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The Family Room by Michelle Martin

May 11, 2008

What role model?

I feel sorry for Miley Cyrus.

I probably shouldn’t. After all, at 15 years old, she’s a wild success, with two multi-platinum records; “Hannah Montana,” a TV show that is tops in Disney’s line-up for kids ages 6- 14; a concert series with people reportedly paying hundreds of dollars for scalped tickets; a movie made from the concert series; and, reportedly, a soon-to-be-filmed movie based on the “Hannah Montana” TV show.

Cyrus seems happy with her hectic life, all smiles and positive, girl-power statements on her fan club Web site, aimed at tween girls. She dishes about her chores (loading the dishwasher every night) and her parents’ rules.

Or at least she did, until the publication of what some see as steamy photos in Vanity Fair magazine this month. One photo, taken by uber-photographer Annie Liebowitz, shows her sprawled in front of her father, country recording artist Billy Ray Cyrus, who also plays her father on TV. But the one that has caused the most talk is a portrait of Miley wrapped in a sheet, her dark hair tousled, vamping for the camera.

The photos caused an uproar, mostly among the parents of young girls who were counting on her to be a straightarrow role model, with no suggestion of drugs, alcohol or sex allowed.

Blog posts told of parents making their daughters remove Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana posters from their rooms, or said they would now be uncomfortable having their children watch “Hannah Montana.”

The photos made me uncomfortable, but not so much for the reasons most people complained. Yes, she looks like she’s trying to project sex appeal in the photo, and no, I don’t think that’s appropriate in a national magazine for a young girl, especially one who is marketed as squeaky clean.

But the problem is in the marketing of teenager-as-commodity. Miley Cyrus has become more than a meal ticket; she’s an industry, with the livelihoods of more than just her family riding on her. By all accounts, she remains down-to-earth and grounded, and her parents keep close tabs on her. Both of them, and at least one of her four siblings, were on location when Leibowitz photographed her, although they left before the last photo — the one with the sheet — was taken.

At the time, it must have looked like a good idea. At the time, she called the photos “artistic.” After the scandal blew up, she called them “embarrassing.”

So maybe the adults in Miley’s life blew it, just this once, on protecting her. But all the other parents out there are still responsible for protecting their own children — by not buying inappropriate clothing for 8-year-olds, for example.

If Miley Cyrus was just another 15-year-old girl, her vamping for the camera would be just that: another 15-year-old girl trying on a different image for a change.

I remember when Britney Spears was marketed as family-friendly alternative to the prevalent pop music of the late 1990s and Lindsay Lohan was starring in a remake of “The Parent Trap.”

I hope, for her own sake, Miley Cyrus can avoid the troubles they have had. But they provide cautionary lessons for more than just the teen pop sensations who follow them; they should remind their fans and their parents that celebrities don’t make the best role models.

Martin is assistant editor of the Catholic New World. Contact her at [email protected].