Miley Cyrus 'Wrecking Ball': To join or not to join the angry (curious) mob
In the midst of the firestorm surrounding the twerking, bare-all “Wrecking ball” ways of Miley Cyrus it’s easy to join the angry mob when perhaps we should consider whether our public outrage is fueling the marketing cycle that drives female performers to more self-destructive heights.
Lindsey Lohan, Miley Cyrus, Amanda Bynes, are all in seemingly perpetual self-destruct mode, casualties of the relentless marketing of young female Disney child stars, driven from one phase of stardom to another.
The patterns seems to hold: Loveable child star goes rogue, burns out, tanks, fans turn on her and she finally gets it together for a glorious Disney ending comeback.
We loved them as children and now we cry out over what they’ve become. Television made them our children and in that everlasting role we can’t seem to stop paying attention to their exploits and rooting for the turn-around. Brittany made it, maybe they can too.
In her new video Cyrus begins in her underwear and progresses to total nudity (but for a pair of shoes) while on a wrecking ball, singing about how her lover has turned her into a wrecking ball in life and in the process destroyed her.
Viewers quickly filled the comments section her video with the majority saying they actually liked the song but the video wrecked it for them.
This backlash, however, will not likely get the video pulled, dampen sales, or deter the young star from future nudity and scandal.
In fact, given the way marketing works today it’s likely to bring more of the same because ultimately Cyrus’ name and therefore her “brand” is trending at number one on Yahoo and Google trends today.
About 20 years ago when I was a daily reporter on Long Beach Island, N.J., there was a public official named James Mancini. Mancini was a “double dipper” drawing a public salary as both mayor and county freeholder. The man would say the most outrageous things, shoot from the hip, scandalize and entrance voters and reporters alike.
One day he said something completely absurd in response to one of my questions, and I broke protocol and said, “Are you really saying this to me? You know we’re on the record. Why do you say it when you clearly know it’s untrue and damaging to you?”
Mancini smiled the smile of a grandfather about to reveal the secret of all time to a favorite grandchild. He said he gave me the quote because people forget. When they step into the booth on election day, they haven’t really been paying attention, he said. All they see is a name they recognize and the pull the lever.
I asked him if what he’d just said was on the record and he cunningly replied, that it was and asked me to do him a favor and print that.
The thing is that he was a great mayor and an even better freeholder and the people were always better off with him in office. When he died much of the people’s power went to the grave with him.
However, he could never bring himself to be himself because somewhere along the way he’d seen for himself that bad guys were winning elections. He wanted to do good things so he publicly played the role.
Miley Cyrus’ song was good. I find myself humming it even now, but would I have listened if the video hadn’t come to my attention via a trend alert on my smartphone?
The next time a young star is unwrapped and packaged like Cyrus, enraging us, perhaps viewers need to stop and consider whether expressing it in a public forum isn’t contributing to someone’s wallet and another’s downfall.
