Strollerderby : Vanity Fair

Shockingly Phallic Hannah Montana Candy

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:50:00 GMT

It’s pretty astounding that Disney had the nerve to blast Annie Leibovitz for sexualizing Miley Cyrus in those Vanity Fair photos. Not that I’m any fan of taking photos of topless 15-year-olds and calling them art, but this, I gotta say, is far worse.

Unless the marketing people who came up with this candy are blind robots, they had to be perfectly aware of what it looks like Miley is about to do to that gummy guitar. They even felt the need to explain what the shapes are on the package, lest people confuse them with something inappropriate, like a phallus.

Well, I’m pretty sure the “microphone” shapes are not going to help matters any.

Photo: Jezebel

Condom Maker Offers $1Mil to Miley Cyrus to Sell Rubbers

Cole Gamble — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Lifestyles condoms has offered 1 million dollars to Hannah Montana to rep their product in an effort to get more teens to use them. In addition to the payday, Lifestyles is also offering Miley a lifetime supply of the condoms.

Of course just the mere mention of the offer does nothing for Cyrus' attempt to get off the Brittany Spears over-sexualized image train started by those Vanity Fair back bearing photos. She's still a Disney property, and one imagines Disney won't cotton to their top talent hawking prophylactics. Besides, isn't a million dollars to Miley Cyrus, like, her lip gloss budget?

Of course Lifestyle sis probably just trying to drum up some free advertising, which brings us to the larger question: is it a problem to market condoms to kids? Miley is fifteen; one would assume Lifestyles is aiming for that demo. Many believe even the mention of condoms with teens will encourage them to have more sex. I believe availability to condoms encourages kids to have more safe sex. Kids are gonna have sex. To think introducing them to condoms activates their sexuality, well that's like the tail wagging the horny dog. From personal experience, I can tell you, you could have given me a lifetime supple of condoms when I was a teen and it wouldn't have gotten me laid anymore than before.

What do you think, are condoms corrupting our youth, or should we be tossing them out at schools like confetti?

More by this author:

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Best of FameCrawler: Week of June 6th

Whit Honea — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Green Our Vaccines: Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy Get Political

Charlie Sheen & Brooke Mueller Wedding Pictures

Demi Moore - Pregnant Bloat or Bad Dress?

Nicole Richie, Making Babies Appear Older

A Denise Richards F*@king Moment

Angelina's Twins Will Arrive Early

Angelina Vanity Fair Photos Will Leave. You. Breathless.

Sarah Larson's Biological Clock Ticked Too Loudly For George Clooney?

Denise Wants to Play Nice?

Remember Violet and Jennifer?

Meet the new Miley (same as the old Miley?)

Brett Singer — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

The New York Post reported last week that antsy Disney execs were already grooming Miley's replacement. According to the paper, the House of Mouse is dismayed over Ms. Cyrus' Vanity Fair photos. Her name is Selena Gomez. Let's compare the two young stars:

	Miley	Selena
Appears on a Disney Channel show	Yes ("Hannah Montana")	Yes ("Wizards of Waverly Place")
Sings (well, you know, what they call singing)	Yes	Yes
Has appeared in movies	Yes	Yes
Is 15 years old	Yes	Yes
Has appeared semi-nude in Vanity Fair	Yes	No

Well! Seems like the decision is a simple one, right?

(Note that this is only a rumor, although it is, admittedly, a believable one.)

More Outrageous Than Miley? Disney Bra and Panty Billboard

image: NYPost.com

Parents With the Miley Problem

Kelly Mills — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:03:00 GMT

If you live under a rock, let me break it down for you: Miley Cyrus did some Vanity Fair photos clad in a bedsheet with rumpled hair. This one comes after we discovered Jamie Lynn Spears is knocked up and Vanessa Hudgens has topless pics on the internet. All of which I suppose has parents tearing out their hair and wondering how to explain these things to their young daughters, the ones who make up the fan bases of these girls. I suggest something like, "Honey, all the girls on television and in the movies are nothing but tramps and harlots, and god help you if you ever do anything like that."

Seriously? I guess the concern is that people are afraid their children will find the behaviors of their teen idols "cool" and perhaps emulate it themselves. I can assure you that Vanity Fair has not sent Annie Leibovitz to my house to tempt my child into a Lolita-esque photo shoot, so I think we're safe. But you know, there's all kinds of discussions to be had with our daughters about how girls and women are portrayed in the media, and how different people make different choices with their lives and those choices have different consequences. And we could even have these discussions before a 15-year-old poses in a sheet because there's plenty of imagery that flies under the radar but carries the same messages. I don't think we need to be real judge-y or impose media blackouts, but we can teach our kids to be critical media consumers from the get-go. And I doubt our girls are idiots, so we can probably trust them not to run out and try and be like the stars they follow.

Best of FameCrawler: Week of May 2nd

Whit Honea — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair Photos: Annie Leibovitz Speaks

Oprah Reveals Scoop On Tom Cruise Interview

Jessica Alba- A Bra Would Only Slow Her Down

Lourdes Looks Like A Young Angelina Jolie?

Claudia Shiffer and Daughter Clementine

Melissa Joan Hart Has Her Pre-Baby Body Back

Kate Hudson Tops People's Most Beautiful People List

Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon Married...and Expecting?

Courteney Cox Getting Baby Help from Friend

More Halle Berry Post Baby Body Pics!

More Outrageous Than Miley? Disney Bra and Panty Billboard

Madeline Holler — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:28:00 GMT

Disney breathlessly defended the innocence of their virginal cash cow Miley Cyrus (aka: Hannah Montana), describing her topless Vanity Fair photo shoot thusly: "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines." For shame!

So how did the spokeperson for all things Disney react when a Slate writer sent photos of a billboard he saw on a recent trip to China? The billboard features a girl in pigtails wearing nothing but a Mickey Mouse bra and underwear set and Minnie Mouse hand puppets. The Disney signature is stamped prominently in the corner.

Well, the spokesperson said Disney had nothing to do with it.

From Slate:

"It has caught us totally by surprise," [Company spokesman Gary] Foster told me by phone from Guangzhou. He explained that Disney contracts with a host of licensees, who produce and market products for the Disney brand. Foster said that licensees are contractually bound to clear all advertising with Disney's corporate offices. "We have literally hundreds of licensees making our products. They are supposed to submit any kind of imagery to us before it is used, but it's hard to enforce that sometimes," he said.

He assured Slate that the billboard would soon be removed, but also pointed out that the age of consent in China is 14 (compared to 18 in California, the land of Disney). He said Europe also tolerates a little more sexy-sexy from its girls, as well. (American prudes!)

Personally, I see quite a difference in the pictures. Namely, in the Chinese ad the girl is smiling and holding hand puppets. In Vanity Fair, Miley's pouting with half-opened sultry eyes and wrapped in a bed sheet. Those pictures are telling two different stories (though supporting the same thesis: we have a right and a duty to look at naked-ish girls!!!!).

You tell us: what's the best way to (1) sell kiddie undies and (2) artistically interpret the inner-life of a teen pop idol? Obviously, doing neither is simply not an option.

Photo: Slate

Did VF "Groom" Miley Cyrus?

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:01:00 GMT

All joking aside, this business of Miley's half-naked pictures in Vanity Fair is raising quite a kafuffle. And this fills me with great hope. In a culture where young girls are modeling at 12, and being pushed into adulthood by age 13, it starts to feel like fighting to keep our girls Bratz and low-cut jeans free and innocent might be a losing battle.

But Gawker suggests that something even more evil is going on here.

They argue that in fact Miley Cyrus was effective 'groomed' (the method used by pedophiles to make the victim and the victim's caretakers comfortable with the molester)...

Even though Miley's parents were at the shoot (witness the creepy photos with Dad), it is clear a boundary was crossed.

The outrage and finger pointing aside (Disney blaming Vanity Fair is RICH), what the hell kind of world are we living in? This girl is not the first to be exploited (remember "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins? See below)

Nor will she be the last. In the end, nothing stands between kids and exploitation but their parents. And it's clear in this case that Miley's parents failed her gravely. Hopefully none of us will make the same mistake.

Pregnant Model Eva Herzigova's Sexy Vanity Fair Cover

Alisyn — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:02:00 GMT

Model Eva Herzigova, 33, announced her first pregnancy to the world via the cover of Italian Vanity Fair this month.

Eva is posed alluringly, sexy/angry/professional-model-pout in place, and clad in a bra, panties and thigh-highs. As far as pregnancy announcements go... well, you're not going to find one like this in the aisles at Target. But to be quite frank, it's the hottest announcement, of any kind, I've ever seen. I think it can be safely said that no one has ever looked that good six months pregnant.

Daaamn.

This cover is one in a growing line of Vanity Fair magazine covers celebrating pregnant and nursing women. There is, of course, the most famous cover: Demi Moore, gloriously pregnant with her middle daughter, and wearing only massive diamonds. Actress/model Jerry Hall, former wife of Mick Jagger, posed for her cover while breastfeeding her youngest son, Gabriel. And now Eva, in all her pregnant glory.

In the interview, Eva claims that she and boyfriend Gregorio plan to have 3 kids, and that they'll try for number two as soon as they can. I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to the announcement.

Human Body Project Hopes to Widen Perceptions of Beauty

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:00:00 GMT

Canadian artist Tasha Diamant, creator of the Human Body Project, hopes to alter our perceptions of beauty by using her 45-year old pregnant body as her work of art. I have to hand it to her, most women want to run and hide when naked, or pregnant, but especially when both, excepting of course the lovely airbrushed Demi Moore on the 1991 Vanity Fair cover, shot by Annie Liebowitz.

What I like about Diamant is that she's not just presenting the same old tired arguments about women and their shame and their poor body images. She poses nude and pregnant in a studio in her small Alberta town hoping to prompt her audience to reach a deeper understanding of humankind's fragility and physical vulnerability.

Anyone who has held a newborn knows what she's talking about -- the bobbly head, the soft spot, the oft fawned over teeny tiny hands and feet, the wee quiet cry.

Humans are fragile. Indeed.

But what of cankles? And veiny bumpy areolas? And pregnancy ass? And hormones?

I'm bowled over by her courage. When I was pregnant, I used to avoid my full length mirror (or any mirror) at all costs. I wasn't ashamed. I didn't feel badly about myself. I just didn't want to see what was going on. You can call me immature or deluded, but some things are better left to the imagination --preferably one filled with the image of pretty Demi at seven months pregnant.

Down with Lust: Not Better, Just More

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 23:00:00 GMT

In a soon-to-be-published book, "Lube Job: A Woman's Guide to Great Maintenance Sex," Debra and Don McLeod write about the importance of maintenance sex in keeping a monogamous couple happy, healthy, and out of divorce court. As the authors of a blog on marriage, monogamy, and the challenges therein, these folks seem to know what they are talking about. If successful marital lovin' has less to do with clothes-ripping screamfests and more to do with quiet quick and thorough, then count me in.

In an age when Tantra is the new missionary position, and the practice of light bondage, dress-up and fantasy role-play is as common as inappropriate Republican text messaging, it is truly a wonder that any of us can manage a kiss let alone a sinful romp. And that's not even counting the stultifying, passion-killing wear and tear of childrearing, jobs, housecleaning, laundry and the extra 10, ok 15, pounds some of us are carrying around. Sex is everywhere. And it's exhausting.

The popularity of books such as "Confessions of a Naughty Mommy" and "How to Have Great Sex Using Common Household Items" (not a real book), would lead us to believe that we're all just several sit-ups, an attitude shift, and some edible lube away from experiencing mind-blowing sex with great regularity.

But who are we (parents) kidding? How can we realistically expect to have the energy and drive to carry-on as we did in our 20s when there are so many distinctively unsexy things going on in our lives? I don't think we can.

And I'm well-nigh convinced that the only way out of this asexual diaper-filled morass is to lower expectations, and get used to more meatloaf and less caviar. More convention, less invention. Let's leave the acrobatics to the single and childless --at least until colllege.