Miley Cyrus isn’t happy (now) with an image of her shot by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair. Sounds to me like she was pressured to change her tune on her attitude about the image. If so, I think it’s a sad cultural marker, but one which doesn’t surprise me. 

I was just speaking with a photographer this morning who shoots kids and who also shoots women. The kid work is bright and very happy; the women are darker and more sexy. I told the photographer he really needed to separate the two into two sites and have two separate marketing plans if he wanted to do both, because, especially, if a kid-related client saw the women the moodiness and sexiness would make the viewer think that his work was inappropriate for kid stuff (it would be a challenge the other way too). Mixed messages are bad and this is one of the worst places for it because we as a society freak out about anything that might “threaten” the children.

Personally, that drives me nuts, but it is reality. 

So, I think what happened with Ms. Cyrus is that she and her family/minders loved the images. What 15 year old girl wouldn’t want to look beautiful which she does in that image and if it has a hint of sexy, all the better (in the 15 year old’s head). However, the Disney people don’t want their “properties” to be tainted with even the vaguest hint of any sexiness (except, apparently, for Johnny Depp who is allowed to be as smokin’ as he wants) and so they probably strongly suggested to her to change her tune.

Of course, the taint is all over the photographer. I’m not a particular fan of Ms. L. (I’ve heard too many horror stories of her attitude to really like her…her work is another story, though), but she certainly didn’t come even close to anything inappropriate with this image. Still, I’m sure this won’t hurt her career in the least and, if anything, will be good. It’s just sad that this image is even an issue at all.