What you have just witnessed is the unruly music video to Miley Cyrus' latest single, 'We Can't Stop'. The video sees her grinding and writhing all over the place, and shows how drastically her image and music has changed since her days as a star of Disney Channel.
Many people would call her latest attempt at trying to re-invent her image as an artist as a step in the right direction, but I however, disagree. I think that in this video Cyrus tries exceedingly too hard to be someone that deep down she really is not. It was only a few years ago that she was portraying the role of 'Hannah Montana' on the hit Disney Channel show, so such a drastic change is astonishing and quite shocking for young fans of the star.
I am sure that there are many young girls all over the world who view Miley Cyrus as an inspiration, and no matter how hard she tries, people will always recognise her as a sweet, innocent child star. Her recent behaviour could be deemed as ineffectual, and she may now be seen as a bad role model for all of her young fans, who are easily influenced by the ways women are portrayed in the media.
Lyrically, the song is a typical run-of-the-mill party anthem, with Cyrus claiming that 'it's our party, we can do what we want'. However, some of the lyrics of the song have caused controversy with their ambiguous meanings - for example, Cyrus sings the lyric 'dancing with Miley', but it is actually unclear whether she says 'Miley', or 'Molly' - another name for the drug ecstasy. She also sings 'everyone in line in the bathroom, trying to get a line in the bathroom' - this immediately suggests connotations of taking the drug cocaine. These lyrics may have completely different meanings, but their implications may not have such a positive effect on young people who look up to her.
Overall, the song isn't entirely bad, but I think that Cyrus should have a long, hard think about the consequences that her new image change can have on young people who see her as an inspiration and a positive role model. If she carries on at this rate, the younger generation will not shape up to be a very pleasant one.
Charlie Stockwell
