Miley Cyrus' fashion lays bare everything wrong with our generation
In the past few days, if there's anything that's managed to dislodge attention from the Indrani Mukerjea-Sheena Bora case online, it has to be the 22-year-old Miley Cyrus' completely crazy and outrageous outfits at the MTV Video Music Awards or VMAs, at the Microsoft Theater in LA on August 30.
What she wore (or didn't wear, actually) has become the fodder of much public debate with the Parents Television Council of America denouncing MTV's choice to have Cyrus as the host for this year's award after her risqué twerking act with Robin Thicke in 2013 at the same awards.
This year, she flashed a breast, and left very little to the imagination in all her outfits, definitely dethroning Lady Gaga in the bizarre WTF-is-she-wearing category. This, however, isn't new for Cyrus who routinely posts pictures of her breasts on her Instagram account to her 27.3 million followers, and recently posted a selfie taken while peeing! She's posed butt naked with her pet pig Bubba Sue (I didn't make that up) for Paper magazine earlier this year, and appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show on ABC with just heart-shaped pasties to cover her nipples, and a jacket, prior to the VMAs.
Also read: Four reasons why this woman wants her sons to see her naked
| Miley Cyrus hosting MTV VMA 2015. |
What makes Miley Cyrus, the sweet-faced girl who essayed the role of Hannah Montana and thereby became an icon for millions of girls worldwide, do this time and again? Is she hungry for attention? Is she just plain media savvy or, is she trying to prove a point?
| As Hannah Montana. |
She just might be.
She recently told Elle UK in an interview: "I've had really bad anxiety and depression in my life and a lot of that stemmed from the way I look."
In another interview, to E! Online, she opened up about how her character Hannah Montana was in complete contrast to what she was in real life and by the end of four seasons, she developed body dysmorphia. Cyrus said, "From the time I was 11 it was, 'You're a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing. Meanwhile, I'm this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup."
"(It) probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on that show, it was like, 'Who am I?'"
According to the NHS, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an anxiety disorder that causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance.
Sound familiar?
Also read: Why I decided to take off my clothes in public
| Are we raising a generation that is going to act out in Miley Cyrus-like way in say ten years from now? |
Look at any of the selfies an average 15-, 16-year-old puts up online and you'll get a sense that so many young girls in India too are suffering from what is probably a similar condition. With almost all their icons coming from popular culture, almost every young girl wants to be tall, super skinny, straight black hair, Aviators in place, and pout ready, and the pressure to "fit in" drives them all to look like clones. Before they even have time to discover who they really are, they are already conditioned - via friends, social media, films - into believing that they need to look a certain way to be accepted. Mums, only too happy to comply and boast about how they are friends to their children and shop at the same stores (giggle, giggle), happily take them shopping to Zara and Mango and give them umpteen cash for Brazilian blowouts and red dip-dye streaks.
Are we raising a generation that is going to act out in its own way, Cyrus-like, in say ten years from now? Probably. A generation that will discover that there's more to life than skater skirts, red lipsticks, and 24-inch waists. After all, two decades ago we'd never have imagined that bralets would actually be a popular form of clothing in India, to be worn publicly, and without any censure. What Cyrus wore today, India's young girls could easily be wearing in the future.
If they do, I just wish they'd wear it because they want to and it makes them happy, and not because they've had a sad journey accompanied by extreme anxiety and depression to get there.