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Revealing Photo Threatens a Major Disney Franchise – New York Times — Note the New York Times headline. EXACTLY WHAT was revealing about this photo? What? Can someone tell me WHAT!?!? I do not get this at all. |
Fifteen years old, topless and wrapped in what appears to be a satin bedsheet in the June issue of Vanity Fair. Did Miley Cyrus, with the help of a controversy-courting magazine, just deliver a blow to the Walt Disney Company’s billion-dollar “Hannah Montana” franchise?
Some parents reacted with outrage over the weekend when the television program “Entertainment Tonight” began showing commercials promoting a scoop: Ms. Cyrus, the star of the wholesome Disney Channel blockbuster “Hannah Montana,” had posed topless, albeit with her chest covered, for the Vanity Fair photographer, Annie Leibovitz.
Screen grabs of the photo quickly popped up online, sparking a blogosphere debate. “Bonfire anyone?” wrote Lin Burress on her marriage and parenting blog, Telling It Like It Is, referring to the mountain of Hannah Montana retail items — makeup, shoes, clothes — in the marketplace. “Parents should be extremely concerned,” Ms. Burress said in an interview. “Very young girls look up to Miley Cyrus as a role model.”
QUOTE OF THE YEAR: “Posed topless with her chest covered!”
100% agreed with KyleG. I understand why a parent like krazykritter needs to keep their 7 year old daughter wholesome, which is admirable. But at 7 years old, it is the parent’s responsibility to know what her daughter is doing. And I would hope that would include not letter her read a magazine like Vanity Fair.
As for Dvorak’s reaction, mine is the same. I don’t get the outrage. She’s not topless. She’s covered up. BFD that her back is exposed. I’ve seen more implied acting on some Disney Channel shows, and no one seems bothered that their 7 year olds are watching those situations.
while she is not completely topless, it isnt the kinda photo a 15 year old should have taken of her. if she is part of the disney channel image, which is for the most part pure and innocent, and she has girls much younger than her looking up to her than she shouldnt have taken pictures like this.
shes 15, come on now, if you had a daughter and she had a pic like this on her Myspace, im pretty sure you would freek out, i know i would. much less in a magazine.
she is setting the standard for tons of young girls, and this was a major slip of for her career.
its Britney part 2
If my daughter was intending to go topless, I would much rather her do something like this, which at the very least has artistic merit, then Britney or Li lo’s commando escapades, or any of a multitude of young starlets dropping trou and lifting tops at the slightest hint of a camera. Or worse, getting ozzed over in a music video by the “artist”
This at least is somewhat classy. Not to mention, you see far less in this then you would if she were in a bathing costume on a beach.
I don’t know why anyone is surprised that Disney would react this way. But then, I’m old enough to remember the beach party movies where Mouseketeer Annette Funicello was never allowed to show her navel!
What SHOULD she be waring, a burka??
What’s worse…this photo or the useless crap Disney is pushing down our throats with the Hannah Montana label on it!
“the leader”: a true parent wouldn’t allow either. its a provocative picture of a 15 year old girl, a real parent wouldn’t allow it. yes a bathing suit shows more, but its the idea behind the photo that truly makes it provocative (the bed sheets, the fact that she appears not to be wearing clothing, rather covering up). the name of artistic merit can find older girls. i dont blame her tho, i blame the money grubbing caretakers that call themselves her parents for this.
i dont think it would be inappropriate if she was of age and didnt have thousands upon thousands of preteen girls looking up to her. but she isnt and she does, so its simply not ok.
I don’t think the problem has to do with nudity itself. It’s basically absent. I mean, we’ve all seen dresses as or more revealing than this.
The picture, though, is very sexually charged: A drape, implying we’re on a bed, is very suggesting and is only a step away from being dropped. The teasing look of the subject and makeup also adds an easily bed-inviting intent.
I don’t denounce or approve it, but this is definitely not an innocent picture. This picture has way more sex-appeal that if she were full-frontal naked, gardening.
I don’t know this actress, but I can understand a teen/young adult’s desire to grow out of a child or perfect teen character casting, and naturally exploring the experience of growing up.
I also understand Disney’s discontent if they had kid-targeted projects planned with her and see them short-circuited by this, but I also believe that Disney, being “experts” on child, should stop being so business about this and learn to deal humanly with their child actors when they come of age earlier than predicted.
Let’s do a quick reality check. Hanna Montana is not Miley Cyrus. Hanna Montana does not exist. It is a vehicle created by the Disney Channel to make money.
Hanna Montana is coming to an end, and Miley Cyrus wants a career afterward.
So she has to put some distance between her and Hanna Montana to become “sellable” to an older audience.
Others have posed in magazines to break out of the Goodie-Two-Shoe stereotype. Jessica Biel posed practically nude in Maxim, Lindsay Lohan posed practically nude in Vanity Fair, and now Miley Cyrus poses practically fully clothed, also in Vanity Fair.
Hanna Montana has one, maybe two seasons left at best. She wants to have a career afterward and is planning on the transition now. I guess you could say she wants “the best of both worlds”.
I don’t get the outrage, either. Who thinks VF did this for “artistic reasons”, without thinking about it sexually at all?
Sex sells! End of mystery.
I meant to add (sorry)… there’s a scene in Memoirs of a Geisha where they make a big deal out of the sexuality of showing a little extra skin… we’re talking about a few square inches of wrist skin.
People saying that “sexuality” is all about how much skin is showing are missing the point.
What’s outrageous is that they put an ugly 15 year old where a hot 20 year old should be.
What do you expect from a PSYCHOTIC and completely IDIOTIC country where sex is a forbidden topic but killing hundreds of thousands of darked skinned people is considered heroic?
krazykritter said:
I disagree. My daughter, 7, is avid fan of Hanna Montana. This image is overly suggestive for someone with an audience so young.
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Your 7 year old daughter reads Vanity Fair?
COOL!!!
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I think it’s much ado about nothing. but heaven forbid kids have a frikkin’ childhood that isn’t spoiled by the obsession to force sex ed down their throats.
Three things-
1. It’s a cultural reference–lolita anyone?
2. I has been Aperturized.
3. Any publicity is good publicity. In the NYT article, Mylie Cyrus has distanced herself from the photo. Either she did not understand the context of the presentation or she is playing the media game–do something notorious then vehemently deny it.
Either way, Disney has nothing to worry about.
The underlying, UNSPOKEN, sensitive subject is about child porn and their predator producers, and how to keep kids from getting STDs or pregnant too early. We still have a lot to fix in humans. The big question is, HOW.
THEN someday everyone might be able to sit back and enjoy this as “art”.
One more and I promise I’m finished…
I’m not preaching anything here other than to stop acting outraged as if you’re the only one who has a handle on the big picture. I’m just so fricken tired of “righteous” people on both sides who can’t connect to each other any more.
My best friend Leslie said, “Oh she’s just being Miley…”
What if she has posed nude to the photographer… and the photographer releases the pictures to the ‘under world’ …..
The photographer may even blackmail her at a later date..
The only really disturbing part of this “newz” is:
““Parents should be extremely concerned,” Ms. Burress said in an interview. “Very young girls look up to Miley Cyrus as a role model.””.
Such so-called parents ought to be castrated or sterilized ASAP!
I don’t have any teenage daughter (“thanks God” so far, and hopefuly never will 😉 ) but if I had – certainly I would show her MUCH better “role models” than some stupid teenie-wannabe-singer LOL
#51
“What if she has posed nude to the photographer… and the photographer releases the pictures to the ‘under world’ …..
The photographer may even blackmail her at a later date..”
so what?
Because she is teenager? What a big deal!
The “best” whores in India, Asia and even in Europe are teenagers, they can and do much “better” stuff than posing nude.
Only in dumb America girl showing her naked arm and back can make it to the “news” ROTFL
However, judging from such behaviour, Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter is on a good path to become a paid slut, aka whore (and shame on Billy Ray – I always thought he’s a nice guy and a good father, but apparently he is neither).
Laws vary, but I would think that parental permission to be completely nude would be all that was required as long as there’s no sex involved.
(Brooke Shields was implicitly nude in “Pretty Baby”, at about age 14. Didn’t seem to hurt anything. She wasn’t actually nude – at least in the scenes that display her bare bottom. Anybody’s guess on the frontals.)
Overall, a cute girl, and a superb photographer, putting something together that is of interest.
If we’re trying to protect the girl, that’s her parents’ job, and there’s nothing wrong here. She’s certainly got enough exposure to “show business” to be aware…. If we’re trying to protect our children, IMHO, this is making a mountain out of a molehill.
If we’re trying to protect Disney’s money….
A cousin of mine worked for Annie some years ago. He learned a lot. I’m rather Conservative, but this stuff just doesn’t bother me when it’s art, or nearly so.
Just IMHO….
“Brooke Shields…”
Different story. Pretty Baby was Shields’ entry door to cinema. She wasn’t known and did not have an audience full of teen fans before that, and never did any material targeted to teens or children after that either (far from it). Pretty Baby’s underlying subject was also on morality and child abuse itself, so it was actively dealing about this, and not using it only as a selling tool.
That photograph, unless it accompanies an article of some sort on the subject is a gratuitous selling tool.
Technically, it’s not pornography, but it is using sexually-charged material (no nudity or sexual depiction, but still very so) involving a known minor, and that, only as a selling tool.
On the other hand… I don’t know how USA laws work on age v.s. rights or if she had legal emancipation, but one way or the other, someone, somewhere (parent, judge, law) said she was mature enough to do this.
Jesus. People who are frothing at the mouth about this photo have WAY too much time on their hands.
That said, I don’t think the photo is all that great.
Well lets see. I am about Annie’s age I take “artsy” pictures. If I have a 15 year old child posing nude or evan percieved to be nude I most likly will get arrested for child porn. I do not think the local prosecuter whould see the “art”. Of corse I am not Annie and vanity fair is not calling.
The only thing that springs to mind is a caption for this photo:
“What do you mean I don’t get to drive the porsche daddy?”
All I’m sayin’
Cursor_
The problem is parents worry more about what Cyrus is doing. Then what their own daughter is doing. I myself see a lot worse role models out in the media. For example the Olsen Twins.
Magazines should not publish pictures of people under the age of 18 in sexually explicit poses. We have to draw a line somewhere, and 18 is reasonable enough. That gives girls somewhere between puberty and then to learn about their sexuality before pervy older men exploit it.
I’d hate to see us degenerate into a place like Yemen where men can have sex with their 8 year old wives and not be considered criminal.
“Magazines should not publish pictures of people under the age of 18 in sexually explicit poses.”
For some, a baby lying in the bed is sexually explicit enough.
For normal people a NON-NUDE picture of girl (like M. Cyrus on VF) is just what it is – a picture of a girl.
Anyone:
You need to see shrink ASAP if this picture is sexually explicit to you! For crying out loud, what will you say when pictures of her in a skimpy bikini showing will print in magazines this summer? (and they will)
American sexual values are so conservative they’re twisted. I’m in the what’s the big deal camp. Only in America do you find so much sexual repression that people have actually become obsessed. Here in Spain you see topless young females every time you go to the beach. When I first moved here from the US it was distracting to say the least, but after 20 years of seeing breasts everywhere (TV, billboards, beach, etc.) I got used to it and it’s no big deal. It only becomes a big deal if you make it a big deal.