Miley Cyrus Played Y'all

For the past two days, the internet has been abuzz with discussion of former DIsney star Miley Cyrus and her naughty antics on Monday night’s Video Music Awards (VMAs). Even though the VMAs are about as significant as the perfect attendance award back in high school, and even though I suspect more people over the age of 20 were watching video of the empty House chambers on CSPAN than the VMAs, by Tuesday morning everyone had an opinion.

Miley in her earlier, Disney-approved Hannah Montana days

And the consistency of those opinions was staggering. Embarrassing, disgusting, trashy, pathetic, desperate: Those seemed to be the buzzwords of the day to describe Miley’s dancing, tongue wagging and outfit. Even those who typically defend the Madonnas and Lady GaGas of the world as somehow liberating women with their outre sexual antics (liberating them from what? good taste?) seemed incapable of calling this another win for team DoubleXChromosome. When you’ve lost the contingent who are able to argue that writhing around on the ground in a nun outfit from Frederick’s of Hollywood is empowering for women, I think you must have crossed some fine line.

I didn’t see the VMAs on Monday night. I’m too old to care if Timberlake beat Timbaland, or if Mumford let his sons break curfew to appear so close to the new school year. I also find the continual onslaught of let-me-wow-you-with-my-ever-more-unbelievable-antics, of which Miley was assuredly just another brick in the wall (all in all) to be so much more-is-less. I still enjoy new music. I still enjoy a good video. But I don’t care what hairstyle Beyonce has this week or who Taylor Swift dumped just before she attended or what video will win for best product placement. I guess this means I’ve entered my youkidsgetoffmylawn phase and next year I’ll be shooting the kid next door who tries to steal my car, just like Clint showed me. Or maybe it just means that the VMAs have nothing to do with I think of as music. The schtick is old.

Which brings me back to Miley. Old. Shtick. Maybe it was shocking, but probably the only thing that’s really shocking about what she did is that she did it so clumsily. This was a girl trying to be a sexed up woman, who wound up looking like a sex crazed young girl on 10 Red Bulls too many. It assuredly wasn’t sexY, which is why on Tuesday it was more you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me than oh-wow!

At the VMAs.The girl's all doggone growed up

A major career mistake (to the extent she has a career now), right? Not so fast. While it was pathetic, it also made Miley the name above the title for the show, and for at least a day or two of entertainment (or “entertainment”) coverage afterwards. In a nutrition free manufactured pop music world, the only thing worse than being known as the Smiley Virus the day after your performance is not being discussed the day after your performance.

And from that standpoint, her schtick (and I’m increasingly convinced she--or at least her manager--knew exactly how this would play out) worked perfectly. A world that was watching the former Miss Hannah Montana fade into obscurity is once again obsessed with her, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons and only temporarily. And this is critically important because she just so happens to have a new album about to drop. I suspect that a good portion of those 18-22 year olds who grew up with Miss DIsney and had abandoned her as yesterday’s Happy Meal are suddenly curious about what kind of album this walking disaster area is going to release. If that interest can be parlayed into actual downloads and sales of the album, this is going to look like genius, or, at least, the work of an idiot savant. And then she can go on the career recovery interview tour (everyone loves an embattled former champ coming back from the dead), discussing the (giggle giggle) reasons for her VMA catastrophe, interspersed with a rendition of her new single.

I may be wrong, but it feels like that’s the play here. And if it is, then Ms. Cyrus has played us all, and may well get the last laugh, y’all. Sweet niblets, indeed.