Miley Cyrus is raising eyebrows once again in the music video for her new song “Who Owns My Heart?” as well as adding momentum to the ever-increasing notoriety she has gained for her questionable behavior in the public eye.
Cyrus has clearly shed the Hannah Montana image that skyrocketed her to stardom in her early teens and has embraced the raunchy, in-your-face sexuality that today’s society and the entertainment industry promote.
Outcries from the Parents Television Council deem Cyrus’ behavior in the video as “too racy and damaging to her young fans.” In the video, 17-year-old Cyrus is first shown singing and rolling around on a bed in nothing but a tank top and underwear and then eyeing the camera seductively throughout the video.
When she enters into a limo on her way to the club, she is in little more clothing, and bares her legs in short shorts while sporting a revealing metallic top. At the club, she dances suggestively in a packed crowd, sandwiched in between both men and women.
Though Cyrus has voiced that she wants to distance herself from her cookie-cutter Hannah Montana image, it seems she has taken that notion to an extreme. Where has the principle of modesty gone?
In a culture that lusts after physical beauty and salivates over barely-there clothing and over-exposure, virtually no value is placed on modesty. This shift in society’s thinking has infiltrated the younger generation of teens and tweens, with Cyrus only intensifying this trend.
Within the enormous fan base Cyrus built during her Disney era, the majority of her fans consist of a younger female audience, and these girls may consider her as their role model or look up to her in some respect.
Yet her tasteless behavior is a far cry from how a role model should conduct herself. As PTC President Tim Winters commented, “It sends messages to her fan base that are diametrically opposed to everything she has done up to this point. Miley built her fame and fortune entirely on the backs of young girls, and it saddens us that she seems so eager to distance herself from that fan base so rapidly.”
A poll of UsMagazine.com readers showed an overwhelming disagreeance and more than 75 percent said Cyrus was indeed “too raunchy.”
The image she is portraying to her young female fans is a far stretch from the example she should be setting and shows she is pouring herself into the mold that the entertainment industry sets for young starlets.
Through this example of conforming to the demands society sets for young women, Cyrus is consequently telling her fans that her sexualized behavior is OK and acceptable.
Cyrus has caught slack numerous times in the past for her risqué behavior, such as in the pages and on the cover of Vanity Fair, where she posed in nothing but a bed sheet at age 16, and she received similar criticism for her music video to her single “Can’t Be Tamed.”
Still, some of Cyrus’ fans support both her and her endeavors, arguing, “She’s finally found herself, and I respect someone like that,” or “Miley is a woman now and not just for kids.”
Though Cyrus is maturing into a young woman and claims this new image is merely a part of her development as an artist and an adult, her actions make it clear that she has forgotten the incredible influence she has on the millions of young female fans that look to her as their role model, fans that are liable to imitate her behavior if only because, “Miley Cyrus did it, so I want to do it, too.”
Despite the comments of those opposed to her behavior, perhaps Cyrus could take into consideration the projected impact she may have on her young fans and rethink the image she is portraying to these girls.
Though it seems Miley Cyrus isn’t going to alter her persona anytime soon, perhaps the uproar caused by her video will alert other artists and the entertainment industry to reconsider their impact and influence on their fans and make some much-needed changes; Cyrus isn’t the only one who is due for a moral makeover.
Sarah Ulmer is a sophomore majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected].