An Open Letter to Miley Cyrus

Hey girl,

So, I missed your original live performance on the VMA awards tonight because I was at a Fantasy Football draft party--I know, I don't know what I was doing either. But I saw Twitter blowing up over everything you did tonight... the tongue, the bears, the foam finger, so I stayed up to see the encore performance. I want you to know I'm not mad. I, too, have had some questionable nights with a foam finger; I think that all of us can say that we've been there before. But to quote you, it's about "the climb." I'm not sure where exactly, or what exactly, you're climbing up, but I think it's time that we had a conversation that's been coming for a while. Let's rewind for a second.
We're not so different, Miley. I know what it's like to follow in the footsteps of a man who once wore very large cowboy boots. There's a bit of a shadow that you have to escape, and it's not the easiest in the world. We hail from Tennessee, a land full of talk drinks of water. But look at where you've come from! Look at what you've done! At 12 years old, you were already breaking away. You became Hannah Montana. Do you know what I was doing at 12 years old? Hiding from people in the locker room because I was scared of athletic activities and the prospect of "teabagging." But you weren't. You owned that wig and that painfully caricatured accent because it's what Disney wanted you to do. You knew who you needed to please, and you did, and good at you for it. In the midst of it all, I don't feel like you ever lost sight of who you were. Hannah was a moment, but Miley... well, she's a lifetime. Plenty of other Disney stars have ended up in much worse positions than you are at now. As you would say, "We run things [Disney], things don't run we." At the height of it all, you broke free. Remember that, Miley?
People critiqued you for that... for wanting to be your own person. You wanted to be something outside of Hannah. And even with the haters screaming about how you were rising above your means, you stuck to your guns. Your best friend Leslie said it best, "She's just being Miley." That's why I come to you today, stripped of all the bear onesies and the blonde wigs. Are you still just being Miley or are you a girl who forgot what's waiting on the other side? You have inspired a nation with your lyrical genius. You acted in a Nicholas Sparks movie that made over four times its budget, and guess what? You were nominated for stuff because of it. Granted, one of those was for Worst Actress, but like we've discussed before: off with the haters. You had hair for days, and people LOVED that about you. You were the common girl's girl, and every night as those young girls went to bed, they thought to themselves, Maybe, just maybe, I too could be Miley.

I think where things have always been a little shaky is that you repeatedly keep telling us that you're not Hannah. Listen, pumpkin. We haven't thought of you as Hannah for years. The first outburst was a little uncomfortable, but nothing we couldn't shake off. You screamed at us and told us that you couldn't be tamed, but what I think you were missing is that none of us were trying to tame you. I'm going to get a little harsh with you right now, but you came out of that bird nest in "Can't Be Tamed" like a possessed Natalie Portman with a chip on your shoulder. We didn't want that. We wanted you to release that mane of hair and do you. You do you, Miley. There's no need for you to get angry; plenty of female stars have come before you and shed the skin of their past lives. I know that I never expected you to be stagnant. You're Miley for God's sake.

But you persisted onward and now look where we're at. You've lost all sense of fashion, you have this odd fascination with teddy bears, and you cut all of your hair off. My sophomore year of college, I got really mad at my parents and cut my hair into a mohawk, but you know what? I let it grow back because that's what you do when you're an adult. You tame yourself because sometimes, that's what it takes to remember exactly who you are. As I watched you caress Robin Thicke's penis tonight with a foam finger and then stick that foam finger in your mouth, I saw a piece of myself. Well, not exactly. Actually, on a strictly literal basis, I didn't see any of myself in you, but that's probably because I have an unprecedented fear of sexually transmitted diseases, but that's neither here nor there. What I'm trying to say, Miley, is that we've all been troubled. We've all been lost at one time or another in our lives. Hearts have been broken before and identities put into question, but most of us do something like get a small tattoo or make the unfortunate decision of posting poetry on Facebook. Granted, we don't have a national stage, but I dare to say that we would do anything like you did tonight. It was a lot, babe. Watching you motorboat that woman's tiger printed bottom filled me with concern and worry. I've never been mad at you. All of this concern is coming from a place of love.
You used to be this force--a young woman who exemplified what it meant to come into her own. You provided enough angst for us to fight through our issues, but not so much that we would get grounded. It was you who helped us come into our own, and now we, collectively as a nation, want to do the same for you. I'm not sure where you're headed tonight after the VMAs; I'm assuming you'll be going to some swanky party with a lot of alcohol, sexual tension, and possibly some molly, or "Miley" to your younger audiences. But I think after that, you need to go home for a bit. Let that hair grow out. Again, not to be mean, but you looked like Cynthia from The Rugrats tonight. Go hang out with Billy Ray and do more songs in your backyard. That was nice. And when you get back on a plane to LAX, take your dream and your cardigan and keep them close. As my mother would say to some of my more adventurous friends, "Leave a little bit to the imagination." Whatever you're going through right now, whatever might be troubling you heart, is not bigger than you, Miley. This is just a hiccup: an instance where making out with a doll in a pool seemed like the perfect idea at the time, but may be a little weird to look at in five years or so. We believe in you and everything you do. Now it's time for you to believe in yourself. Let all those butterflies fly away.

With love,
America