Because we here at the Situation read all things rhetorical I wonder what my fellow bloggers make of the "controversy" surrounding Annie Liebovitz's recent portrait of Miley Cyrus. It seems that the photos are being read as too sexual for a 15-year-old girl, and Cyrus has publicly stated that she is "embarrassed" by the photos and she has also admitted to being excited to work with Leibovitz. I want to present these photos in the context of the celebrity gossip cites and in the context of the Vanity Fair article.
First, MSNBC is running a headline on its homepage that reads "Miley Cyrus embarrassed by photos." (For the record I clicked on the link because I had read on Vanity Fair's website last week that Liebovitz was photographing Cyrus for May's cover story and wondered if these were the same photos.) When you click on the link you're directed to one of MSNBC's gossip columns which displays this picture. The picture displayed is grainy and oddly cropped. I have to admit that I didn't click on the video link because I assumed it was a clip of one of the entertainment shows and didn't want to see it.
Second, Vanity Fair's website has all the photos from the shoot online. First, in the context of the shoot, it becomes immediately clear that Cyrus was not nude for the photo in question; she was simply made to look as though she was nude. Second, according to Vanity Fair and Leibovitz, Cyrus and both of her parents discussed the concept of the shoot with Leibovitz fairly extensively and agreed to the tone of the shoot. Her parents had been on set most of the day, and although they were not present when the photo in question was taken, her teacher and her grandmother were. From the slide show on Vanity Fair, it seems clear that Cyrus agreed to the shoot, was not pressured in any way, and had fun while taking the shot that has caused all sorts of controversy.
I understand that part of the issue with the portrait is that Cyrus is famous for being a Disney star. She has made her career out of being as wholesome and likable as her television persona. That said, I feel like this story and photo shoot were probably intended to portray Cyrus as capable of taking on more diverse, more difficult, and, possibly, more sexual roles. After all if this young woman intends to make it as an actress, she will have to prove she can do more than star on a Disney show. From that perspective, this seems like a fairly smart move to me. Vanity Fair is a reputable magazine, and Leibovitz is a well known and well respected photographer. What doesn't seem so smart and what confuses the rhetoric of the photograph is Cyrus's decision to say she's embarrassed by the photo and to apologize to her fans. Why the confusing message? Why take the photograph, one that she clearly agreed to, if she is only going to apologize for it as soon as it hits the press? This is one rhetorical move I don't understand.
5 comments:
This photo shoot is just an argument to appeal to multiple audiences.
On one level, her statement is an apologia. She employs a differentiation technique (let me tell you more about the incident so you will see it in a different light) to distance herself from the photos in order to save face for her Disney audience or her musical tour. If parents view her as being unvirtuous, then they will stop buying her CDs and taking their children to concerts. However, Cyrus will tell us more about it.
Cyrus' statement is pretty superficial. However, it taps into the larger cultural belief that it is the media, and not the actors/ musicians/ etc, that hyper-sexualize celebrities. If you believe that it's the fault of the media, then you must absolve Cyrus. She is still the innocent Disney girl, filled with virtue.
Of course, to accept this, parents will not analyze this issue at all, blame the media, and then go about ignoring their children.
On the second level, the photo shoot pads her resume to find work as a younger Natalie Portman a la The Professional. Yet, this is for an elite, technical audience (casting directors, producers) who do not give a damn about the public reaction to the Vanity Fair piece. You are absolutely correct on this reading at the end of your post.
I get all of that, but what bothers me most about this is that from this article and other things I've read about Cyrus in various magazines while trapped in the dentist's office or doctor's office she is intelligent, grounded, and well spoken. Before the apologia I had a fair amount of respect for her and her parents; she seemed to be navigating the trappings of fame at a young age fairly smoothly. This apology suggests that she was manipulated into doing the photo shoot, that Vanity Fair and Leibovitz took advantage of her, which was clearly not the case. She dismisses the artistic quality of the photos and the venue they were published in. I mean, she clearly didn't agree to a cover shoot with Vanity Fair or to be photographed by Leibovitz without understanding the implications of both of those things. Further, as far as I know, there hasn't been anything in the press about Disney wanting her to apologize. If Disney had demanded she apologize, I might find what she did a little less confusing and hypocritical.
Ultimately, from a media perspective, how we read the photo and surrounding controversy is unimportant. Cyrus clearly got what she wanted out of it: a whole lot more publicity.
I think that you are correct to point out that she and her parents are intelligent about her career. And this is just another extension of that. Maybe her parents and herself realize that Disney has its limits and that this is one way to move beyond those limits.
Yet, since she is intelligent about her career she needs to play both audiences. She calls those shots "embarrassing" to please Disney and her fans from Disney and accepts the artistic quality of those shots for the high-brow Hollywood audience. While Disney may not have told her to apologize (though they could have suggested it to her parents or agent), she speaks out against it to preserve her image.
However, by doing this, she cannot acknowledge the artistic quality of the photographs because it may limit her in the eyes of her Disney audience. She cannot look above the Disney audience, and if those photos are artistic, she'll diminish her ethos as she no longer speaks to that group.
This would be a small price to pay though to keep both audiences and move into a better career.
I've been following this and wondering if any of the blogs I read would comment on it.
I find the language of embarrassment a little strange, here. It seems like it would make more sense to say she regrets that this caused some offense to her fans and then explain the context--just as you say, let me tell you about the incident so you'll see it in a different light.
embarrassment suggests she's giving us a window on her internal emotional reaction. That seems strange in that we live in an age of digital photography. She had to have seen it. besides that, the portrait is beautiful, whether or not it's risque. So embarrassment has to mean she (is pretending) she didn't realize people would react to it the way they have, that they would read it as overtly sexual.
I could believe that. Though she is clearly intelligent and well-spoken, I do think she's naive. She's 15! She's allowed. So I could imagine her not quite realizing.
at that point, i start wondering how savvy her handlers really are. Is there someone in her camp who understood the implications of this particular scandal/publicity better than she did? And then, that embarrassment is her honest reaction?
I don't mean to imply that she was manipulated at the shoot. I watched the video of it and it all seemed very natural. I think I'd be a little more comfortable with the photo if she were 17 or 18 but she's not actually nude, as you said. It's a lovely photograph.
I just wonder if there isn't some disconnect between her own rhetoric and the action because the rhetoric reflects her own reaction to the controversy while the action was guided by an agenda she doesn't fully comprehend.
Or maybe she does. I'm all for giving her due credit. I just wonder.
After thinking about this again, I wonder if the "embarrassment" is just more faux emotional outrage or at least incredibly hyperbolic to the point where there is little meaning in her use of "embarrassment." This is may be cynical but I doubt that her handlers or Miley would not conceive of some of the reasonable entailments of the photo shoot for Vanity fair, especially after the Lebron/ Giselle cover from Vogue a la it worked for them, why can't it work for us.
You may be correct that she is not embarrassed by the photos themselves or the photo shoot, but the way in which Cyrus (Miley and her parents) miscalculated the public's acceptance of the photos, especially since it was not considered to be "art" but "obscene." (We can all debate that standard once again).
As far as the manipulation, this is one of those tricky philosophical categories, like incitement, where a person must lose some agency in order to perform an act. We can say that maybe she got caught up in the moments (there the pathos corrupts the logos) but I doubt the manipulation because it seems that the photo in question took time to set up, which would diminish the emotional strength over the rationality.
Post a Comment