Dear Miley Cyrus (and other teenagers across America intent on destroying any modicum of talent you possess by making extremely foolish decisions),

I used to not like you. Actually, I’ll cut the crap. I wanted your vocal chords removed. Or at least have you banished to some remote part of the world where I wouldn’t have to be subject to your ubiquity on TV, on the radio, in magazines and sold-out concert venues. I refused to listen to more than five seconds of any song of yours that I had the great misfortune of accidentally hearing, unless I wanted to be filled with boiling rage at the unanswerable question of how someone with the singing voice of a farm animal could become outrageously successful. Like, how?

But then you started to do some stupid things. That photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz, for starters. Never mind that you were at the not-ripe-for-nudity age of 15-years-old, or that it was so transparently a cheap attempt to sexualize a juvenile Disney juggernaut – the most confounding thing of all was the reasoning your team gave for conceding to the risqué photoshoot: “You can’t say no to Annie.”

Really? You can’t? It’s called exploitation, people, and it’s something that one should most definitely decline to take part in.

Then came the pole dances, the writhing around in a bird cage for “Can’t Be Tamed,” the steady drop in the amount of clothing you wore for public appearances. And finally, the kicker: you doing bong hits for your 18th birthday. Captured on video and promptly submitted to a far-reaching gossip website with a rabid, unforgiving readership, no less. Your team said it was Salvia, we said it didn’t matter what it was, because you were clearly as high as an untethered kite.

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The time has come for someone to stand up and scream at the top of their lungs, “America, stop being disgusting and sexualizing 15-year-old girls!!” and I’m not afraid to be that someone. Because the media can longer be counted on to have a brain, because adult celebrity bloggers see it fit to go after girls who can’t even drive yet, and because we as a nation are still. fixated. with. high. school, the cloud of obsession seems to have blinded everyone to the fact that there is something inherently wrong with stalking little girls.

Because these ARE little girls we’re talking about. Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Taylor Momsen. When we’re not urging them to slather on the eyeliner and hike up their skirts, we’re glamorizing their world, turning high school into a multi-million dollar soap opera where everyone is scheming or talking like 30 Somethings or having sex with anything that purses it’s lips. For those of us who remember high school without the Hollywood Glasses, you’ll recall that no matter where you went, it was decidedly unglamorous. It was boring, sometimes lonely, a lot awkward, and stuffed to the brim with tests, feeble attempts to fit in, and college application essays.

Ask any mother today who isn’t on crack if she’d be happy with her 15-year-old having sex, and she’d blurt the word no faster than you could think it. When Ms. Cyrus’s cellphone is hacked into and her frighteningly-too-old half naked poses are stuffed onto the world wide web, we’re “horrified”. But when she walks around with a full face of makeup, hair extensions, high heels, and revealing clothing, she’s just being a “teen star”. The Lolita posing is too overtly sexual; while the “Disney Vamp” is just subtle enough to keep us from feeling guilty. Read More »