It’s looking like Miley Cyrus will only be safe for her young fans as long as she’s donning the blonde Hannah Montana wig. While the super-popular Disney Channel show will return this summer, the rest of Cyrus’ material is no longer necessarily suitable for mass consumption by all of her fans.
I stumbled across the music video for Miley Cyrus’ latest single “Can’t Be Tamed” on a Washington Post article comparing her career to former Mickey Mouse club starlets Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. A viewing of the video certainly makes it look like Cyrus is eager to follow in their footsteps.
The video features a caged Cyrus decked out like some weird bustier-clad half-bird, half-human (and treats her like one too, as a bunch of reporters crowd around to gape at the still underage star, which, I’m sorry, is just strange and confusing, let alone all the other implications). Cyrus grinds against her back-up dancers, spewing lines like this:
“For those who don’t know me I can get a bit crazy/Have to get my way 24-hours a day/’Cause I’m hot like that/Every guy everywhere just gives me mad attention/Like I’m under inspection…I go through guys like money flying out of their hands/They try to change me but they realize they can’t…I can’t be tamed, I can’t be saved/I can’t be blamed, I can’t, I can’t.”
Cyrus’ current approach to her musical career certainly resembles that of Spears and Aguilera before her. All three singers started showbiz as young Disney stars, and all three used provocative material as a means of shedding their squeaky-clean Disney image and announcing their burgeoning adulthood.
In the case of Spears and Aguilera, however, the stars abandoned their Disney personas before producing more mature material. It’s no surprise that Cyrus, who turns 18 at the end of November, wants to do the same. What’s interesting is that she’s trying to do it while still continuing with the kid-friendly Hannah Montana franchise.
Whether or not it’s appropriate for Cyrus to make videos and songs like “Can’t Be Tamed” is a separate issue. What I wonder is how she thinks she’s going to get away with both that and “Hannah Montana.”
Maybe one day when Cyrus is older, and has an established career as an adult, she can hold separate gigs in both children’s and more mature entertainment, but she can’t do so during her transitional period. In an ideal world she might be able to do so, but that’s not the case. I’m surprised she and her management team are so naive.
No one will take her seriously as the type of sultry singer she seems to want to be as long as she’s still playing Hannah Montana, and her “Hannah Montana” fans, and their parents especially, won’t feel too keen about her erotic lyrics and dance moves. She’s only going to alienate fans on both ends of the spectrum.
Maybe there’s something about being raised as a G-rated Disney Channel star that leads teens to run as far in the opposite direction as possible when transitioning to adulthood. Maybe they feel like the only way for them to shed that image is to shed their clothes. If so, that’s sad, though I also have to wonder about the type of parental involvement they have in their lives.
So parents be warned: this is the direction in which Cyrus is going. If you have young children who are fans of her music, and don’t want them emulating or listening to music like “Can’t Be Tamed,” it’s time to start screening Cyrus’ music before letting your kids have it. It seems that even while “Hannah Montana” is still on the air, the music of Miley Cyrus isn’t necessarily safe for all of the fans of her Disney counterpart.
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