How Publicity Twerks

You had to know it was coming. After the initial outrage over Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs, the tide seems to have turned. Not that the “parent backlash” has stopped; in fact, it seems it’s now time for famous rock-star parents to take their shots. Sinead O’Conner wrote an “open letter” to Miley warning her not to prostitute herself to the music industry. In response, Miley, it would appear, has a sharp sense of humor and a Twitter account. It has, unfortunately, gotten even uglier...

Annie Lennox calls modern pop videos (as a whole) “dark” and “pornographic,” and has called for them to be rated in the same way as films. "How do you stop your kids being exposed to it?” Lennox said in a BBC interview. “ It's so powerful. You don't want to see your seven-year-old girls twerking all over the place." Yikes…shades of the dreaded PMRC. Frank Zappa must be doing the triple lutz in his grave.

But, by and large, the media stance has since softened and even begun to champion Miley. Both The New York Times and The Boston Globe ran positive pieces in their Sunday editions over the weekend. Both pieces called her VMA performance “a rite of passage,” citing previous performances of pop icons Madonna and Brittany Spears. You don’t remember Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” ending with “the kiss” with Brittany Spears? How about Spears growing up in public with the white boa constrictor? That performance was described as the moment teenage girls no longer wanted her posters on their walls, but their dad’s did. Heck…even the notoriously bashful Prince (kidding!) got into the act, and had his butt cheeks hanging out in plain view during an outrageous version of “Gett Off” in 1991.

But timing is everything and Miley’s media assault is nothing if not well timed, synchronized for maximum exposure across all outlets. (I mean, seriously, bobble-butt dolls?) Cyrus probably won over a lot of doubters with her performance hosting “SNL” over the weekend. We’re all suckers for people who can make fun of themselves, and Miley was more than up to that task. I don’t think she put her tongue away during the entire show. As a follow-up, Monday morning saw her telling Matt Lauer on the Today show that he was no longer sexual, before charming him back into the fold. Call it “shock and ahhhhhh…”

In the new Rolling Stone with Cyrus on the cover, the pop star plainly tells us: “Don’t worry. I know what I'm doing. I know I'm shocking you.”  But we’ve seen all of this before.  Elvis. Bowie. Madonna. Prince. Britney. Gaga. The list is endless, but the song, and the publicity aim, remains the same. As does the uptick in record sales.

Whether Miley is ultimately an artist or a former child-star train wreck remains to be seen. It may even be immaterial. Maybe you just hoped she would go away. In that case, game, set and match to Ms. Cyrus. Because she's not going away anytime soon. in fact, she’s everywhere now.

And she clearly knows what she’s doing.