Miley Cyrus’ new music video for her song called “Wrecking Ball” is out. Terry Richardson directed it so, naturally, it starts off with her in a white bikini. She gets insistently sexual with a sledge hammer and then gets naked and swings about on a wrecking ball. There’s also a lot of crying. Sort of. Marketing-wise, it’s well timed in relation to the VMAs (and her alleged rejection from Vogue), because this is way more overt than her Robin Thicke twerking performance. Evidently, Ms Cyrus wants to tell her critics to go fuck themselves; she’s offering no repentance, which is admirable and effective because look at us right now, still talking about her. Check it out:
Now, as a song/letter to “America”, specifically, American “pop culture”, then, okay, it’s essentially effective. In that context, the whole thing reads as though it’s about being validated by fame or applause, yes, fine. The problem with this song and music video is that as a love song – which is how all the gays and teenage girls are going to listen to this; thinking about how badly they screwed up that last date with the guy who never called them back – it’s totally empty! My God, I do not believe those tears at all. Sure her bright blue eyes look fab with all that clumpy mascara, and her skin is great. I love her coloring. But shut up, you’re not really sad, Miley! Even if this song is about your struggle to remain relevant, you’re totally not fucking sad about it. You’re a rageful, ravenous, narcissistic beast if you are anything at all. You’re outsourcing emotion and that makes the whole thing banal.
Here’s what I want to know: Who are YOU, Miley Cyrus? Who ARE you? What’s inside that tiny little manufactured, megalomaniac heart of yours? I get that you’re suddenly using sex to seem like an adult and that it’s predictably messy, because you’re a kid and you live in LA, but what ACTUALLY makes you cry? Is it only a fear of cultural irrelevance? Is that it? I want deeper and darker. Tap into that horrifying place, right down there in your soul – the part the entertainment industry taught you was unacceptable. Film it, sing about it, whatever – and then come back to me. Until then, just go out and dance in latex with your tongue out and hump a massive ambivalent bear. I can totally deal with you working out the emergence of your adult sexual identity in public. I just have no interest in you acting like you have access to emotional depth when you’re clearly just desperate for a professional sea change.
Here’s what you need to do Miley (and this isn’t the first time I’ve said this): stop doing stupid wannabe hipster crap, go to the UK or France, and do a straight legitimate play about emotional repression among women who work in a factory and who only wear gray. Seriously. It’s that or, you know, make your own snuff film in Germany. You don’t want to do a German snuff film, do you Miley? No one does, and no one really wants that for you. That’s the only alternative to actual art given where you’ve come from though. Now, GO back inside the studio and MAKE it again, and this time, cry for real.
– Charley Flynn.
Photo credit: Terry Richardson
Discuss the video and see more unnecessary pics of Miley’s shoot below:
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Ewww……
Oh, Miley. I understand the need to break the “Hannah Montana” mold she was cased in from her years with Disney, the need to be seen as an adult. I just think she’s doing it the wrong way. I feel like she had a happy medium around the time “Party in the USA” came out.
like just stop it…..everything you’re doing just stop….forever…….please Miley
I love it. Not the song, but the fact that whatever she’s doing, her journey in life will be unforgettable to her when she grows old, she will be able to say, I did that, I went balls to to the wall… we should all myley out once in a while, while so many sat in judgement.
There’s no problem in living life to its fullest but its too bad she’s not doing it for herself. She’s not going on a life journey or doing this stuff to be happy. She’s doing it to get attention and it’s working. One day she’ll look back and say: “Hey my manager told me to do that.” or “Fuck yeah! Doing that got me 2 million dollars!”
I’m picturing Justin Bieber if he was a girl…oh wait…isn’t he already?
Lol. Dead after seeing that gif…
This skunt needs to go far far away and never be seen or heard from again.
I think that if this is what she needs to do to sell records, then neither she nor her managers have any faith in her talent. Personally, I find her look and behavior disgusting, but I’d have to admit I sort of like her two most recent records. I also think Liam Hemsworth can do waaaay better than her.