Posts Tagged ‘Annie Leibovitz’

I’ve never met Miley Cyrus, but I have met Billy before. I talked to him briefly at the supermarket in the Town we all call home, & he seemed like a really nice guy. A friend of mine sang backing vocals on one of Billy’s most recent recordings, & she has nothing but good to say about him.

So how did he let his daughter get roped into a semi-racy photo shoot that the media will undoubtedly exploit for months & years to come?

I have to be honest, as a neighbor & a fellow Christian, I’d really be at a total loss for words or explanation on this, except that my friend Norah Jones had a similar experience years ago when her management dropped a last minute Maxim Magazine photo shoot on her. Seemed like a good idea at the time, to get added exposure for her music. Of course we all know in retrospect that Maxim isn’t exactly a magazine that focuses on musical talent, as much as on creating a virtual booty call. They come & go.. Norah now almost exclusively does shoots only for magazines that have a Music Interest as part of their main theme. Guitar magazine would be an example.

Whereas Miley is also a pretty regular actress, this may be harder for her to do, but she’d definitely do well to stick with film & music industry publications, than those that have a vested interest in showing off well… Only Her Vanity, & seek to objectify her based only on that alone…

Norah wasn’t terribly comfortable with how it was going, because she’s a fairly modest person, but being about 20 years old at the time, she thought people must know what they are doing, so she just kinda went along with it.

In retrospect, I don’t think she would have given them the time of day if she knew ahead of time the exploitive nature of that whole scene. That’s the honest truth.

I really feel that Miley has been a great role model, & I think that because of that she should be given the benefit of the doubt this time. On the same token though, I want to be clear that I just don’t think any 15 year old girl should be posing for photographs only with, or even giving the appearance of posing only with a sheet covering her breasts for the whole world to see. It’s inappropriate period.

Here’s some of the photos that people are talking about. I think they sexualized her quite a bit in a few photos, & that’s not right for a 15 year old girl, under any circumstances, by our societal standards.

I wish Miley & her family best wishes, & they are in my prayers as they try to put this bad episode behind them. I can only hope that the normally ravenous Main Stream Media will find someone more deserving to pick on, & leave her alone about it once the initial hoopla is over.

~Dan Lee

Important Note:

I categorized this story in my blog under “Child Exploitation”, not at all because I think Billy Ray Cyrus would ever intentionally exploit his own child, but rather because I think Vanity Fair should have known better. They knew exactly what they were doing, & the ratings they would garner from doing this sort of thing. Pretty sickening…

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