TheDailyBeast.com:
RELATED: Miley Cyrus And Awards Show Criticized For Being RacistOh look, Miley posed nude in another ‘racy’ photo. And there she is in a ‘crazy’ outfit. Did you know that she loves weed? Yes, 2015 is the year Miley’s antics got tired.Miley Cyrus has built a career on multiple personality disorder. First, she was the bewigged fake pop star Hannah Montana by day, and real-life child star Miley Cyrus by night. Then, she traded in her Disney channel credentials for the all-grown-up starter pack: mature hit singles, a hunky temporary fiancĂ©, and an extended IMDB page.
These days, Cyrus has been going full rebel without a cause, trading her cutesy roots for a marijuana obsession, queer identity, and psychedelic social media presence. But unlike any other college freshman undergoing a similar transformation, Miley Cyrus is super famous.
This has both positive and negative effects.
On the plus side, when Cyrus starts a nonprofit like her Happy Hippie Foundation for underprivileged, queer, and homeless youth, these issues get some much-needed play on a national platform. Unfortunately, the flip side is that when Cyrus takes a break from supporting cool causes to pursue her side passions of cultural appropriation and saying borderline racist shit, the ramifications are a lot more far-reaching than just an angry op-ed in the campus newspaper.
Miley backlash first reared its white-dreaded head back at the 2015 VMAs, which was essentially an extra long episode of Bad Girls Club masquerading as a legitimate awards ceremony. The show was already slated for drama with a warm up Twitter beef between Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift. Cyrus, in her official capacity as host and in her infinite wisdom, decided to throw some white girl gas on the racial tension fire by showing up to the ceremony in white dreadlocks, and making a “mammy” reference during the show. All that would have been enough; unfortunately, Cyrus also had the balls to do a Times interview badmouthing Minaj about her pre-VMAs conduct. This led to an onstage confrontation between Cyrus and Minaj, which produced the beloved diss quote “Miley, what’s good?” as well as an answer to the age-old question, “Does Nicki Minaj read The New York Times?”
Ever since the VMAs, it’s safe to say that Cyrus’s shock and awe appeal has gone a little lackluster. For an artist whose aesthetic, sound, and performance style owes so much to black culture, that brand of racial insensitivity and borderline racism is more than just inexcusable—it’s downright stupid. All of a sudden, Cyrus’s “cool” doesn’t seem so progressive, and without the mark of millennial-approved values, Cyrus ceases to be an alt, radical hero, and is reduced to a crazy ex-child star stereotype. Instead of revitalizing her image from the roots up, Cyrus seems dead-set on throwing some glitter on the problem and barreling through the backlash. This has led to a series of eyeroll-inducing career moves.
