When I first saw the headline concerning an open letter from Sinead O'Connor to Miley Cyrus, my immediate instinct was to laugh. How could I not? Images of Cyrus' sad, tear-stained nakedness in her "Wrecking Ball" video swirled and combined with Sinead O'Connor's tear-stained baldness in her unforgettably angsty video for "Nothing Compares 2 U," and the hilarity of what I first perceived as yet another has-been hopping on the We-Pity-Miley-For-More-Press train just boiled over. Nothing compared 2 this new chapter in the epic that Cyrus' pratfalls had contributed to since her fateful VMA performance.
But I openly admit that I would have been wrong to laugh. O'Connor's letter is pretty much guaranteed to fall on deaf ears, but the points she makes therein are insightful and straightforward. She addresses the disturbing sexualization of Cyrus' image, writing, "Kindly fire any motherfucker who hasn’t expressed alarm, because they don’t care about you." (Well put, Sinead.) Her prediction that Cyrus — who has openly discussed her drug use — will end up alone in rehab rings chillingly when we think about the woebegone fates that have met young superstars like Lindsay Lohan or Mischa Barton. (And now let's take a moment of silence for Barton's post-OC career.) Being a constant news item or fixture at parties is not a good thing — as Sinead says, "I’m suggesting you don’t care for yourself. That has to change. You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you. This is a dangerous world."
Admittedly, the repeated and hyperbolic use of the term "pimped" in reference to Cyrus' new objectified image weakened the strength of O'Connor's plea, but the singer's objections are still strongly grounded in recent events. Cyrus has said that her inspiration for the "Wrecking Ball" video was O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U," yet anyone who has watched both videos would see that "Wrecking Ball" plays like a cheap and hyper-sexualized satire of the latter, instead of a tribute. If that was Cyrus' idea of an homage, then there remains something to be said for her taste level, her sense of humor, and the decisions those around her are allowing her (and encouraging her) to make.
O'Connor's comments about ending up on the rag heap after a long career based around youth and beauty sing a cautionary tale, and one that bodes badly for our beloved or much-discussed Miley Cyrus, should she remain on her current path. We can only hope, as Sinead O'Connor does, that these capers are either a brilliant ploy to top the charts again or a phase, because if they aren't, we may live to see O'Connor warnings become reality. And no matter how much we might be offended by Cyrus, the last person we'd want her to be compared to is the long-troubled O'Connor.
