It’s Our Party, We Can Do What We Want to
How Miley may actually be on to something.
People today give Miley too much flak. The poor girl can’t even take a selfie without being in the news. She’s falling into the footsteps of her fellow female powerhouses of entertainment: Lady Gaga, Kesha, Nicki Minaj, and even Madonna. The media constantly criticizes Miley. They call her “weird” and claim she’s “too edgy.”
The pressure mounts further for Miley, though, because she didn’t just come into the music industry like a wrecking ball; she started as a child star. Naturally, she’s expected to remain a role model for kids even when she’s no longer a kid herself. Now that Miley is an adult, she’s shamed for setting a bad example for the audiences that remember her as a Disney channel pre-teen. Sure, her act is unconventional. Yes, it may be weird from time to time. But in the end, she’s preaching originality. Is this what we want to hide from our kids?
An anecdote:
I didn’t have any siblings growing up. I had no one to school me on what was “cool” and “uncool.” I had to figure everything out for myself. This mostly translated into not fitting in. There was one particular day in the sixth grade that served as the epitome of this issue. I was in my world geography class, and the teacher caught some girl passing a note to her friend that also happened to be my best friend. When the teacher confiscated the note, she read it and had me come up to her desk. Confused, I read the note that she handed me, in which Abigail, who had never cared very much for me, rattled on for a page and a half about how much she disliked my outfit. She even went so far as to call me a gorilla.
Now, let me say that I was not the skinniest child. I was definitely in the overweight department, but I wasn’t too bothered by that. I went to school that day in my green and white striped shirt, with a matching vest and cutoff jeans, actually feeling good about how I looked. It was an outfit I had picked out myself the previous weekend at Limited Too. My mom thought it looked cute. And yet now, in this classroom, I suddenly became a gorilla.
By the time I finished reading the note, the teacher thought it was best that I decide the fate of this girl since I was the victim in the situation. So here I am holding this note that was created to hurt me, with this now sobbing girl standing in front of me, fearing the trouble she would get into. Maybe it’s because I believe in forgiveness, or because I just wanted it all to be over, but I decided to just let it go. I told poor little Abigail that all was fine, accepted her half-assed apology, and went back to learning about geography. But when my mom picked me up from school that day, I bawled in the car. Eleven year old me couldn’t possibly understand how someone who didn’t even know me could detest me because of what I was wearing or how much I weighed.
Body image is such a difficult issue to tackle. Of course, there’s been a recent movement to stray away from the bone thin silhouette and towards a curvier image. Models are still wispy little rails of people, but it’s more acceptable to be more than a pound and a half today than it was before so that’s better, right? Well, not exactly.
The media and Hollywood are ruining us, they really are. And we can’t get enough of them, either. There’s always going to be something better, something sexier. When it comes down to it, though, the idea that skinny is sexy is an opinion. It is not a fact. I’m tired of seeing my friends bypass meals and run from what tastes good as if it will kill them on the spot. I’m not saying you should eat cake for every meal of the day and wash it down with a liter of soda. But if you want a hamburger one day, eat a fucking hamburger. I’m not skinny. I’m also not fat. I can look at myself in the mirror and say that I look fucking great and think that I am, indeed, beautiful.
This concept doesn’t just apply to weight. I rock my round, tortoise shell glasses, which are pretty damn awesome. I wear my hair in a pixie cut. I do these things because I like them, not because I think other people will. That’s the key.
This is where Miley comes back in. She’s so far out there, I’m not even sure I can accurately describe her style. She’s teaching kids the lesson no one else will teach them. She’s showing people that it’s okay to do whatever you want and look however you want and I think she’s on to something brilliant.
Sure, not all young girls are going to want to chop all their hair off and bleach the life out of it. Not every kid will want to stick their tongue out in every picture they take. But Miley tells us that should we want to, we can. She boldly does what no one else will do, and does so proudly. She’ll spend a whole video riding around naked on a wrecking ball. She’ll dance all up on some giant teddy bears (and Robin Thicke) at an awards show. She’ll constantly take shit for all of this, but she won’t let it stop her. She quite simply “can’t stop” being who she is. As much as we may hate to admit it, Miley’s message is one we desperately need.
It’s your party, you can do what you fucking want to.
