*I started writing this post last night but then had to get to bed and was away from my computer until now. I’m sure a million blog posts have been written about this by now, but I’m actively avoiding reading anything that will accidentally enter my brain and find its way into my copy. Just so’s you know.
So, if you were on the Internet at all yesterday, then you must have seen Sinead O’Conner’s open letter to Miley Cirus, which then led to Miley’s tweets mocking Sinead’s mental illness, which then led to Sinead basically telling Miley to fuck off. If you were blessedly ignorant, you can catch up on it all here.
As my Gen X cohorts were gleefully reposting Sinead’s letter on their twitter and Facebook feeds, all I could think was, “Really? An OPEN letter? WTF Sinead??!”
I loved Sinead as an angsty teen – I mean, come on The Lion and the Cobra? Are you kidding me? “Mandinka” and “Troy” and “Lay Your Hands on Me”? ANTHEMS YOU GUYS. Kids today, man, they don’t really seem to have anthems. They have jingles.
She was so raw, so un-80s with her shaved head and slight body. Taylor Dayne and Samantha Fox and Whitney Houston all had albums out that year, too. Sinead wasn’t big hair and bog boobs and dance tracks. She was haunting and angry and sad and everything a nerdy 14-year-old-fledgling feminist was both drawn to and frightened of.
“Nothing Compares 2U?” A ballad in the truest sense, and a video with nothing but this bald girl and her tears juxtaposing away. Beautiful. Stark.
I watched SNL live October 3, 1992. What else would an 18-year-old Greek girl with a 10:30 p.m. curfew be doing on a Saturday night? Her performance of Bob Marley’s “War,” unaccompanied by any instruments, unadorned by anything but some lit candles behind her, was brave and naked in a way I don’t think our current young singers can really deliver, what with the pressure for perfection that’s manufactured by voice editing software and photo editing software and stylists and handlers. It doesn’t take a whole lot of courage for a well-toned 20-something to bare the body several well-paid professionals have helped her achieve, but to bare your imperfect soul? That takes balls. To tear up a picture up of the Pope in the early 90s? That was career suicide. That was amazing. And fucking scary. I’m not even Catholic and I was shocked. Stunned, really, in an era when it was easier to be stunned. The silence that followed in the studio audience? That silence echoed throughout every home in North America. Remember, this was before desecrating images of hallowed religious figures was de rigueur, when the word “sacrilegious” was a true insult and a true statement, and not just one of many political and publicity toolkit tactics. She was angry about child abuse in the Church, and she just put it out there without apology. This girl not only raged against the patriarchy, she took the Patriarch himself on. That was fearless of her and frightening for the rest of us. Maybe a bit frightening for her, too, though you wouldn’t know it from the way she stared down the camera.
So, I was a little disappointed that she wrote this open letter to Miley Cyrus.
I can get Sinead caring enough to write Miley a letter, though why Miley and not so many others, I don’t know. How Miley Cyrus has become “the girl to save from herself” will inform undergrad Communication and Culture theses for a long time.
But that aside, I get the frustration of watching women half your age make different choices then you would make, or than you would want them to make. I get wanting to share your experiences and save someone the heartache. I, too, have occasionally wanted to wrap Miley (and Justin Bieber, too!) in a nice, warm, fuzzy pair of pyjamas, get her a cup of cocoa and just, like, give her a break. I’m with you, sister. But I can’t help thinking that if this was really about reaching out to Miley, who has said she based her look on Sinead’s, why on earth would you not get your people to call her people and set up a lunch date or a phone call or a one-on-one skype session even? WHY WOULD YOU POST A PERSONAL LETTER ON THE INTERNET IF YOU WEREN’T INTENDING TO STIR SHIT UP??
I may sound like an old person, because Miley might think it would be weird NOT to have personal info directed to her in such a public place since she belongs to the generation who has never really known otherwise, but Sinead’s older than I am. She remembers how to use a landline or how to lick a stamp. She understands the notion of privacy. And she also well knows the value of a public action. Her letter wasn’t bad per se – it was full of sage, if slightly condescending, advice. Condescending because it presumes that Miley’s being taken advantage of. To me it seems that Miley has complete agency around her decisions. The Juliette character on Nashville that everyone says is based on Taylor Swift? I think she’s actually inspired by Miley. These young people, they may not have anthems but they sure seem to be savvier about a lot of things than we were at their age, and that includes sex and its place in the music industry.
I’m not defending Miley’s resulting mean tweets. Sinead’s absolutely right in protesting that mocking people suffering from mental illness leads to death. Plus it’s just catty and cruel and ignorant.
On the other hand, Sinead’s posting a personal plea for someone to stop prostituting themselves on a public website is kind of judgey and ignorant, too.
Sinead O’Conner’s music and look and anger were an inspiration way back when because they represented the antithesis of what was expected of female pop stars. And her public struggles with and recovery from mental illness are equally inspiring. Which is why her letter, chock full of accusations that play into the status quo idea that free expression of a different kind of female sexuality than the one she chose can only be made under duress, was disappointing.
I have to wonder, coming from someone so smart and so savvy about public acts of protest, what was the end game here? Was Miley supposed to send her flowers and thank her for caring and ask her to write a song with her that would make Sinead O’Conner relevant to a new generation?
Maybe that’s just mean spirited and jaded of me. I may actually just be a horrible person second-guessing a truly well-intentioned but ill-thought-out gesture. But it certainly put Sinead back in the public eye, didn’t it? And Miley? She’s exactly where she has been for the last long while – front and center and in control of her own narrative.
