Oh, Miley. Why must you cause me such déjà vu?
I'll be honest. The Vanity Fair photo drama? I snored through all of that. Whatever. Annie Lebowitz takes photos that are a little on the edge, and that's all they were. There's nothing slutty about a little girl with her back showing. When people got all uppity over your alleged "pole dancing" in the Teen Choice Awards, I rolled my eyes. You were just a kid dancing and if people saw more than that, it was in their heads. Or so I thought.
WAY TO PROVE ME WRONG.
Not long after that came the faux lesbian kiss, which WTH? Can you say not at all shocking? Do you not realize most of us have seen this show before? I mean, we know exactly how it ends. Just ask Britney, Christina, and Madonna. Speaking of them, let's just go ahead and use them as Most Recent Example of How This Show Ends.
First . . . Madonna. Look, she was never a Disney product, never pretended to be squeaky clean, and really has been pushing the envelope, so to speak, since the beginning of time. Consistently out there, that one. And that's why it has worked. The people who were fans way at the beginning have never had to question why they liked her in the first place. She has always lived up to expectations, even while finding new ways to drop a little shock and awe.
As for Britney and Christina, well then, this is exactly where you should be paying attention because DÉJÀ VU.
First, Britney. Oh, Britney, Britney, Britney. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the parallels. She started out living under the House of Mouse and made her first millions pitching music that was the furthest thing from edgy and "adult." Then she got a little older and got a little pissy about the whole squeaky clean thing. Enter the potty-mouth-dressing-like-a-whore-drinking-like-a-fish phase. It was all very amusing right up until she started flashing her vajayjay in public, and then we all stopped totally caring about what she did musically. Frankly, the only reason Britney is even slightly relevant at this point is because we all love to stare at a train wreck. If any has-been child stars want to make TMZ.com, all they have to do is shave their heads and chase some paparazzi with an umbrella. The sort of attention maneuvers like that get aren't because we care about the star, they're because we all secretly enjoy watching people we perceive to be "charmed" fail. Think star hunky quarterback from high school. Who doesn't secretly smile upon learning that guy wound up way obese, single, and living in his parents basement until he was 40?
And then there is Christina. Frankly, if you had asked me ten years ago whether she or Brit-Brit was going to survive to see 30, I would have said that the only way Christina would be around was if she were living in rehab. Magically her bare-ass managed to find its way to a guy who seems to have helped her chill the heck out. Having a kid has been great for her. She's still pushing the Weird Envelope too far, but mostly she has been domesticated (when is the last time you saw photos of her all drunk and disorderly at a club?). It's all A Very Good Thing. But, see, if you ask me, the only reason she has managed to maintain a music career through the bad-hair-bad-choices-wild-child-shenanigans is that she really can sing. Like, really. Girl can belt out a tune better than 99.9% of the artists out there.
You, Miley, cannot.
You are far more Britney than you are Christina. That means one thing--either you're going to have to go completely bat-poo crazy and become the ringmaster of a miserable-existence-of-a-circus, or you're going to disappear. Your audience, the people who have given you all that money you're spending on hooker dresses now, aren't going to stick around if the show isn't crazy enough. And really, faux lesbian kisses between cusses while dressed like a prostitute? Not enough. I mean, it's enough for me to ban you from La Casa de Burgh Baby, but it's not enough to get the attention of that 17-year old angsty teenager with a few bucks to spend. That teenager has street cred to worry about, and showing too much skin just isn't enough to make him or her forget all about that silly little ice cream song.
We've seen this show before, so either skip straight to the mental breakdown or spare us all the fake drama. It's just plain boring.
