by Reena Daruwall, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

Everywhere you go on the internet, people seem to be discussing Miley Cyrus’ Vanity Fair Photo shoot. At first I thought to myself what storm in a teacup this was and then I read a lot of lot of different points of view, which made me realize that there are more issues underlying this than immediately meet the eye.

One blog even referred to the term ‘grooming’ (that pedophiles use on their victims) in connection with this photo shoot and I thought to myself that is just going too far! That’s just paranoia! And it is an insulting inference to draw simply because the photographer is a lesbian!

The questions that come to mind are these:

• Are these pictures appropriate for a fifteen year old?
• Did the magazine/photographer mislead the Cyruses in any way?
• Is it the magazines responsibility to ensure that the pictures were appropriate or was it the responsibility of Miley’s family, who were, by all accounts present at the photo shoot.
• Given that Miley was wrapped in a sheet that way she was, did the family expect any other kind of picture to emerge?

Personally I think the photos are quite good and calling the photographer, Annie Leibovitz, a ‘smut peddler’ (that is one of the choice appellations she has been accorded), is just unwarranted. I understand that the photographer has Whoopi Goldberg’s vote of confidence who has worked with her and insists that Annie was very above board about her work and always showed her subjects her work. Some people are dismissive of her work because it is commercial she deals mainly with celebrities. There is the contrary view, with perceives her work as imaginative and creative, and her photographs “as documents of popular culture”.

I think that if these photos can be labeled inappropriate, the responsibility must be made to rest chiefly with the parents or other family members who were responsible for the welfare of a 15 year old. I don’t think that a magazine like Vanity Fair can be expected to be a guardian of morals.

Reports say that Miley was wearing a flesh colored tank top under the sheet when the photos were taken; surely the implication is that this was meant to give an impression of wearing nothing but a sheet? I can’t imagine what other visual result could have been envisaged by the Cyruses.

One reason that I think the Cyruses may have been dismayed by the pictures is that Disney may have disapproved, after all Miley is a role model for little girls and this photo shoot is certainly not in keeping with the scrubbed clean image that is associated with her TV show. Certainly as a parent of a 4 year old who is occasionally permitted to watch the Hanna Montana show, I would not want the kind of role model for my child that is portrayed in these pictures.

What is your opinion on this fracas?