Surving Teen Scandals
Beside the story on Miley Cyrus's Vanity Fair photoshoot in People magazine, this article was featured in a sidebar. Unlike the similar article What It Feels Like for a Girl, this one puts a positive spin on young starlets in provocative situations, arguing that it brings them more attention, more fame, and ultimately, more money. Scroll to the bottom for my thoughts.
Surviving Teen Scandals: Miley Cyrus is definitely not the first young star to deal with a controversy over provocative photos or roles. How did these celebs handle the hot seat?
- Jodie Foster, 1976. When she played a child prostitute in Taxi Driver at age 14, some critics cringed. She got her first Oscar nomination for the role.
- Brooke Shields, 1980. The 14-year-old model caused a furor with her infamous jeans slogan -- "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins" -- but she made close to a million dollars that year.
- Britney Spears, 1999. Her bra-and-panties photoshoot on the cover of Rolling Stone at age 17 and her skimpy schoolgirl outfit in her "...Baby One More Time" video sparked debate on sexualizing adolescence. She's since sold over 70 million CDs.
- Vanessa Hudgens, 2007. Her nude photos -- which the High School Musical Star, then 17, had sent to a boyfriend -- leaked to the web. She apologized, Disney stood by her, and she's now shooting HSM 3.
I think these examples have little in common. Some are acceptable, and some aren't. Let's compare Jodie Foster to Brooke Shields and Britney Spears. Jodie played a child prostitute, and since then, she's become one of the biggest dramatic actresses of the century and has won two Oscars. Jodie is a child star who turned into a talented, successful, intelligent, responsible, grounded adult star. (Unlike Britney Spears, who turned into a highly dysfunctional one.) So we can safely assume that even at a young age, Jodie was stable and mature enough to handle that kind of role. She was ready.
Further, even though Jodie's character in Taxi Driver was a 12-year-old prostitute, the role was handled tastefully. She never appeared nude or semi-nude (unlike Brooke Shields's Pretty Baby, in which she also played a child prostitute) and even her most eyebrow-raising scene, where she offers her services to Robert de Niro, seems fairly mild today. Most importantly, the audience is made to feel disgusted and horrified -- not aroused -- at the idea of a child prostitute, as we all should be. But in Brooke's jeans commercial and Britney's music video, from the way both girls are posing and purring to the camera, it's obvious that they're trying to arouse their audience. And that is what makes it tasteless and unacceptable.
Taxi Driver was also trying to make a point -- several points, in fact -- about American culture, especially during the 1970s: about our treatment of war veterans, our glorification of violence, the workings of our political system. While it was shocking, there was actual substance beneath the shock. But Brooke's commercial and Britney's video were merely trying to sell jeans and CDs. That is what makes it shallow shock value -- again, tasteless and unacceptable.