Pushing Boundaries

In 2006, Disney Channel fans were introduced to the innocent, friendly, southern role model, Miley Cyrus in the popular show of Hannah Montana. Miley played the roles of both Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana. Across the nation, this sweetheart gained popularity. Many regarded her as their role model because she was sweet, pure, innocent, made the right decisions and did not have any type of scandals on the World Wide Web or in the tabloids. However, fast forward seven years and America’s sweetheart is not so sweet anymore. With a drastic change in appearance and personality, Miley Cyrus has become a reckless, wild, boundary-pushing celebrity. Her newest single “We Can’t Stop” represents how much she has changed. The lyrics as well as the music video promote vulgar and reckless teenage behavior: consuming liquor, casual sex, drug abuse, and self-harm.

In an interview on Ryan Seacrest’s radio segment, she states, “the song shows where I am in my life right now.” ‘We like to party/ Dancing with Molly,’ and ‘Trying to get a line in the bathroom/ We all so turned up here/ Getting turnt up,’ refers to how wild their actions can be due to large amounts of drug or alcohol consumption. ‘Dancing with Molly’ is a reference to the effects of the drug MDMA. It’s a club drug and many consume it at raves, parties, or dance clubs. ‘We can kiss who we want,’ represents casual sex, having multiple partners at one time, and those they can be either gender.

The music video itself represents what the lyrics are saying quite well. Cyrus is wearing revealing clothing and dancing provocatively or in layman’s term twerking. There are many scenes where careless sex is promoted: smoke symbolizing ejaculation and grabbing of body parts. Self-harm is promoted by one taking a knife and acting as if they are cutting their own fingers off with it and having a pool of pink liquid releasing from behind their fingers. Self-harm is also promoted with the crushing of the french fry skull. Drugs are represented by their wild dancing, them scrambling to get the food from the piñata, and during the scene where they are all laying in the pool with a censored sign over their mouths.

On countless interviews, Miley Cyrus has been asked to respond on the obscene music video and her jaw-dropping performance at the VMA’s. What’s her response? She states that the people need to realize that she isn’t Hannah Montana anymore and she doesn’t understand what the big deal was. Once, America’s sweetheart, Miley Cyrus has become one role-model that parents do not want their child to have. She’s successfully separated herself from her childhood career and created a horrible reputation of herself.