Miley Cyrus’s Latest Shocking Photo Scandal

Miley CyrusUh oh. Miley Cyrus is at it again! Every once in a while she detects a disturbing calm wash over the land, and she knows that the nation's finger-waggers and watchful stewards of the patriarchy have gotten too complacent. So she does something wild and wicked to rile them back up again. Long ago it was a photo shoot in which she, fiendishly, bared her naked back. Years later it was, of course, her performance at the Video Music Awards, a feverish tarantella of innuendos and insinuations that had all the town fathers blustering in their beards about the sexual flagrancy of a lewd young woman.

But that was ages ago, and Miley has wisely decided it's time once again to rustle the chickens. So she's posted two new Instagram photos. In the first one, she is nude save for a small pair of underpants, and she's captioned it "#preshoweralfalfaselfie," presumably because her hair is swooped up into a little point like the character Alfalfa from the Our Gang series, which of course Miley Cyrus starred in from 1935 to 1937. So that ought to get the busybodies in a bunch. The second photo, entitled "#postshowerinstagramwhoreselfielife," features Cyrus lying on some sort of bed, this time with a brassiere on, displaying several of her tattoos. Heavens! And she even got out ahead of the Miss Mannerses by using the word "whore," right there in the hashtag. Surely everyone's going to scream and blather on about this forever, right?

Well, probably not, actually. Partly because Instagram is a more closed system than the VMAs so fewer people will be exposed to it, but also because, sadly for Miley, she has lost some ability to shock. We already know who she is and what she's about, right now anyway, so it's really not all that surprising to see her in her unmentionables. It's possible that, if Miley wants to continue the grand and truly important tradition of getting stuffy old sexists in a snit about a woman making reference to her anatomy, she needs to find some sort of protege. Some younger, squeakier famous person who can take the baton and do her own provocations. Because it's good work, ruffling all those idiots' feathers. I just don't think Miley can do it anymore. Unless she does something really extreme, but I don't want her to get in actual trouble or anything. So, best to pay it forward, to bequeath the gift to a successor. Twerk on, brave sister spirit! Twerk ever on.