Cinderella Ate My Daughter (13 page)

But the winner for most spectacular slide from squeaky to skanky has got to be Britney Spears. It is hard to believe now, but the singer’s original audience was as young as—maybe younger than—Miley Cyrus’s. Six-year-olds adored the singer the way they would a favorite babysitter, the one who lets you brush her hair. Britney was a relatively mature seventeen when she shimmied onto the scene in 1998, and her success was arguably the template for all the contradictory, mixed, or bait-and-switch messages that have since defined mainstream girls’ culture: flaunt your sexuality but don’t feel it, use it for power but not for pleasure. From the start, Britney tried to have it both ways, selling sex
and
candy. In her breakthrough video, “ . . . Baby One More Time” (the ellipses a stand-in for the words “Hit Me”), she wore a short Catholic schoolgirl’s skirt, knee socks, and a white blouse tied to reveal her midriff and unbuttoned to show a black bra. A year later, she confessed, “Oops! . . . I did it again!” while writhing on her back under the video camera’s leering eye. It is tempting to say that Britney in her prime was just another iteration of Madonna, challenging expectations, messing with assumptions, self-consciously exploiting herself before the culture could do it for her:
commenting on
rather than
participating in
girls’ sexualization. She encouraged that connection by infamously tongue-wrestling the older performer onstage—Britney dressed as a bride, Madonna as a groom—while performing “Like a Virgin,” at the 2003 MTV Video Awards. But in the end, the comparison fails. I have to admit that I am not a huge Madonna fan. Although I’m happy to hit the dance floor for “Lucky Star,” I was never convinced that she was so revolutionary, that she ever really “empowered” anyone but herself. A lot of women who spent their teen years wearing their bras on the outside of their shirts may disagree, but whether you got into her groove or not, Madonna never denied what she was doing—quite the opposite. From the start, with her
BOY TOY
belt and dangling crucifix, it was she who called the shots: she was self-created, explicit both about her intent and about the contradictions of women’s sexuality that she explored. She was also an actual adult—age twenty-five when her first album was released—and she was not aggressively courting second-graders as fans. When she skipped through Venice singing “Like a Virgin,” it was darned clear she was not one.

Britney, on the other hand, publicly insisted on her chastity (at least for a while). She was not only a loud-and-proud virgin, urging other girls to follow her example, but acted willfully clueless about the disconnect between her words and deeds. So although in 1999, while still seventeen, she appeared on the cover of
Rolling Stone
in short shorts and a black push-up bra, clutching a stuffed Teletubby, inside the magazine she declared in all earnestness, “I don’t want to be part of someone’s Lolita thing. It kind of freaks me out.” People are so pervy, she would sigh, it wasn’t
her
fault if they got the wrong idea. Later, in an
Esquire
interview illustrated by a photo in which she posed naked save for microscopic undies and several artfully placed strands of pearls, she commented, “Look, if you want me to be some kind of sex thing, that’s not me.” She did it again! How can she be blamed—she just can’t help herself ! She has no idea what she’s doing! She may radiate sex, but how, at her tender age, could she be responsible for that? It was her stubborn disingenuousness—her winking detachment from her actions and impact—that eroticized Britney’s (not so) innocence and, unintentionally or not, that of the millions of elementary school–aged girls who slavishly followed her. When they bared their midriffs—or performed sexually charged dance moves or wore “sassy” costumes—they were not in on the joke.

Eventually, though, Britney got older and needed to evolve; when she dropped the act and became consciously rather than “accidentally” sexy, the public turned on her, and the knowing naïf was branded a slut. How were fans supposed to understand that? Suddenly Britney’s fairy tale was transformed into a cautionary tale: woe to girls who step over the ever-shifting invisible line between virgin and whore (or as one group of middle school ex-fans referred to Britney, “slore,” an elision of “slut” and “whore”). Over the course of five years, the singer married and divorced, shacked up with a guy whose previous girlfriend was eight months pregnant with his child, bounced through rehab, shaved her head, stopped wearing panties in public (what is
with
that?), had two sons, lost them in a custody battle, and finally was hauled from her house on a gurney and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Given the schizoid comments she had been spewing since high school, was that such a shock? I’m not saying that every girl who teeters on the tightrope between child and woman risks ending up institutionalized, but, again like Cinderella in her time, Britney embodies the predicament of ordinary girls writ large. They, too, struggle with the expectation to look sexy but not feel sexual, to provoke desire in others without experiencing it themselves. Our daughters may not be faced with the decision of whether to strip for
Maxim
, but they will have to figure out how to become sexual beings without being objectified or stigmatized. That is not easy when self-respect has become a marketing gimmick, a way for female pop stars to bide their time before serving up their sexuality as a product for public consumption.

Miley Cyrus grinned down from giant banners flanking the entrance to the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
MILEY CYRUS: ONLY AT WALMART!
they announced. Beneath them, fans lined up five-deep hoping to catch a glimpse of their idol live as she strode from her tour bus in the parking lot to her backstage dressing room. It was the fall of 2009, and this was the second stop on Miley’s forty-five-city Wonder World Tour, her first since her spate of miniscandals. The crowd—mostly in the six- to nine-year-old range with a smattering of ten- to twelve-year-olds and a few stray teens—seemed unfazed by her media spankings. They waved homemade cardboard signs with Miley’s or Hannah’s picture pasted on them, surrounded by hand-drawn flowers, puff-painted hearts, or feathers.
MILEY, YOU ROCK THE HOUSE
! one read.
HANNAH MONTANA SONGS ARE THE
BEST! claimed another.

A year ago, my own daughter had come here for a “Disney on Ice” show, invited by a friend who was celebrating her birthday. The party guests had dressed as Cinderella, Belle, Ariel (though Daisy, perhaps due to months of maternal propaganda, chose Pocahontas, the only child to do so in a crowd of thousands). The mob of girls here tonight, including the ones just a year or two older than the ice show crowd, were also dressed up as Disney Princesses, though the nature of the costumes had changed: they wore miniskirts bare-legged with high-heeled boots, topped off by pink-and-black buffalo-checked fedoras; zebra-print shirts with sparkling bodices that would have highlighted their cleavages had they had any. Several little girls swung by in white furry boots and low-rise black pleather “jeggings” (a combo of jeans and leggings). A stretch Hummer pulled up to disgorge a group of what I am guessing were second-graders in black minis with chains slung low across the hips and pink fingerless gloves.

I doubt that the six-year-old with the crimped hair and fuchsia mini would describe what she was wearing as sexy. To her it was just fun, attention-getting; she is the real-life, genuine version of the Britney Spears
Rolling Stone
cover. Disney’s Andy Mooney had told me that Princess (and so, presumably, by extension, Hannah & Co.) was “aspirational”; I was not so sure I would want my daughter aspiring to this. Pink-and-pretty had been marketed to parents of preschoolers as evidence of their innocence, a harmless, even natural, way to identify as a girl. Now, for their older sisters, the pitch was changing: looking hot or at least hot-esque—at concerts, on Halloween, after school, in your dance routines—was the way to express femininity, to “be true, be you.” Two slightly older girls walked by, gum cracking, hips swaying, eyelids darkened with thick liner. They wore identical skintight microminis, black camisoles, and boots, again with bare legs. One had flung a pink neon feather boa around her neck, the other a chartreuse one. They seemed about twelve, so I figured they were old enough for the look. Then I recalled the beauty pageant I had attended, how quickly I had become accustomed to five-year-olds with spray tans, teased hair, and lipstick, and I reconsidered: when, exactly, had a twelve-year-old Stripperella ceased to shock?

When Miley finally appeared, the crowd crushed forward, screaming at a frequency attainable only by young girls and Wagnerian sopranos. Next to me, a little girl in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and pink cowboy boots jumped up and down, nearly out of control. “I can’t see, I can’t see!” she hollered. Miley, dressed in her preshow outfit of black cargo pants with a tank top and oversized shades, crinkled her nose endearingly and waved at the crowd. Her smile seemed genuine as she stopped to pose for photos and sign a few hurried autographs. Even after she was well out of sight the fans continued to shriek, just for the joy of it. A ten-year-old with a
SECRET STAR
shirt and multicolored barrettes stared in disbelief at the picture of Miley she’d snapped on her cell phone. “I’m sending this to everyone on my contact list
right now
!!” she announced. It was, admittedly, sort of heartening to see girls swoon for a female star rather than for the latest Backstreet/Hanson/Jonas pretty boy.

Inside, real-time text messages sent by the audience scrolled by on screens surrounding the stage. “
WE LOVE YOU MILEY!
” “
I LOVE YOU
!” “
MY 5-YEAR-OLD’S FIRST CONCERT. SHE LOVES YOU!
” When the lights finally dimmed, the crowd hollered again, frantically waving light sticks. Smoke-machine fog rolled across the stage, clearing to reveal what appeared to be a giant chrysalis, surrounded by whirling dancers. A figure stepped out, head covered by a drab shawl. Suddenly flames exploded, lasers bounced across the stage, the figure threw off the shawl, and… it was Miley, her brown hair flowing, her cargo pants and tank top replaced by black leather hot pants and a low-cut leather vest. She burst into a song titled “Breakout.” “It feels so good to let go-o-o!” she sang.

This was a very different girl from the one who, some two years earlier, on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, had confided to Oprah Winfrey that “I look way young, and that’s the way it’s more comfortable to me”; the one who had said that she chooses clothing that “will get a thumbs-up from girls and their parents”; the one whom, only a year before, Barbara Walters had introduced as “any parent’s antidote to the common crop of teen train wrecks.” Back then, Miley had earnestly told Walters why she was different from Britney, Jamie Lynn (Britney’s sister, the star of Nickelodeon’s
Zoey 101
, who became pregnant out of wedlock at age sixteen), Lindsay, and the Olsen twins: “Some people don’t have a family to fall back on and faith.” She, by implication, was a girl whom parents could trust not to treat clean values as a stepping-stone to something else—she was
sincere
.

The
Vanity Fair
photos hit the Web less than three months later.

Even those who were inclined to cut Miley some slack, to chalk that incident up to a momentary lapse in judgment, began to wonder in the summer of 2009, when she debuted her new single, “Party in the U.S.A.,” on the Teen Choice Awards (whose audience is made up largely of preteen girls). She strutted out of a trailer in booty shorts and a sparkly tank slit up the sides to expose her bra. As she sang, she stepped offstage, onto an ice cream cart topped with a pole, the kind that would typically be used as an umbrella stand; then, hanging on with one hand, she dropped into a squat, her knees splayed, her back arched. The move was, to say the least, at odds with the image of the family-friendly pop star she portrayed on TV.

Once again, controversy broke out: What kind of sticky-sweet treat was this flavor of the moment selling? Miley claimed the crouch was insignificant, not to mention personally approved by her father. Bloggers called the umbrella stand “a stripper pole with training wheels” and accused Billy Ray of pimping his sixteen-year-old child rather than doing his paternal duty by protecting her. Around that time, Miley was also photographed in
Elle
magazine lying on a table wearing a short skirt and thigh-high black boots. In both cases, she once again apologized to her fans, though she was beginning to come off as the child-star version of Richard Nixon. More and more, the “mistakes” were seen as part of the plan. It was Miley’s turn to cast off the role model mantle, along with the worshipful audience who had believed it was real.

By the time I saw Miley in concert, she had agreed, after some tense negotiation, to stay at the Disney Channel for a final season of
Hannah Montana
. But the Mouse House was already moving her out. There is always a new girl in the wings, someone who promises never to disappoint by shucking her principles along with her clothes. For the moment, both Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato—show business veterans who met on the set of
Barney and Friends
in 2002—were being promoted as the Anti-Mileys (Bridgit Mendler, the star of the show
Good Luck Charlie
, is another contender). Selena, who also appeared on
Hannah Montana
, had since 2007 played a girl with magical powers on the Disney Channel’s
Sabrina
knockoff,
Wizards of Waverly Place
. Demi’s more recent “zit-com,”
Sonny with a Chance
, is a more overt
Hannah Montana
rip-off: she plays a small-town girl who lands a role on a TV show and has to adjust to her newfound stardom. As of this writing, Selena seems to be breaking bigger: her first solo album,
Kiss & Tell
, debuted at number nine on the charts. In addition to a
Wizards
made-for-TV movie, she co-starred in the 2010 release
Ramona and Beezus
, and her likeness has been plastered on some 30 million packages of Sara Lee baked goods.