Miley Cyrus at 20, beautiful Photo: RCA Records

There’s been enough commentary expressing outrage and disgust about Miley Cyrus’ performance at the 2013 Video Music Awards.  Here’s what we need to look at: Miley Cyrus is 20 years old.  Yes, she is old enough to know better, but she is also young enough to do some really crazy and very, very stupid stuff.  I don’t know her personally, but I have a feeling this whole debacle wasn’t her idea.  Whoever is in charge of her career, she is being terribly misguided and poorly advised.  And if it was her idea, why didn’t every person in her life with half a brain try to talk her out of it?

Like dear old dad, for instance.  Yet, according to a recent tweet from Miley, father Billy Ray Cyrus is totally supportive of his daughter’s “twerking.” Heck, he said he would have even done it himself, if he could have (dear god, that would have been a career killer). Here’s the tweet, judge for yourself:

Miley Cyrus tweeted that her father Billy Ray Cyrus approves of her twerking with a foam finger on the Video Music Awards

Don’t you just love great parenting? Twerking, just for the record, is a very suggestive dance move. Go look it up if you need to know more.

Miley Cyrus career shocker designed to destroy her Disney Channel image

Miley probably wouldn’t want my sympathy, even if she knew she had it.  She’s probably feeling on top of the world right now.  She’s shocked the nation, and it’s all people have been talking about for the last week.  Her new album releasing October 8 will probably sell like gangbusters.  She wanted shock and awe with the foam finger and nude latex bikini, and she got it.  But one day she’s going to look back on that performance and cringe, and it probably won’t take that long.

Miley Cyrus career takes new direction with Bangerz album. Photo: MileyCyrus.com

Here’s one problem: somehow our society has arrived at a disturbing place, where the role models of young tween and tween girls grow up and suddenly feel the need to obliterate that image and shock the world when they come of age.  It can be with bad behavior off stage, or shocking behavior on stage or screen. It’s so sleazy, and the message to the girls watching is simple: you can’t be validated unless you’re a girl gone wild.

Miley Cyrus cover for new album We Can’t Stop. Is it just me, or do the arms in the picture look like they belong to little girls? Disturbing.

Miley Cyrus career direction lacks focus, artistry

If she must use sexuality in her performance, she needs to do it artistically, beautifully, powerfully, or creatively.  Vulgarity alone won’t cut it.  Miley wants to emulate Madonna, but Madonna was never a Disney Channel princess with 7-year-old girls looking up to her.  Madonna always used sexuality in her performances, take it or leave it.  I’ve always been a fan of Madonna, and I happen to think that she’s a very original artist.  Also, there’s something empowered about the way Madonna expresses female sexuality.  Madonna was 26 when she performed at the VMAs and shocked the world by performing “Like a Virgin” in a wedding dress on a bed.  She knew exactly what she was doing because at 26 she was mature and the main person in charge of her own career.  Madonna is now an icon of music and style.

Miley Cyrus’ performance, on the other hand, was pure objectification.  It completely lacked in artistry and was just plain weird.  Yes, I’m from the Madonna generation, not the Miley or even the Britney Spears generation, but I can see that Lady Gaga, for all her overt sexuality, is incredibly original too.  Just watch Gaga’s performance of “Applause” at this year’s VMAs.  A bit shocking with the bikini at the end yes, but she is so creative, and her voice is incredible: she’s a pro.

Miley’s voice is great, and if she had been wise, she would have followed in Carrie Underwood’s footsteps, and she’d have had a career to last a lifetime.  It’s the road not taken.  Now she’s stuck with this new outrageous, stripper-run-amuck image, and it’s going to be very hard to back away from it. If it’s going to work, she better start being brilliant, because right now, she looks like a complete amateur.  She’s trying way too hard, and she’s out of her league.