Although the message behind Miley Cyrus’ lead single from the She Is Coming EP is one of empowerment (particularly as it pertains to the rights of women to make decisions regarding their own bodies), the visual tack it has taken in the video directed by Alexandre Moors somewhat detracts from how it was originally perceived as solely a sonic output.
Flashing Venus flytrap-inspired images of vagina dentata, Miley’s theme in the video celebrates body positivity and the array of shapes and sizes that women come in when they’re not modified or prepackaged by the media. Yet it’s always rather annoying when stick figure women like to praise the joys of being rotund when they themselves would never dispense with using the money they pay on personal trainers and plastic surgery to themselves engage in “body positivity.”
To be sure, everything is very to the letter in terms of corporatizing the language of inclusivity. This much is emphasized via the appearance of an androgynous woman wearing a t-shirt with “They/Them” inscribed on it. Meanwhile, Miley embraces the pan side of her persona when it’s convenient, hanging onto a bondage-clad woman as “FEMINIST AF” flashes on the screen. This segues into a scene of her leaning on her own mother’s (Tish Cyrus, a strong physical indication of what Miley will look like a few decades, plastic surgery or not) shoulder as she declares, “My mama always told me that I’d make it, that I’d make it/So I made it/I put my back into and my heart in it/So I did it, yeah, I did it.” Or she had the showbiz in of the patriarch not mentioned anywhere, Billy Ray “Achy Breaky Heart” Cyrus. But that’s not exactly a “chic” tidbit to mention (and “father’s daughter” just doesn’t have the same political ring to it). Nor does it lend Miley the particular cachet she’s seeking for the purposes of this video. Which, in many ways, is predisposed toward the same McDonald’s feminism Kim Kardashian attempted with her “feminist” edition of Kimojis.
Elsewhere, Miley touts via semi-subliminal title cards, “You are fuckin’ beautiful,” “Virginity is a social construct,” “Sin is in your eyes,” “Tough titties” and “l’héroïsme de la chair” (the heroism of the flesh). While these are all very pretty phrases to bandy from the safe confines of a heteronormative marriage to Liam Hemsworth, Miley’s visuals have little in the way of substance–or actions to back up the sentiments behind them.
What’s more, talking about how Mother’s encouragement got her where she is today fails to take into account those many women who do not have the luxury of a supportive mother (#JoanCrawford) or a mother at all (#Madonna). And for a song that touts inclusivity, it has to be said that it has a very basic interpretation of the mother-daughter relationship intended to extend into some sort of utopian matriarchal society.
While the Britney Spears-inspired catsuit from “Oops…I Did It Again” might have been taken further into the twenty-first century with some chastity belt-esque teeth to help prevent any unwanted objectification/penetration, the message of the video for “Mother’s Daughter” ultimately remains just as frothy as Brit’s 2000 hit, which, at the very least, had more vision in terms of intuiting how important Mars would become to certain rich white men.
