Don’t get me wrong, I love Miley Cyrus. She’s one of the most talented young singers around and deserves all the fame, attention and success she’s getting. But, since she’s been promoting her new album “Can’t Be Tamed” she’s gone from a beautiful looking girl who seemed self-confident and strong to a young women who seems to be losing her identity in trashy clothing and Lady Gaga-esque behavior. It might work for Lady Gaga but it’s not doing Miley Cyrus any favors.
That’s why it’s so odd that in her new interview with MTV, Miley Cyrus talks about her new album “Can’t Be Tamed” being an album about empowering women. As, from where I stand, Miley Cyrus isn’t empowering herself with her latest behavior or shock-clothing, she’s simply looking like a little girl desperate for attention, playing dress-up.
For Miley Cyrus to talk about “empowering women” with her music is a good thing. It shows she’s aware of women’s issues and cares enough about them to want to do something to help women feel better about themselves. But, because she’s so young, Cyrus probably should spend more time learning about herself as she becomes a woman and what being an “empowered” woman really means.
Being an empowered woman isn’t what Miley Cyrus has been doing – throwing on trashy clothing and flashing her crotch in public places to such an extent there are nasty photos of it and Cyrus on celebrity gossip blogs. Neither is being an empowered woman about mouthing off when a reporter accidentally touches your car (two days ago, arriving back in LA Cyrus snapped at a reporter “Do not hit my frikkin car”).
Being an empowered woman also isn’t about being on every TV show or magazine cover wearing the least amount of clothing possible either. (Even when Miley Cyrus performed at the House of Blues last weekend, at first look it was nice to see her in jeans and a black tank top. But, on closer look Cyrus couldn’t even manage one night looking halfway dressed. Instead, the jeans were slung halfway down her hips with her black thongs exposed at the front and back and most of her butt hanging out over everything). Really, that’s not being empowered. That’s looking like someone who should be spending her time hanging out on a corner on Hollywood Boulevard.
Believe me, I’m no prude. Far from it. But there’s a line I don’t think anyone should cross when it comes to bad behavior or unnecessarily revealing clothing. My mother always used to say to me “Would you be proud of your parents to see you wearing this?” and, no, if I wore a skirt so short my crotch was hanging out of it, no, my mother wouldn’t be proud of me so I wouldn’t be wearing it in the first place.
To be an empowered woman means to be strong withinin yourself, to like yourself for who you are and not for how short your clothes are when you walk down the street. The way Miley Cyrus has been dressing and acting lately makes it seem she’s so desperate for attention and to prove she’s “a woman”, she’s looking like the little girl she still is while she’s doing it. And she’s weakening herself and her image, not strengthening it.
Hopefully, by this time next year, when she’s turned 18 and she’s finally a woman, she’ll understand more what being an empowered woman is all about. But right now, she’s just Miley Cyrus the little girl, wearing way too few clothes and looking more than a little trampy while she’s doing it. Which, for a girl who’s that beautiful and that talented, so doesn’t need all the gimmicks, it’s sad.
SOURCES:
Miley Cyrus Says Can’t Be Tamed Is All About Female Empowerment – MTV
