object

i've always maintained that annie liebovitz is an overrated shit photographer and now my opinion is 100% validated as scientific fact.  seems liebovitz, for whatever reason (retardation, perhaps?), thought that the rather ill-advised move of taking topless pictures of 15-year-old miley cyrus for vanity fair was an inspired, brilliant idea.  

er, not so much.

i first heard about this this morning when ontd posted the story about a preview entertainment tonight is airing on monday covering the scandal.  a lot of commenters doubted the veracity of the story, but it's true.  and not only that, but cyrus is regretting the shoot.  no shit?  how about that.  isn't that something?  i was 15 twelve years ago (FUCK, i'm old) and it seems that every other move i made was rather regrettable; it's a part of being a teen, is it not?  and so that prompts one to wonder: what the fuck were the adults in this sitch thinking?  ah, yes: $$$. brilliant.

anyone who knows me knows that i'm rather liberal and in no way a prude when it comes to sex, even when it comes to discussing teens and sex, but this sitch is more or less inexcusable.  yes, kids are obviously very interested in, and confused about, sex, just like the vast majority of people are, and we in the states tend to have a rather reactionary attitude about this, but no one but a fucking pedophile would want a kid to be sexualized like this.  i've never paid any attention to this whole miley cyrus/hannah montana phenomenon-- b/c, as a 27-year-old male, why/how the fuck would/could i possibly care about this?-- but obviously it's pretty hard not to be cognizant of her and her fanbase.  my interest in the juggernaut was always geared more toward her parents, though, and how they're shamelessly pimping out their daughter.  but it's 2008 and this is what we do in industrialized, democratic societies.  i mean, someone's gotta pay the bills!  and in our peculiarly american marketplace, we often have to sell ourselves.  it's not enough to let our talent or work do the hustle for us.  we need to craft brands, perfect an image (b/c, truly, image is everything), carve out a niche, sell it to a demographic, and this always means selling ourselves.  and this is where my point comes in.  as an adult, it is one thing to sell yourself (and the debate over that, decades on, continues to burn), but a child cannot make that decision.  and when that child is in an environment where adults are constantly showing her that it's okay to do just that, how can she make an informed decision?  she can't.  she has no model to show her otherwise.  it sucks and i can be flip and sarcastic as possible about this, but it just frustrates me.  i see a kid who is clearly not being looked out for by the people who supposedly should be doing just that.  her parents obviously see her as a fucking meal ticket and what's really pathetic about this is that it's rather commonplace and i don't mean joe simpson and britney's parents.  a cursory glance over "teh blogosphere" will immediately yield scores of pictures of kids their retarded-ass parents have no compunction of uploading for the drooling masses ("FIRST FTW omg that kid is fug lol") to gawk at.

i hate to be all absolutist again, but it's a black and white scenario.  you can't sexualize kids the way this girl has been and then freak out when people start looking at underage teens as sex objects.  get your messages straight: is it wrong to sexualize kids or is it okay?  i can already see a pedo using this as some sort of justification for having child porn and i'm not sure he'd be entirely off-base w/ his argument.  and i wonder what people would say if the photographer were male.  just imagine some sleazy frenchman taking pictures of miley cyrus topless, "but w/ a sheet covering her," right, b/c the sheet makes it okay.  if they really wanted her covered up, why not, oh, i dunno, put clothes on her?  i mean, at this point it's pretty obvious billy ray cyrus has some massively confused (to put it charitably) feelings for his daughter.  and i'm sure miley's mother is well aware of it, but shit, it isn't billy ray's awesomely longstanding and successful career that's lining her closets w/ jimmy choos, now is it?

goddamn it, i hate people.