Poll: Miley Cyrus Vs Sinead O'Connor - Your Views
As celeb spats go this is possibly the nastiest one ever.
It began really when Miley Cyrus, who had previously professed herself to be a fan of Sinead O'Connor drew "inspiration" from O'Connor's iconic Nothing Compares To You Video.
Well at the start of Wrecking Ball she did anyway. Soon of course Miley was writhing around in her pants licking a sledgehammer or something, because that's what she does these days, apparently. Seriously, Miley, put that tongue away. I know where it's been, and I don't want to keep seeing it.
So Sinead wrote her an open letter telling her to keep her clothes on. Now, I totally get that Sinéad meant well - as she said, it was meant in a spirit of motherly concern. And I do find the fact that young female stars are increasingly expected to perform in an incredibly sexual way very troubling. I don't, however, assume that they're automatically being coerced into it and I don't believe that it's automatically a bad thing for a woman to perform in a sexual manner. There was a slut-shaming tone to the letter that I really didn't like, and I was a bit creeped out by the "your body is for you and your boyfriend" bit (I'm also not a fan of what seems to be Sinéad's dismissive and contemptuous attitude to sex workers). The musician Amanda Palmer, no stranger to crazed attention seeking herself, wrote a thoughtful response to this affair which make some pretty good points about sexuality and performance.
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Dear Miley,
I wasn’t going to write this letter, but today i’ve been dodging phone calls from various newspapers who wished me to remark upon your having said in Rolling Stone your Wrecking Ball video was designed to be similar to the one for Nothing Compares… So this is what I need to say… And it is said in the spirit of motherliness and with love.
I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.
Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited, and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent.
I am happy to hear I am somewhat of a role model for you and I hope that because of that you will pay close attention to what I am telling you.
The music business doesn’t give a s**t about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.
None of the men oggling you give a s**t about you either, do not be fooled. Many’s the woman mistook lust for love. If they want you sexually that doesn’t mean they give a fuck about you. All the more true when you unwittingly give the impression you don’t give much of a fuck about yourself. And when you employ people who give the impression they don’t give much of a fuck about you either. No one who cares about you could support your being pimped.. and that includes you yourself.
Yes, I’m suggesting you don’t care for yourself. That has to change. You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you. This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them prey for animals and less than animals, a distressing majority of whom work in the music industry and it’s associated media.
You are worth more than your body or your sexual appeal. The world of showbiz doesn’t see things that way, they like things to be seen the other way, whether they are magazines who want you on their cover, or whatever.. Don’t be under any illusions.. ALL of them want you because they’re making money off your youth and your beauty.. which they could not do except for the fact your youth makes you blind to the evils of show business. If you have an innocent heart you can’t recognise those who do not.
I repeat, you have enough talent that you don’t need to let the music business make a prostitute of you. You shouldn’t let them make a fool of you either. Don’t think for a moment that any of them give a flying f**k about you. They’re there for the money.. we’re there for the music. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. The sooner a young lady gets to know that, the sooner she can be REALLY in control.
You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine.
The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.
Real empowerment of yourself as a woman would be to in future refuse to exploit your body or your sexuality in order for men to make money from you. I needn’t even ask the question.. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that men are making more money than you are from you getting naked. Its really not at all cool. And its sending dangerous signals to other young women. Please in future say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself. Your body is for you and your boyfriend. It isn’t for every spunk-spewing dirtbag on the net, or every greedy record company executive to buy his mistresses diamonds with.
As for the shedding of the Hannah Montana image.. whoever is telling you getting naked is the way to do that does absolutely NOT respect your talent, or you as a young lady. Your records are good enough for you not to need any shedding of Hannah Montana. She’s waaaaaaay gone by now.. Not because you got naked but because you make great records.
Whether we like it or not, us females in the industry are role models and as such we have to be extremely careful what messages we send to other women. The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. we aren’t merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career. Kindly fire any motherf***er who hasn’t expressed alarm, because they don’t care about you.
Anyway, whatever you might think of the criticism, Miley certainly didn't rise above it. Instead, she responded with the nastiest series of tweets and dug up all of Sinead's tweets from a couple of years back when the Irish singer was deeply troubled and dealing with serious mental health issues. She pretended she had "no time" to respond to Sinead personally - but she found plenty of time to abuse her on Twitter. And not just Sinead, but poor old Amanda Bynes, the former teen star who has spent time in a psychiatric hospital and is now in rehab, whom Miley compared to Sinéad. After Sinead sent another response, Miley said she had no time to write a letter of her own, because she was hosting Saturday Night Live. Because she's such a big star, you guys! Yeah, enjoy it while you can, love.
Sinead is now on her third open letter to Miley. Where will it all end?
Miley,
I have no interest whatsoever in meeting you. You had plenty of time yesterday to abuse Amanda Bynes .. an entirely innocent party.. and myself.. who also did nothing to deserve your abuse.. along with every other sufferer of mental health problems and every person who suffered abuse at the hands of priests.
You can take five minutes today between g- string fuckin’ changes to publicly apologise and remove your abusive tweets. If you do not then you don’t give a shit who you mock and what damage you do by being so ignorant.
When you publicly apologise to Amanda and myself and all mental health sufferers as well as all who were abused by priests that will end the matter as far as I am concerned.
What you did yesterday was designed to damage me and my career and has caused me enormous distress and harrassment and has potential to damage my career, since you deliberately gave the impression those tweets of mine are not two years old but reflect my current condition. If you do not apologise I will have no choice but to bring legal proceedings against you, since it is extremely hard to be given work when people think one is suffering from mental illness.
I have no interest in or desire to cause you trouble but if you do not apologise for having deliberately tried to cause me hurt and trouble personally and professionally I will have to bring pressure upon you.
Be a proper woman and make the public apologies I have listed above. Your hosting SNL is a bullshit reason for not taking five minutes to do the right thing and your behaviour yesterday will rebound upon you very badly.
You have no business abusing Amanda Bynes or anyone else. How do you think you made her feel yesterday? How do you feel when your friend Britney Spears is mocked and humiliated for having had mental health problems? I know I personally want to bash those who treat her that way. If she is your friend and more importantly if you are a true friend to her.. you ought apologise for joining those who mock and humiliate women who have been too nice frankly, to manage the music business without sensibly losing their minds.
Cease behaving in an anti-female capacity. You will become the victim of it shortly. Soon it will be you the media ‘crazy’ .. and you will not enjoy it.. and when you end up in the psych ward or rehab.. which is inevitable if you keep upon the path you are currently treading.. you will appreciate people like myself standing up for you. Which I will be happy to do.. if you earn my respect today by apologising publicly.
I can’t imagine your parents being at all proud of what you did yesterday.
Miley has yet to respond. God knows what will happen next. I just can't help thinking that Miley is a shining example of what can happen when a girl spends most of her life as the centre of the universe - she can end up thinking it's okay to mock someone for their mental illness. She might want to spend less time romping around on construction equipment in her pants and more time educating herself about the real world.
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