Above, Miley becomes a caricature of the banality and depravity of post-modern youth culture in the West, as the lovechild of Pink and Katy Perry (don’t put it past ’em). Like many before her, she thinks she has something to say.
But like them, her youthful chutzpah is being used against her, and with her will soon be summarily discarded when her usefulness is exhausted. At this rate, three years from now she’ll be the subject of a reality show called “Miley Goes Down.” She is just the latest in a long line of angry youth being harnessed with the delusion of self determination for the ends of old men.
Don Henley, the Eagles’ Lennon to Frey’s McCartney, summed it up best, and 14 years ago, nonetheless, in a track from his last studio album, Inside Job, entitled “Damn it, Rose.” He sings:
“You could have given us the finger
Much more constructively than that
Now I sit here with the MTV
And your bloated, Burmese cat
We’re being treated to the wisdom
Of some puffed up little fart
Doing exactly what I used to do —
Pretensions to anarchy and art
He speaks the language of a warrior
He mounts his misinformed attack
He wears the clothes of a dissenter
But there’s a logo on his back
And it’s a hollow rebellion
As rebellions mostly are
It’s just another raging tempest in a jar”
Eerie, huh? Not really. There’s nothing new under the sun (courtesy King Solomon, circa 800 B.C.). Unless, of course, you’ve been raised to think that the sun actually rises and sets on you. Or you’re Miley Cyrus. Whatever.
To Miley: save yourself. Hannah Montana you’re not. We get that. But neither do you have to be Wendy O. Williams. You can be more to the world than a drunken, raging vagina. You can be more to yourself than your anger can ever bring you. You can stop. Live for something, instead of against everything but self destruction.
And please do so before what they’ve made you is all that’s left, and you look like Madonna: all form, no function. But if you must, Miley, combine the artistic integrity of Annie Lennox, the heart of Carol Burnett, the business sense of J.K. Rowling, the class of Renée Zellweger, and the faith of, not Madonna Ciccone, but rather her namesake. Then, you just might have something to say.