When you read any sort of thing about young stars these days, there is this one thing that always keeps coming back. The ever so important image, the idea that stars create a certain persona around themselves to attract a certain portion of society to themselves. The problem I however see is that the assumption is made that everyone does it, that for every celebrity there is a well thought out plan as to how develop this image. So as to how they are seen by other people.
I don’t believe that that is the case. As far as I see it, there are three sorts of people. People who seem to care too much about their image, people who do what feels right but still think about it and there are those who just don’t care about it at all. To illustrate what I mean I’m going to use three examples. For the first group Selena Gomez, for the second Miley Cyrus and for the third Taylor Momsen. Why those three? Mainly because the media likes to report on them the most, though they generally put Taylor in the same category as Miley which I don’t agree with. Some of them even turn it into an image competition.
It shows in everything really, let’s start with the kind of interviews they do for example. Selena is rarely caught on any even remotely questionable opinion, everything she says is just safe. Which as such isn’t a bad thing but it makes her just seem a bit distant, not very emotional, no real passion about something. You always get the impression that she thinks about every word she says and there better not be anything bad.
Miley on the other says what is on her mind (though less in the past, seeing quite a few jokes were misinterpreted because people don’t understand sarcasm), it’s not like she ever says anything really bad but she won’t not say something just because it might cause drama. Then there is Taylor Momsen who pretty much will talk about everything as long as it’s shocking. People especially liked pointing out her comments about vibrators and masturbation. She doesn’t care if she’s seen as an oversexed drug addict.
Then there are the performance outfits they use, of course Miley and Taylor perform more but Selena is starting to get into it a bit more now. Miley does dress racy yes, I know that and I have pointed it out before and I even questioned it. When she wears things like leotards she doesn’t hide much but the thing with that is, that she never has hidden it really. She’s being accused of changing her image this year to get rid of her Hannah Montana fanbase. Now the people who say this are forgetting one thing; Miley has been criticized for her performance outfits from the very start.
Be it wearing a short plaid skirt at one of the first performances to short skirts during her Best of Both Worlds tour to hotpants on the Wonder World Tour. There has always been criticism and yes the outfits have evolved to wearing less but she has always been criticized for performing in too sexy outfits. So in my eyes that whole argument doesn’t make any sense, I just think she feels comfortable in it in a way. Sure there will be people advising her on what to wear and those suggestions would also be made with a certain idea behind it but I don’t think she would wear something she didn’t want to.
Taylor Momsen is just random in her performance outfits, there also isn’t a whole lot of them there. Usually showing off as much chest as possible, her main tool I think are her shoes. The giant stripper heels and she even says that that’s where she gets her stuff. Just like with the interviews it’s more to shock people than anything. The thing with Selena Gomez her performance outfits is that they are more sexy than they seem, in a sense even more than Miley’s. They usually show off a lot of chest and a lot of leg. Which isn’t a crime but to me it seems like she’s stepping it up just a little, hard to say really, she’s still new to it.
In a way Taylor needs what she does, her voice fits her music well yes but what else is there? When you see her performing in all reality it’s a bit bland, people can say she focuses on the music but when you flash your tits that argument is pretty much completely lost. It’s a part of the act, it’s a way of getting attention to it, her performances need the shock factor and she likes to give that. Miley wears little on stage but she also moves around a lot, she doesn’t actually show anything naughty on stage just a lot of skin. That she moves around a lot and tries to give people as good a show as possible is lost on them. If people would stop focusing on the leotards for a second they’d see that.
People even accuse Miley of getting her tattoos for the sake of her image, that her whole family is into tattoos and have a lot of them is lost on people somehow. Her mother has too many tattoos to keep track of, her older sister isn’t exactly ink free either and then there of course is her older brother who is one big tattoo. Besides, if you were to use that argument; why isn’t Taylor Momsen covered in tattoos yet? Would think that that fits perfectly with her “image” and yet there are none, well there is one but it’s so small that you have to question whether it can even be counted as a tattoo.
There of course also are what they wear when not “on the job”. For Taylor Momsen I honestly don’t know because you don’t see her hounded by paparazzi all that much, mostly only on the Gossip Girl set and when she’s out promoting something. Does she dress the same in other circumstances? I have no idea. Miley gets a lot of criticism because of her wardrobe, was it in the past for showing too much bra when wearing a tank tops, now it’s not wearing a bra when wearing a T-shirt.
She never actually shows that much but when she wears one of her ripped shirts and you can see part of a breast and read the tattoo under it of course the media is going to jump on it. Selena’s outfits no one cares about and she doesn’t even have to think about it, the paparazzi don’t pay her all that much attention. Would think that if they followed her more there would be more to complain about seeing she’s not exactly fond of wearing a bra either (if she even owns one). Accidents are bound to happen and seeing Miley is the one that’s being hounded the most, the bigger the chance of them finding a “scandalous” pic of her.
When we look at careers I’m going to ignore the music because you can read the reviews on this site how I feel about that. There has also been criticism regarding Miley’s career choices and how they fit with her quest to change her “image”. When you look at Selena you can see she’s only done safe things so far, though she recently indicated that it might be time to venture outside of comedy. When that will happen we’ll see, as for Miley, for now she’s actually sticking with comedy but she’s still expanding. LOL, her next movie is a comedy with some drama touches to it and with more adult contents like drugs, alcohol and sex.
Is that role a way of changing her image? No, I see it as a way to grow as an actress and to do that you also have to choose a different subject matter. People who think that this is such an attempt at changing things would also be wrong for the simple reason that this isn’t going to be a big release, it’s an independent movie. Odds are most people won’t even see it. The movie after LOL is So Undercover which is an action comedy, so again comedy but a different genre. How is that changing her image? Just because she plays someone she’s not it means an image change? They don’t call it acting without a reason. She also still has Wings planned which is a fairytale under Disney (though you never know if it will actually happen), if anything that would be dropping her whole “new image”.
What Miley does is broadening her horizon, while she steps out of her comfort zone she’s still staying close to it. Venturing out but carefully and not outright go into an R-rated film with who knows how much swearing and nudity. She’s making sure that in the future however she can make a transition into genres that she isn’t doing now. Crossing over without leaving what she knows but still a way to learn, it’s a different case with Selena. Selena so far has done the same basic character in several movies, never venturing out into something else. This could hurt her in the long run, when you look at someone who was in a similar situation, in this case Hilary Duff. She stayed with the safe roles at first but then decided to do more serious roles and failed to be seen as a serious actress. She actually did a good job in According to Greta but did anyone even see it?
Doing different roles and expanding is a way of preventing that, even though it will still take a lot of hard work from either Selena or Miley to prevent it from happening. The generic Disney star image is a strong one in people and it’s not easy to get rid of. Selena however is and she’s being seen as a great potential actress which in my eyes twists reality around a little bit, if Miley is seen as a generic Disney star why isn’t Selena? Doing the same basic character over and over again isn’t challenging and most certainly isn’t showing a large range. This weird safe image she has however overcomes that somehow. I do however believe that if she doesn’t do something outside of her comfort zone within the next year, it will hurt her in the long run. Don’t even know how to fit Taylor Momsen in here seeing I don’t even know if she’s going to continue acting as things are going now.
My main problem with image is the perception of it all, different standards apply to different people. Let’s change images around a little, let’s say that Selena had Miley’s image and was trying to be as sexy as possible as Miley is being accused of. Well to be honest she’s already trying in performances and people just see it as growing up, nothing more. I’m pretty sure that if Miley had Selena’s image people would say she’s trying too hard to stay “good”. Not even mentioning Taylor Momsen with Selena’s image because no one would have a clue who I’m talking about.
Images aren’t as black and white as people make them out to be. Selena seems to be all about image, the image is what carries her and if she were to do something that will harm herimage I don’t know what will happen. Miley hasn’t tried to maintain an image even though people want to believe she has. People who say that Miley tried to maintain her squeaky clean image over all these years and is now dumping it must only have the Disney Channel on their TV seeing that it’s a complete lie. If someone were to say it about Selena; they’d have a point.
You cannot base your view of a person on just one TV show, if people actually paid attention to what Miley says and does they’d see that. The thing with all these Miley “scandals” (you can only call one or two actual scandals) show is the different perception of Miley and actually is evidence that she did not try and maintain an image. While Taylor Momsen tries to be more shocking each and every time, whether it be in an interview or on stage. No sense of preserving any sort of image in there.
So there can’t actually a case of someone trying to change their image when they don’t have a real image to begin with. Sure they do things that will change the perception people have of them but are they for the reason of an image change? I don’t think they are. Selena uses image as a marketing tool, Miley does what she feels is right as an artist at a certain time and Taylor does what she does to boost her music career because she sort of has to. So three people who are all accused of going for an image but in my eyes, it’s just not true.
great