So, what set THIS off? It was seeing this thing in my news feed, my mixed feelings about it and my wonder about how someone without much in common with me might take it. A now septuagenarian old buzzard getting into the possible thoughts of a 30-year-old woman? Can it be more than just a dirty old man’s appreciation? Photos by Ralph_PH and Eric Jackson.
Although I was brought up not to believe in celebrities…
(a personal take by Eric Jackson, on an issue of interest to Democrats)
I WONDER if Miley Cyrus is laughing. She got typecast in this syrupy Hanna Montana stuff and then went to extremes, sometimes creepy ones, to disassociate herself from that persona.
At the time my reaction was “Yuck!” and some wondering about where she would be at as a musician / actress when she got done with that phase.
One might say “entertainment nepotism” — she’s the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus and the goddaughter of Dolly Parton — but is she just this dizzy privileged lady who is where she’s at because of her connections? Well, she has a mind of her own. Wants to control the content of her work, endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 even if Dolly Parton pointedly denied that SHE would endorse a candidate. Miley has associated with Democrats but also Republicans, and seems to concur with her dad, who said “The last thing the world needs to hear from me is my opinion on which side, or which tribe, I’m on.” She also has met Trump, and without calling him out, says she understands him. MAYBE as one real person behind a false persona at one point might understand a guy with this oversized false persona with puny creep behind it.
Thing is, although Miley Cyrus did not hit the campaign trail for Democrats this past year, she DID hit the campaign trail for abortion rights, with her own Happy Hippie Foundation teaming up with Planned Parenthood for the cause. And in her punk rock breakaway from Disney crap and the relatively low pay she got for that, was that a LESBIAN video she did with Dua Lipa?
Like her dad and her godmother, Miley Cyrus tries to stay partisan-neutral. And maybe she actually is, even if her stands on certain issues put her at odds with the Republicans in “the garbage fire” of current US politics that Parton describes. Her dad, too, tries to stay away from the “obvious good old boy” MAGA stuff but doesn’t denounce it either — yet he very much DOES denounce the culture of bullying which affects both parties but is a hallmark of MAGA. And I wonder if Miley is pained by all the articles that describe her recent hit about the breakup of her marriage as a “revenge song.”
For all country musicians with a progressive thought or two in their heads, the redneck aspect of that music scene gives pause for discretion. Look what they did to Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks — they were so badly vilified that Democrats with allied ideas were frightened of what might happen were the association made. Her dad is stuck in that business scene and could be destroyed by its reactionary elements. Her godmother has gone beyond that with her acting, I think — but when her 9 to 5 cast mates Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda said scathing things about Donald Trump, Dolly Parton kept her silence.
Miley Cyrus has broken free, maybe because she CAN, unlike some others close to her. Culturally, I think she’s one of us, but not to be taken for granted, nor used. We don’t ride into office on her fame, but we should ride into office on issues that she says are dear to her heart.
So I wonder if she laughs or cries when her former persona is used by a legendary buffoon whose name will be remembered in American history after all of us are dead and buried.
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