Miley Cyrus is back in the news this week, promoting her controversial new song “We Can’t Stop.” You can read my review here. Suffice it to say that the three years between her last musical effort and this one haven’t, it would seem, contributed to a growing sense of maturity or wisdom.
Lest you think I’m being too hard on her, the song glorifies going to parties, girls dancing like strippers, getting drunk, hooking up with people casually, snorting cocaine in the bathroom and taking Ecstasy. (Meanwhile, a promotional photo of her accompanying the track barely covers significant portions of her physique.)
As if anticipating that those activities might generate some criticism of the young woman who once talked about being a role model, Miley sings to the haters, “This is our house/This is our rules/ … It’s our party we can do what we want/It’s our party we can say what we want.” Los Angeles Times music critic Randall Roberts summarizes, “The song … seems as if it were written by an ninth-grader imagining her rebellious college sister’s lifestyle.”
Once upon a time, Miley talked about Jesus. She talked about being a role model. And when Plugged In began to cover her skyrocketing ascent to superstardom at the outset of her Hannah Montana years, we found ourselves applauding her conviction …
… and holding our breath.
Because, we feared, it was only a matter of time before fame’s excess exerted a corrupting influence. And so it seemingly has. Like so many other child stars before her, Miley’s story, at this point at least, isn’t a pretty one as the now 20-year-old singer and actress increasingly seems to be trading role-model status for what looks like a complete repudiation of the values and convictions she seemed to embrace when she was younger.
Miley’s trajectory is hardly unique. I worry that Justin Bieber is in many ways on a similar path as of late, not so much in his music but in his increasingly erratic and profane run-ins with the paparazzi. And then there’s the seriously bizarre behavior of former child star Amanda Bynes, some of which recently landed her in jail. And those are only the up-to-the-minute examples. Combing back through the ranks of former teen celebs, it’s hard to find many who have deviated much from that template.
That said, however, there are a few. One of those is Mara Wilson, who in the 1990s starred as a child in Mrs. Doubtfire, Matilda and Miracle on 34th Street. Wilson recently wrote an article for cracked.com (of all things!) titled “7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider’s Perspective).”
I found Wilson’s assessment of why young stars tend to rebel particularly germane to the stories of Miley and Justin. Wilson writes:
“Having to live up to your fan base is a little like having to deal with a million strict parents who don’t actually love you. They reward you for your cuteness and cleverness, but are quick to judge and punish. And they do not want you ever to grow up. How do you react? The way any sullen teenager does: You get resentful, and as soon as you have the freedom, you act out.”
I can’t know for sure, but those kinds of dynamics could certainly be in play for someone like Miley or Justin. And the fact that both have at one time or another accepted their status as role models for young fans only creates more of that pressure to conform.
On top of that, there’s also the need to please those who are shaping and supporting your career. In a 2010 interview with Fox News, ’80s teen phenom Debbie Gibson (who topped the charts with her hits “Foolish Beat” and “Lost in Your Eyes”) said:
“Growing up, there’s this weird thing when you start as a child actor or teen star that you’re constantly getting praised for being poised and together so you can tend to mask a lot of emotional stuff and at some point, the lid’s going to blow off the pot. I went through all that. Luckily, I didn’t go through by way of drugs, alcohol or public meltdowns. … I had my meltdowns in private, in a therapist’s office.”
She also added,
“The industry people will work you to death, and they have a short-term vision for you. They’re like, ‘This is our teen star of the moment and we’re going to use you up and throw you out and on to the next,’ and they do not care if you are a whole, happy, sane human being at the end of that trip.”
Elsewhere in her cracked.com article, Wilson also talks about the disposable nature of the teen star. “Years of adulation and money and things quickly become normal, and then, just as they get used to it all, they hit puberty—which is a serious job hazard when your job is being cute. It’s basically a real-life version of Logan’s Run. A child actor who is no longer cute is no longer monetarily viable and is discarded.”
All in all, it adds up to a lot for young stars to cope with.
That doesn’t make Miley and Justin any less responsible for some of the poor choices that they’re making or the ways that they may very well be influencing younger fans in problematic directions. But it does mean that we’d do well to remember the peculiar stresses they live with as young stars, and perhaps to say a prayer that they might someday be able to find their way out the other side, as, in the words of Debbie Gibson, a “sane human being at the end of that trip.”
Recent Comments