have steered Miley into becoming the person she is today, as a child actor she was limited to what she could do in terms of self expression from all that pressure. By the time child stars hit their late teens and early 20s is when they finally start expressing themselves, and do so often with major consequences. As Miley matured she started to develop these careless ideals and all her wealth and predominantly white background provided the means for her facilitate her actions and misdemeanors with little repercussion. With her parents not there to look after her, Miley Cyrus was “free” as her album Can’t Be Tamed suggested which was released a couple years before her big transformation. Childhood acting may be what some kids would perceive as a great life from the fame and popularity, yet the reality of it is that acting at a young age can cage kids and prevent expression not to mention all the unsuspecting pressure.

          Miley’s transition from Disney star to a parent’s worse nightmare was shocking; people may think she is idiotic and would dismiss her work and performances as mere nonsense. However, Miley’s raunchy behavior and choice of style has a little more to bring to the table than just laughs and cries of hate. Discretely Miley has been incorporating her personal views in her work specifically her views on feminism, so there’s more to her than twerking and tongue flashing. The traditional understanding of feminism as its known is the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. Although similar, Miley’s protests a different form of feminism but with some of the same concepts, “I'm just about equality, period. It's not like, I'm a woman, women should be in charge! I just want there to be equality for everybody” said Miley Cyrus on an interview from the Huffington post.

          Her work although it may not seem like it, contains themes about fearlessness and about being unafraid to make choices, to be yourself and to self-express. In America women are still victims of disempowerment and social ramification women still aren’t treated the way men are and Miley has taken this into account and has expressed it in her art if you will. She is bringing about a modern feministic type view which is about individual empowerment, not about recognizing or combating political issues. It’s about appropriating a masculine kind of individual freedom; the freedom to not care about being afraid to make choices. When Miley twerked on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards in a skin toned bikini, taunting the audience with her stuck-out tongue, it was feminism in the flesh with all of its potential and limitations there for us to see. Here was a young woman rejecting the rules that tell girls that they need to be quiet and good for society to give them acceptance. Behind her seemingly distasteful appearance and performances there are messages that can reflect issues such as the roles of women in culture and society.  

          In Miley’s performance there were no shortages of stereotypical and demeaning behavior, specifically Miley’s infamous dance move the “twerk.” Typically the popular notion of what it means to be Black consists of negative and violent imagery and that is damaging to the Black community. These stereotypes have come from messages present in media that US citizens have consumed for more than a decade. Twerking, which is largely associated with black culture, is essentially a dance move that consists of the shaking of one’s behind in a sexual way. Obviously not the kind of dance move you would want to show to your parents or grandparents let alone thousands of people and Miley’s cultural appropriation or adoption of the dance move was representative of the stereotypical side of black culture. Showing this demeaning behavior only further sunk the black community into their stereotype which is the opposite of what should be occurring especially at a place like the VMAs were many black people were present which possibly led to offense.