My local San Diego version of Parade Magazine for the most part focuses on the vital questions surrounding Anne Hathaway’s choice of lip gloss. So I was surprised to dig into it this week and discover this hard hitting question:
It seems like Miley Cyrus has won fame and fortune only because she’s cute. Do you agree?—Dee Marko, Roselle Park, N.J.
Holy crap, Dee! Back it down! It’s Sunday morning and I just poured my coffee. To para-quote Woody Allen’s father in Hannah and Her Sisters, “How the hell do I know I why there were Nazis? I don’t even know how the can opener works!”
Why is there, like, totally… something rather than, like, nothing?
29 responses so far ↓
1 Hugh on Aug 10, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Ah, the look of someone who’s had their soul slowly drained away by Disney, until they’re just a cute, sugary shell. Godspeed.
2 Heather on Aug 10, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Nonsense. She’s won fame and fortune because she’s cute AND she’s the daughter of the formerly be-mulleted one-hit wonder, Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus! And yes, I realize that seems self-contradictory. I never said the business model made any sense.
Behold, the vacant gaze of the young woman who fled the comforting embrace of obscurity for the cold, unforgiving clutches of teen stardom… it Achey Breaks my Heart, too.
3 Glyn on Aug 10, 2008 at 10:57 pm
She looks like she is trying to scan me.
4 Onil on Aug 10, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Not you, your wallet.
5 Tim on Aug 11, 2008 at 4:18 am
I don’t know what is more frightening: the money and power she has amassed at such a young age, or her disturbingly-high incisor teeth…
6 ZB on Aug 11, 2008 at 4:22 am
No Miley. NO. That is MY soul. No nNO! Down. Down. Put it down. That’s not a toy. You have you own soul. See. There! Yours. Yes. Yes. Good girl. There you go. That’s YOUR soul. Ah. See? Isn’t she cute? She thinks she’s people! Aw.
7 Ben on Aug 11, 2008 at 5:05 am
But Mike, that is a generic question that you can interchange the subject with so easily and still achieve the same answer.
Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, etc etc. Of course, the answer with these youngsters (who will flame out by the time they hit 30) is that they often had the popularity-making machine that is Disney behind them. It could have been the Mickey Mouse Club or some lame show on the Disney Channel, but either way, the youngsters watched these kids with borderline talent and death in their eyes and then they became mindless thralls to Disney. Bye bye, soul.
8 seanf on Aug 11, 2008 at 5:58 am
I can virtually guarantee that in about ten years, you will hear the following statements in a televised special (to be aired on a channel known for allowing Michael Bolton and Bryan Adams much longer careers than they were otherwise entitled):
“But behind the scenes….THINGS WERE FALLING APART.”
and
“Miley–or Miles as she now prefers to be known–credits God for her eventual recovery, and she will shortly be returning to the studio. She plans to have a new album out in the fall.”
9 Courtney on Aug 11, 2008 at 6:44 am
“Why is there, like, totally… something rather than, like, nothing?”
Wasn’t that a line in pretty much every episode of My So-Called Life?
10 Mystok on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:18 am
It is the evil that is Disney. Not only does it suck the wages right out of our hard earned pockets with its parks and merchandise, but it black holes any poor half-way talented soul into an empty shell to be filled in later years with world-devouring demons.
11 Mystok on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:19 am
But I can’t wait to go back to Disney World!
12 NavarezElectro on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:23 am
She (or he, or it, whichever they serve up to the masses) represents the burning poisonous wound from the tines of the pitchfork of corporate ‘entertainment.’ Each move of her career and those like her is carefully plotted for maximum profit by the soulless, heartless, empty shrouds that exist only to serve their masters who dictate what America is told it wants, from the towering monoliths of the Ministry of Entertainment.
It’s called GREED, and it’s killing the arts in this country.
Keep fighting the good fight.
13 TeeJay on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:24 am
Think she’s a Wurwulf?
14 Invisible Cracker Mom on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:29 am
The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.
Martin Heidegger
15 Charlie W on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:34 am
Gasp. Hannah Montana herself. Perhaps she is so popular because like most teenage girls she has a split personality. Plus she wears a wig, that gets big points.
16 Invisible Cracker Mom on Aug 11, 2008 at 7:46 am
Don’t worry; her teeth were analyzed by many thousands of man-hours of focus groups by Disney, and their findings determined her natural teeth as “cute.” Regular girls will identify with her: “Oh, wow! She has teeth like me!” Data showed that her brand-product is purchased by teens in families that were once known as middle-class, but now these families cannot afford orthodontia. The data also dictates she can keep her real teeth until she hits 21, after which she will have them filed down and re-formed, like the other blonde girl they made millions off of years prior, Hilary Duff.
And so on, ad infinitum.
17 Libby on Aug 11, 2008 at 8:07 am
Truly a puzzle for the ages.
18 Mr. Slick on Aug 11, 2008 at 8:48 am
Has anyone REALLY looked at her teeth? Was Billy Ray Cyrus a predator? Yikes she’s got some fangs on her.
19 Smuttynose on Aug 11, 2008 at 9:16 am
Heidegger was a boozy beggar. He could think you under the table.
20 Katie M. on Aug 11, 2008 at 9:18 am
Come now, she has gained fame and fortune for somewhat legitimizing her laughing-stock pop culture joke of a father! It certainly cannot be due to any degree of “cuteness”, of which she is sorely lacking (IMHBTO…”in my humble but true opinion”). Not that I am completely against weird looking ladies in entertainment. And to her credit, at least she actually dresses like a kid and not like pedo-bait. (well, that is, when there’s not a camera phone around…)
21 Nanobots on Aug 11, 2008 at 9:25 am
Recent news story:
“Cyrus is recovering from yet another photo scandal in which raunchy snaps of the 15-year-old star posing in the shower were posted on the internet”
Isn’t this the same route that Britney took, trying to be “more edgy” and “break out of that good-girl image”?
In other news (a story from the Washington Post, I believe):
“Just when it seemed Hannah Montana — Miley Cyrus’ alter ego — had reached the saturation point in your child’s life, a revelation: The teen singer’s voice can be the throaty alarm clock that rouses your offspring, via telephone, in the morning”
Yeah, that’d certainly have me up and screaming in the morning…
22 Rob T Firefly on Aug 11, 2008 at 10:43 am
At what point does it stop being lip gloss and start being high-gloss deck varnish?
23 Queen Shadowrama on Aug 11, 2008 at 10:54 am
Seriously! Disney World is the Happiest Place on Earth, and if they have to drain fresh tween souls to keep it that way, well…I’m okay with that.
24 Courtney on Aug 11, 2008 at 10:58 am
“Gonna be a good harvest this year…”
25 R.A. Roth on Aug 11, 2008 at 12:30 pm
No, Miley won fame and fortune because there is no God.
Randy
26 camcat on Aug 11, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Have you walked through WalMart lately? Any girl wth the least claim to free thinking is gonna have to be naked, and bagless–even barefoot! I can’t find a handbag that doesn’t have that terrifying rack of canines plastered all over it, and I am WAY TOO OLD to tote pop-star-idols to work.
27 RemmieBarrow on Aug 11, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Yeh, you have to be careful getting close to anything related to Disney, otherwise it will latch on to you and never let go.
28 Mr. Slick on Aug 11, 2008 at 5:13 pm
No Randy there IS a God, he just has a messed up sense of humor.
29 Patrick on Aug 13, 2008 at 11:59 am
God, how I hate thee, Parade Magazine. I have my suspicions that those questions are made up. Seriously, who’s that dumb? And shouldn’t he get back to his job of running the free world?
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