And Now the Not News

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Miley.

By now, the whole world knows this Disney Princess has chosen to out Gaga gaga, both in dress and style. I'd add substance but I'm not sure we've got enough to qualify in either case.  Both recall Madonna, the performer who for all her flash and dance, revealed herself to have the "heart and soul of a cash register." That description is a remembered one from some scribe back in the 80's opining about the material girl who aped Marilyn Monroe. I googled but couldn't find the exact quote to give full credit. However, the point remains that all three of these women were in the business of selling music as sex and sex as music and themselves as the icon of both.  It's just that Miley only recently jumped into the sharknado.  She's doing what she can to ensure everyone forgets Hanna Montana.  She is Sandra Dee of Grease at the end of the movie, because she wants to be popular and current and she, like so many of her generation, is both bored with her life as is, and desperate to be relevant.  

Then again, this was the Music awards so is the surprise that she was so lewd or that it was her?  What gives me hope, is that apparently, the entertainment world can still be shocked.   Here you have people who thrive on creating buzz, whose whole world is get your name known, your brand known, your face known, get people to talk about you you you you you you you.  Here, a young woman has taken that challenge to heart.

This is the lesson of Hollywood, of the Vanity Business that is Stardom for Stardom's sake.

You will be forgotten if you do not make people notice you.  You lack the beauty, grace, capacity to get people to notice you, so you must be more than you.  Cue airbrush, hair weaves, botox, facelifts, radical diets, insane outfits, etc. etc. etc.  You cannot be normal if you want to be noticed.  You cannot be you if you want to be a star. You must be something other, because you as is, is not star worthy, is not enough.

This is the messsage drilled into every model, every singer, every performer's head, that whoever they are, they are inadequate want-a-bes, until they are a star, then, they are it, however that "itness" is fragile, it is not a secure orbit.  The stars become inadequate once they age, then they become hasbeens.

Come to think of it, it was the message of Hanna Montana too.  She couldn't be both the singer and herself, they had to be two different people to allow for a normal life.   However eventually, the lure of fame and desire to be affirmed in all things won out and she disclosed her identity, so that she could be just the pop star.   Now we add hard core to the formula.  Hard core being the in case of emergency, push this red button means of restarting yourself in the Hollywood world.

The message over and over again for years, "You will not be loved, you will only be used." left a scar.
We saw that scar gyrating on the stage --or read about it.

Our nature requires love.  If we cannot be loved, we will be hungry, we will seek to fill that hole with something.  Miley had everything and she was still full of need.  Perpetually we see it, child to adult celebrities do not understand need. They've never had to cope with needing. No need to list the Disney divas that have fallen before her.  They all share the same inability to cope with anything other than the unreal world of fame, and the hardness of that unreal world not satisfying. That sort of profound isolation and lack of connection, to themselves and anyone else, must be unbearable.   The pattern of these women indicates, it eventually leads to fleeing --Madonna away from the spotlight for years, or destruction a.la. Lindsay Lohan.

One could almost see the crazed thinking that went into this decision.  The something she needed must be something outside of what she had. She has everything, but she still needs, so she must need MORE, more fame, more notice.  How to get more?  This need is awful.  I need it to be fixed fast! How to get the MORE fast?

The child star became the porn poll dancer, everything real burnt away in favor of something other than the self, something of a naked mask that is caked in stage makeup and eyeliner and spandex.  It is a cartoonish almost demonic re-envisioning of the performer that she was, self loathing even as it self promoted.  It was foolish and it succeeded.  She has more.  People are talking about her, about her performance, about her transformation, about her act and actions.   All press is good press if fame is the goal.  Infamy works as well as anything.  It worked for Madonna and Lady Gaga...and sadly, for Miley too.  Today.  

But this sort of need is never fed by More of the wrong thing.  So Miley will try again, to capture that moreness that made her start down this road in the first place.  Worse for her, one day, she will try everything she can think of and that moreness will still not fill what is wrong.  Some day, someone will out Miley Miley, for the same reasons she outdid Lady Gaga, and she will wonder, when she grew old and why? And there will be a great emptiness that howls far louder in her heart than any buzz she won from the other night.