Miley Cyrus found herself at the center of much controversy after her Aug. 25 performance for MTV’s VMA awards sent shockwaves throughout entertainment media. There she brought a form of dance that long existed on dimly lit club floors out into the limelight, and made the word twerk a part of the common vocabulary.
While the uproar from this was barely starting to settle, she released Wrecking Ball, a music video featuring her riding astride a swinging wrecking ball, naked; this ignited still more controversy. In an attempt to present her side of things, she recently talked with Rolling Stone’s Josh Fell, and hosted the Oct. 5 episode of Saturday Night Live.
In the end, her efforts are likely to achieve mixed results. On the one hand she does come across refreshingly real, and seems downright together compared to cocaine princesses such as Lindsay Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen, two other former childhood stars. On the other, the insights she offers into the thinking behind her stunts are more likely to further alienate her critics that to win them over.
In response to criticism of the extremely sexual nature of her VMA performance, she attempts to make the point her art is quasi-satirical in nature. She does a poor job of conveying this however; her explanation of the teddy bear costume, for instance, just comes out all wrong: “…there’s something creepily hot about it. So when I’m in that teddy bear suit, I’m like a creepy, sexy baby” she said.
In the article, Cyrus talks openly about drugs, including practically making an endorsement of “molly”, (a form of MDMA). While her honesty here is forthcoming, she certainly didn’t help her case here.
The SNL appearance did a bit more to show her in a positive light; she came across as confident and coherent, not seeming to be strung out on anything. Many of her current issues were addressed humorously in the skits she appeared in, including one where she is confronted by her former self; that skit more than any in fact drove home the point: Miley’s not Hannah Montana anymore. #