On Teenage Stardom

Really now... WTF IS SHE WEARING?

I'm a little baffled by my extreme dislike for this girl.

Though I tend to read sites like thesuperficial.com or gofugyourself.com and chuckle at the snarky comments the bloggers make about celebrities, I am actually rather ambivalent about celebrities. I get pissed off when people write disrespectful comments about celebrities who have passed away (Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, etc.), because really? If you don't personally know him or her, you shouldn't be the one to judge. Likewise, people may bash on the Jonas Brothers, but really? I don't know them personally, and so I don't care -- to me, feeling any real emotion towards them, whether love or hate, is acknowledging that they have some sort of impact on my life -- and they honestly don't. And I don't particularly listen to pop music, so you can play as many Jonas Brothers songs to me as you want, and I won't be able to recognize any of them.

But Miley? No such luck. I was doing pretty well at first -- never watched an episode of Hannah Montana, never listened to any of her songs, other than the fact that "The Climb" was mixed into DJ Earworm 2009 Remix.

Then "Party in the USA" entered the scene. Like a plague riding in on infected rats, it entered houses, cars, and dormitories on MP3 players and radio waves until I couldn't walk anywhere on campus without listening to Miley's voice. Even worse, it was one of those songs like Rihanna's "Disturbia" that infest your brain to the point that the tune is stuck in your head for hours, even though you don't particularly like the song at all.

And even then, I didn't hate Miley. I didn't like her song, and that isn't really legitimate grounds to dislike a person. Heck, I even took her side at one point early in her career, with this photograph:


Yes, the infamous Annie Leibovitz portrait. In fact, I am even more amazed by this photograph now that I'm looking at it two years later. This was back when she was still the spotless girl-next-door. People were appalled, claiming it bordered child pornography. I scoffed at that accusation. My aesthetic tastes are much more European than American, and so I thought it was a beautiful photograph of a pretty girl. When I look at it now, that's not all I see anymore. I see the fragility of a girl at the brink of stardom, vulnerable to losing herself and growing up too fast.

I confess: out of curiosity due to all the fervor in the blogosphere, I went to Youtube and watched the music video for "Can't Be Tamed." Oh, how I laughed. I laughed at the hilarity of Miley Cyrus as a giant peacock-like bird-thing that scares off bemused spectators by going into a dancing frenzy. I laughed at the nonsensical and rather juvenile lyrics. But mainly, I laughed at how hard she was trying to prove she had grown up.

Perhaps if I wasn't relatively up-to-date about Hollywood, then maybe I wouldn't even care. I think much of the reason my impression of her is so sour is because of all the stories I have read about her that appall me. In a recent interview, she confessed that she didn't listen to pop music (even though that's her genre of music... disconnect?) and that she can't stand musicals. Here's an excerpt of what she said:

"My 13-year-old self would have beaten up my 17-year-old self because she would be like, 'You're a sellout!' But that's not what it is. It's not dance music that's just about, 'Ooh, I'm in the club and everyone's looking at me.' It means something. I'm not just sitting here trying to sell glitz and glamour...because no one lives that life. A lot of pop songs are super shallow, but this music isn't."

I'm trying my best not to be cynical, but if her songs aren't shallow, how on earth are they deep? "Can't Be Tamed" seemed like an excuse for her to parade around her blossoming sexuality, and the song lyrics weren't exactly enlightening either. As for "Party in the USA", she confessed that she's never even listened to Jay-Z.

There are a lot little things about her that I don't like, but one of the things that bothered me the most also makes me wonder if there's more at work than just cynicism. And that thing is The Last Song.

I haven't watched this movie, and don't particularly intend to. I am not a Nicholas Sparks fan, but that is another story entirely. What really irked me about the production of this movie is what happened behind the scenes. Basically, this movie was written for Miley. Disney, wanting to help her break-out into older audiences, approached Nicholas Sparks and asked him if he had a novel in mind that would work for a film adaptation. So, Sparks ended up writing the screenplay for Miley to star in, and then finished the novel afterwards.

So why does this tick me off so much? There are thousands of young, rising actresses out there waiting for their big break. It is very likely that a handful of them could have nailed the role better than Miley. Obviously, Miley Cyrus has the connections and life isn't fair, so get over it. But the fact that she got this starring role not out of particular acting ability but as a way to further advance her marketability annoys the crap out of me.

In the end, I feel like maybe I don't actually dislike Miley Cyrus, the person. Obviously, I don't particularly admire her decision to skip out on college, but I can kind of understand because logically it makes sense for her to cash in on her stardom while it's still so monstrous. And I feel like if she'd gone to my high school, I wouldn't like her very much. I respect girls like Dakota Fanning and Emma Watson, who still maintain as much of a normal life as they can outside of stardom.

No, I'm starting to think I dislike Miley Cyrus, the product of Hollywood marketing and exploitation.