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Revealing Photo Threatens a Major Disney Franchise
by Dave Keating | April 27, 2008 at 11:15 pm | 6866 views | 9 comments | 8 recommendations
A very interesting article about the Miley Cyrus nude photograph controversy, showing the difficulty for a company like Disney to keep control of a lucrative franchise with pre-teen fans.
Fifteen years old, topless and wrapped in what appears to be a satin bedsheet in the June issue of Vanity Fair. Did Miley Cyrus, with the help of a controversy-courting magazine, just deliver a blow to the Walt Disney Company’s billion-dollar “Hannah Montana” franchise?
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Vanity Fair
The cover of the June issue of Vanity Fair and the photograph of Miley Cyrus, inset.
Some parents reacted with outrage over the weekend when the television program “Entertainment Tonight” began showing commercials promoting a scoop: Ms. Cyrus, the star of the wholesome Disney Channel blockbuster “Hannah Montana,” had posed topless, albeit with her chest covered, for the Vanity Fair photographer, Annie Leibovitz.
Screen grabs of the photo quickly popped up online, sparking a blogosphere debate. “Bonfire anyone?” wrote Lin Burress on her marriage and parenting blog, Telling It Like It Is, referring to the mountain of Hannah Montana retail items — makeup, shoes, clothes — in the marketplace. “Parents should be extremely concerned,” Ms. Burress said in an interview. “Very young girls look up to Miley Cyrus as a role model.”
It is doubtful that one photograph — especially one that is tame in the context of an Internet awash in nude photographs of other starlets — could dent the Hannah Montana machine, said several Wall Street analysts. Retail sales for the franchise are expected to total about $1 billion in 2008. A motion picture is in the works for 2009 and Ms. Cyrus signed a seven-figure book deal with the Disney Book Group last week.
But keeping a teenage entertainment franchise on track in an age when stars are monitored around the clock by bloggers and paparazzi is extremely difficult, even for a company with the experience of Disney. Executives are constantly battling to keep minor slipups from growing into full-blown controversies.
April 27, 2008 at 11:15 pm by Dave Keating, 6866 views, 9 comments
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Dave Keating
London, United Kingdom
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (9)
at 06:08 on April 28th, 2008
Dave Keating, I like this story. It's good stuff. Yeah well, in a world where "Sluttery is the new Fashion" and "Limo Bucketshots" sans Panties is the "Cause Célèbre", one can be certain Pedophiles everywhere will be scooping up Vanity Fair Mags and Tout it as their "New One Handed Publication" !
Miley's Dad must be so proud of his "Blossoming Lolita", as will the potential Stalkers.
at 06:20 on April 28th, 2008
Dave Keating, I like this story. It's good stuff.
This is a case of manipulation, plain and simple. Someone knew they would sell a ton of magazines by convincing a 15-year-old rising superstar to do something stupid. I will never respect Vanity Fair (not that I ever read it, so that threat would be empty).
JD Rucker
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momnurseat 06:33 on April 28th, 2008
Ohhhhh come on people !!! Those pics weren't THAT revealing !! Yes she is 15 BUT ..... 15 yr olds today are so much more mature than we dinosaurs were at that age !! Those pics were perfectly in taste! Her father was on the set during the shoot!!! Get over yourselves !! AND QUIT trying to make something out of nothing!
at 12:44 on April 28th, 2008
es, te pictures were in good taste - Annie L. is a really famous photographer whose photorep is really solid. And I wish I were as good a photographer and could take such a wonderful photo. But I still wonder about the picture.
As for the phrase so much more mature, I have heard it mentioned in contexts like this before and wonder what it actually refers to - more sexually active, more sexually mature, more conniving, more aways of what they can get away with without ending up in the clink?
This entire thing would leave me feeling baffled if it were important enough to worry about. And momnurse, please don't take anything I've said here as an attack as it wasn't meant as such.
at 07:16 on April 28th, 2008
I am sorry, but I do not think it is likely that Disney was not aware of this shoort and that they did not approve it in advance.
I agree with momnurse, this is trying to sensationalize something out of nothing.
at 08:03 on April 28th, 2008
these photos are SO FAR from revealing - they aren't even remotely scandalous. i'm sure Disney is smart enough to put verbage in their contracts with young starlets to prevent truly nude photo shoots... i'm sure they control most aspects of her professional life at this point. Disney couldn't buy this kinda press, the entire world is talking about Miley today - talk about demographic cross over
at 08:12 on April 28th, 2008
I would be surprised if Disney, who controls every inch of their brand (and even carefully conceives sub-brands when they venture beyond their "family funland" constraints) was not 100% aware of what was happening... or dare I say involved in it's conception. Just remember Donald Duck never even wore pants!
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colorfieldat 12:03 on April 28th, 2008
America is a sick place. Oh, not for the picture of Miley Cyrus, which is only faintly provocative and, in fact, a beautiful photo (Well done, Annie L.), but for falling all over itself in Puritan rage and indignation. Gosh, maybe other young people will be inspired to grow up feeling good about their bodies. Wouldn't that be a welcome surprise in the land that protests its senses but exports to the world its abundance of violence.
at 14:11 on April 28th, 2008
I guess I am missing something here in allowing ones daughter to pose provocatively, and for WHO?
At 15, she is basically a child, who for all intents and purposes should be a teen, without titallating those you have no control over. In high school amongst her peers, makeup and racy clothes, not crazy about it, but teens are teens and well that is a given, but to show all of the world, with come hither poses, semi nude, what purose to be semi nude? As a father of two daughters who were once teens, I have a problem with that.