“She’s a horrible role model.” “She has no talent.” “She’s always sticking her tongue out.” “She’s only famous because her dad is famous” “She dresses so inappropriately.” “She’s such an attention seeker.” “She’s Hannah Montana for God’s sake!”
If you haven’t guessed by now who all these mean comments are about, they are about the one and only Miley Cyrus. Every time Miley Cyrus’ name comes up in a conversation, odds are at least one of these comments is said, and quite frankly I am tired of hearing it because those comments aren’t valid at all. Yes, Miley Cyrus isn’t the typical “America’s Sweetheart” like some other female celebrities, but if all those haters who are constantly criticizing her knew all the amazing things she has done, I truly think they would have a change of heart about her.
Let’s start with the most popular mean comment about Miley: “She’s Hannah Montana for God’s sake! My children grew up watching that show and now Miley has completely tarnished the wholesomeness of Hannah Montana!” First of all, Hannah Montana is a fictional character who Miley Cyrus played on TV; Miley wasn’t Hannah Montana. Jennifer Lawrence plays Mystique in the X-Men series, but that doesn’t mean Jennifer in real life is a blue mutant, so why do these people assume Miley Cyrus has to have the same exact characteristics and personality as Hannah Montana? Second of all, Hannah Montana ended in 2011. Miley Cyrus isn’t a 15-year-old teenager anymore; she’s now a 23-year-old woman. People grow up, their opinions change, they change. That’s a normal part of evolving into adulthood. And to all the parents who say that Hannah Montana was their children’s role model – your children are adults now too and I’m sure they’ve done some pretty reckless things just as Miley has done, except they weren’t in the spotlight with all cameras pointing at them when it happened.
Now her tongue… oh, the infamous tongue. “She always sticks her tongue out. It’s disgusting. Why can’t she just be normal and smile?” they say. Miley Cyrus was interviewed about this (shocking) in a recent interview with Australia’s Sunday Night, and this is what Miley Cyrus says about why she sticks out her tongue in pictures:
“I hated when the paparazzi would tell me to blow them a kiss… It just felt so gross, and like, sexist for me to be standing there and these men to be taking my picture… I didn’t want to be a pageant queen. I wanted to be a f**cking, excuse my language, rockstar.”
If you think about it, Miley is taking a strong stance against the sexism in Hollywood. She’s being an empowered feminist who stands up for her principles by not forcing herself to act girly on the red carpet just because she’s a girl.
The “She has no talent” is the most irritating comment I’ve heard. If Miley Cyrus has no talent, how has she sold 22,075,000 copies of her studio albums? And how have her tours, get ready for this, made $215,570,750, and how have all the movies she has been in have grossed over $677,400,000? I think someone needs a little bit of talent to have that much success.
“She’s such an attention seeker. Look at how she dresses!” Anyone who says that about her is 100% body shaming her, and body shaming is not cool. If a girl was dressed provocatively and then was (god forbidden) raped, would you say she was asking for it? Of course not. You would say the man was a pig for only seeing the girl for her body. Yet, anyone who is negatively commenting on Miley’s wardrobe is only looking at her for her body, and not for her soul and work. Also, how would you feel if someone told you that you couldn’t dress a specific way, even though you liked dressing that way? Not too good I would imagine.
Can you even imagine how Miley Cyrus feels about constantly hearing these comments? You would think it would affect her, maybe even cause her to want to get out of this industry, but on the contrary, all these negative comments haven’t had the slightest effect on Miley. In fact, Miley Cyrus has been focused on much more important things. The most notable is her work with The Happy Hippie Foundation (HHF), a non-profit organization she founded in 2014.
The mission statement for the foundation is “. . . to rally young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations.” Miley is extremely dedicated to this foundation, and has done some incredible things to prove it. HHF started #InstaPride which according to HHF’s website, the movement “was created to provide resilient examples of gender-expansive youth and their loved ones, help increase acceptance, inspire others for a positive future, and confront the stigma and misconceptions around gender.” Thousands of people were inspired by this instagram movement; they posted pictures of themselves with their personal stories and then used the hashtag #InstaPride showing the world that they too were proud of themselves for just the way they are. In August of this year, the Happy Hippie Foundation said they would help the “needs of children, youth and families affected by the conflict in Syria.” Miley isn’t just wanting to help people in America, she wants to help people all over the world and that just shows how she truly has a heart of gold.
Probably the most well-known thing Miley Cyrus has done with the Happy Hippie Foundation is getting involved in the #MyFriendsPlace campaign. In 2014, Miley won the MTV award for Best Music Video of the Year for “Wrecking Ball,” and instead of giving a typical acceptance speech, she gave the mic to a young homeless man named Jesse and he gave a beautiful speech where he brought awareness to the problem of homelessness in America. Because of Miley giving the spotlight to Jesse, a lot of awareness was brought to the issue of homelessness and the HHF was able to raise enough donations to give 22,000+ pairs of socks, 22,000+ pairs of underwear, 22,159 meals and 11,080 snacks to homeless youth in Los Angeles.
Because of her incredible work for the Happy Hippie Foundation, Miley Cyrus has been honored with numerous awards, with the first being the 2015 amfAR Award of Inspiration. One part of the speech that really stood out to me was this:
“But this illness, it’s brought us all together tonight, and for that, I feel thankful. I feel so grateful to be in a room with so many people that care. Because unfortunately, that’s just too rare in this world that we live in today, and maybe that’s why it’s so easy for me to be standing up here, receiving this Inspiration Award tonight.“
It was such a humbling moment that reminded us all that we need to not just think of ourselves, but we need to care and love everyone else as well. (Here’s her full acceptance speech)
Following the amfAR awards, she was then awarded the 2015 Vanguard Award for her work with the Happy Hippie Foundation. Here’s her acceptance speech.
Her most recent award was being honored at Variety’s Power of Women luncheon along with Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Laverne Cox, Sara Blakely, Ava DuVernay, and Georgina Chapman. Before her speech, Variety showed a clip of Miley explaining more about The Happy Hippie Foundation and in the clip, you see Miley speaking with so much wisdom, compassion and she has such a ray of joy to her when she talks about HHF. She then starts off her speech by reminding us at how fortunate some of us are:
“All of us who woke up today in a bed and had food in our plates and someone to love us today have more than over 6,000 homeless young people just here in LA.”
She then goes on to talk about LA homelessness statistics and her wish to make the world more accepting. She ends the almost six minute speech by acknowledging the “outsiders” of the world:
“I just want to say to anyone who has ever felt like they’re different or they don’t fit in, I want you to take that as a victory and know that you aren’t alone and I want to send love out to the universe because we desperately need it and I’m wishing for peace in our planet because hate and war has gone on way too long.”
(Here’s her full acceptance speech)
S. Atkinson wrote an article for Bustle and beautifully summed up Miley Cyrus’ use of her celebrity status:
“Though she’s extremely successful, she’s using her spotlight to direct attention to marginalized communities who might not always get the same amount of press attention as a pop star. For that, we should applaud her.”
Besides from her unquestionably inspiring dedicated work to the Happy Hippie Foundation, she’s also an unconventional celebrity which is rare in today’s Hollywood. She’s vowed to never walk a red carpet again. “Why, when people are starving, am I on a carpet that’s red? Because I’m ‘important’? Because I’m ‘famous’? That’s not how I roll.” Miley also got rid of her publicist; her only way of communication with her fans is through social media.
Despite her unconventionality, her wonderful work for the Happy Hippie Foundation, and her immense talent, probably the thing I most respect about Miley is the fact that she is 100 percent authentically herself. While dozens of other female singers are going for the same “good girl with a hint of sexiness” look, Miley Cyrus will go out with glitter and christmas lights in her hair, while wearing a cardboard dress that’s painted in rainbow colors, while rocking her tongue pose. Miley says a big f*ck you to the status quo and embraces her natural quirkiness.
Yet even though she doesn’t succumb to the pressures of fitting in and even though she has done such amazing charitable work, people still think she’s a horrible role model. That truly saddens me, but I guess it shows that some people will always find something wrong with you, and in this case, in Miley Cyrus.
However, I’m here to proudly say that I think Miley Cyrus is a phenominal woman with a huge heart of gold. I have been by Miley’s side since I was eight years old, and I don’t think I have ever loved her more than I do now. Miley has taught me to dare to be different. She’s an inspiration. She’s authentically herself. She’s Miley Cyrus.
HC with care,
Kelli Carmack