Miley Cyrus didn't only host the Amfar gala this week but made £55,000 alone for HIV/Aids charities by auctioning off her customised Caitlyn Jenner for Vanity Fair covers, signed by Caitlyn herself. Not only that, but she brought along Tyler Ford, a gender-non-conforming friend, to highlight that people exist outside of the traditional constructs of ‘male’ and ‘female’. All of this ties in with Miley’s work for the Happy Hippie foundation, a charity which helps out young people who are vulnerable because they’re homeless or LGBT. And it’s all utterly incredible that she’s doing all this, telling audiences she ‘wants to work every day to do something good for someone else’.
While one commentator, in support of Miley, has remarked: ‘today she proved that actually she is much brighter and grown up than many think she is’, I think she’s been bright and grown up for a long while.
While some might think Miley’s success as a do-gooding charity type is only visible if you ignore all the twerking and tongue-sticking and attention seeking, you have to admit, all these things coexist. First up, Miley wouldn’t even have the platform to speak on if she didn’t do all the controversial things that made her an international household name.
Secondly, there is something hugely empowering to her nudity, her armpit hair, her waggling tongue, her short (head) hair, her willingness to do with her body what the hell she likes. Prudishness towards women’s naked bodies and homophobia – both, at their essence, built of fear around people doing consensual things with their own bodies and minds – starts from exactly the same place, benefits the same people and harms so many. To say that support for Miley’s twerking is salacious or gross but her reaching out to the LGBT community is totally ok misses the point that both are pretty controversial in too many people’s eyes, and it’s worth sticking together on this.
A woman’s right to expose as much or as little of her adult body isn’t the exact same topic as letting LGBT people just be themselves, but when it comes to Miley and her ideas of empowerment, they all exist in one bright, bold brain and we’ve got to respect that. We can’t just pick and choose the parts of Miley we like. Besides, the whole package is doing alright.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.