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    Leave Cyrus to the Kids

    Posted Thursday, July 31, 2008 12:53 PM | By Torie Bosch
    Nayeli, I think it's pretty clear what Miley Cyrus is afraid of (though the better question might be, "What are Miley Cyrus' handlers afraid of?"). She might want to escape Disney's clutches, but becoming the underage spokesteen for a condom company seems like an easy no. She's a Christian who advocates waiting till marriage, so promoting condoms might make her seem hypocritical. (I'd like to forget I ever saw those much-blogged "sexy" photos allegedly taken from her iPhone—thanks, Perez Hilton.) More importantly, she isn't exactly marketed to her teenage contemporaries. Middle- and high-school shows on Disney, Nick, etc., are aimed at elementary students, not teenagers. They aren't accurate depictions of adolescent life—they're an idealized, sanitized world in which you get punished the first time you make a mistake like cheating, lying to your parents, or drinking. They're morality shows. I was a Saved by the Bell fan as a kid and still love looking back at those shows for the unrealistic way they portrayed high school. People "went steady" and exchanged friendship rings. School dances had punch; prom had a hoedown theme and was held in the gym. And certainly no one had sex. Safe sex is a message that needs to be out there, but someone who actually appeals to teenagers, not the prepubescent, should be making the pitch. I'd like to propose an alternative celeb, but I'm pretty out of touch with who's hip these days. Maybe the cast of Gossip Girl?

    Like Noreen (who I think very astutely diagnosed LifeStyle's motivation for the offer—and there's something so exploitative about the company publicly salivating over using a tween star to sell contraceptives), I would be discomfited if I saw 15-year-old Miley Cyrus' just-recently-orthodontiaed grin slapped on a condom box in the "family planning" (what a laughable euphemism that is) section in the grocery store aisle. I can just imagine a 6-year-old walking past the department grabbing the box and saying, "Mommy, can I get this?" That might make me sound prudish, but so be it.

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