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Don't Let Your Girls Grow Up To Be Child StarsMeghan O'Rourke takes readers' questions about Hannah Montana and the Miley Cyrus photos.


Posted Thursday, May 8, 2008, at 5:46 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

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The "morning after" look: The issue with the Miley photo is not the level of skin (had she been photographed in a backless gown a la John Singer Sargent's paintings it would have been no big deal) but rather the implications of having just had sex: tousled hair, appearance of bedsheet, faint lipstick. America is just not okay with teen sexuality from someone marketed as "a good girl" role-model. Hence the freakout.

Meghan O'Rourke: That's true. The photo is at once highly classical and a bit sexually suggestive. (Mainly, it was the tousled hair, I thought, that really freaked people out.) And I tend to agree that Americans are not comfortable with suggestions of teen sexuality—especially female teen sexuality, and especially at that middle adolescent age range of 15. Since the show itself doesn't have that particular brand of sexual suggestiveness, it's not entirely clear to me why it matters if Cyrus (who is of course making a bit to become an enduring star) is photographed in a slight sexy way OUTSIDE of the show.

If the answer is that she's too cravenly pursuing a career by playing up her sexuality, then I just have to wonder whether people are watching the show closely, since the show is so full of coy participation in pop culture materialism.

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St. Mary's City, Md.: Certainly the handlers for underage teen celebrities deserve some of the blame, but I suggest the real problem is that many sick men are unhealthily attracted to these girls. The handlers may feed into that mindset, but they certainly didn't create it. During Britney Spears's heyday, it was obvious that a huge percentage of her "fans" were adult men who probably didn't care much about her music. The Olsen twins got this same type of disgusting attention. Is it fair to suggest that these men may have the same general psychological profile as the men who end up being grilled by Chris Hansen?

Meghan O'Rourke: I don't think that this particular controversy has a lot to do with older men being attracted to teen stars, though it does seem to have to do with our infatuation with youth, and the general sexualization of our culture.

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Honolulu: Could you comment on the content of the Thomas Huang piece published online May 5 by Poynter Online that gave the Miley Cyrus coverage serious journalistic analysis? This is the only serious analysis I have seen.

washingtonpost.com: Cyrus Story: Not Much Ado About Nothing (Poynter, May 5)

Meghan O'Rourke: I've only been able to skim the Huang story—I hadn't seen it before you brought it to my attention. It seems really thoughtful. I agree with him that the controversy is not much ado about nothing, and that's in part why I chose to write about it. The "tween" market is a huge, huge market these days (you can't imagine Vanity Fair having profiled, say, Alyssa Milano in quite this way back in the day). And as Huang says, the gender issues at stake—about how young girls transition into sexual adults—are fascinating.

Thanks for pointing it out.

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Washington: Help me out here! I looked at the photos of the teen star in question and they looked just like the usual, customary "glam photos" that high school kids typically take as jokes. I didn't perceive any really suggestive or over-the-top feature to them. What is the huge deal? Is this something causing more grief with the unemployables in Jesusland than with the actual markets near the coasts?

Meghan O'Rourke: I tend to agree with you —the photo of her alone is pretty classical, except that the tousled hair does seem to conjure up some post-coital imagery. I still think the one with her dad is creepy, but mostly for the way that it drives home just how much she's a vehicle for him to stay in the public eye.

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Washington: Who really cares about Miley Cyrus? She's no role model, just like Britney Spears is no role model. I think the press cares more than the average or above-average human being.

Meghan O'Rourke: I think you're right that the press has fed this story and kept it alive. But I also know a number of 6-to-12-year-old girls who are obsessed with Hannah Montana.

This gets to another element of the story, which is the scrutiny parents now pay to so many elements of childrearing. The controversy started with mothers blogging about the photos, as I understand it.

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Bethesda, Md.: Your article was my favorite of all the stories on the photos—I was thinking much the same thing. I'm amazed that the professional handwringers came out crying "exploitation!" because of a photo of her bare back. The only thing that's notable about showing her back is that it's her back that has borne her father's achy-breaky ambitions of stardom for the past five years.

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Meghan O'Rourke is Slate's literary editor and the author of Halflife, a collection of poetry
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