Miley Cyrus is no stranger to the spotlight. The 23-year-old Tennessee native found her rise to fame in 2006, with the premiere of Hannah Montana – the story of an “everyday” teenager turned popstar by night. An overnight sensation, Hannah Montana’s massive success threw Cyrus – with ankle-biting teenyboppers attached – straight towards the top of the Teen Sensation totem pole.
But since then, Cyrus hasn’t been the bubblegum pop Princess of yesteryear. She’s had a vocal and scandalous dive headfirst into tabloids and media frenzies. From engagements to breakups, to scantily clad performances, to her open interest in drugs and sexual freedom, Cyrus has aptly fallen off the Disney wagon, and made it clear she has no intentions of returning.
But despite all of the negative outcry, Cyrus is an active and vocal political advocate. Aside from her involvement this election year by going to colleges to campaign for Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, she’s also quietly started her own, grassroots foundation for America’s homeless youth.
In 2014, Cyrus attended the Video Music Awards and attached to her arm was 22-year-old Jessie Helt, a homeless man of Los Angeles. When Cyrus won the award for Video of the Year, Helt took the stage, calling out for support and help for the millions of homeless youth that still exist in the United States. A move pulled from the playbook of Marlon Brando, Cyrus sat at the side of the stage, wiping away tears as the rest of the audience tearfully looked on.
In 2014, Cyrus launched the Happy Hippie Foundation: a nonprofit organization providing basic needs to support the homeless youth, as well as those struggling in the LGBTQ+ community.
The Foundation has partnered with: Gender Spectrum, a fellow organization striving to create a “gender-inclusive world for all children in youth.” This partnership has created 1,300 support groups for transgender and gender-expansive youth and their families; MAC AIDS Fund, to support and assist transgendered people diagnosed with HIV find medical care and housing in the Los Angeles and San Francisco area; as well as the Zebra Coalition -- an organization based out of Central Florida to offer support and refuge for those in the LGBTQ+ community – during the after effects of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting.
Furthermore, Cyrus is hitting the campaign trail and stopping by colleges to encourage students to get out and vote -- as well as tacking on her #ImWithHer pin.
On October 22nd, 2016, Cyrus stopped by George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia to pop by some dorms to say hello – and to talk to the students about this historical election and their importance in the democratic system.
Sharing photos on both her Twitter and Instagram, Cyrus posted images of her holding the Clinton for America, “Stronger Together” sign, as well as photos of her with some of the local students.
Cyrus credited her desire to door-to-door campaign to spawning from a trip home to her hometown of Nashville. Telling a gaggle of college boys, “I just went back home recently and I saw one Hillary poster in this sea of terrifying Trump posters.” She then explained that now living in LA, this was a “wake-up call.”
Though many positive praises tumble out from the press about the Cyrus’s foundation itself, many still discredit her due to her sexuality and promiscuity.
News outlets are first to describe what she’s wearing, before what she’s discussing. Social Media hounds are quick to sniff out any unsavory thing she said or did at an event, despite the relevance falling short.
Though Miley Cyrus took an untraditional route to break free of her Disney shackles, she had to do so in the spotlight. Despite falling under the radar, the pop culture world was still salivating from a new Cyrus scandal, so she never truly had time to cope and dissect the world outside of the House of Mouse– a world that she had been living in since she was 11.
To call out Miley Cyrus for her sexuality or promiscuous lifestyle despite her active and driving involvement in both the political circuit, and a nonprofit for a scrutinized minority, lives in the fodder of the unabashed patriarchal society that still dominates the media landscape.
Cyrus has claimed time and time again that she’s unashamed of her body or sexuality, being a voice for a generation and, as a pansexual, a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Cyrus is vocal about her lifestyle and her opinions and feelings on modern issues. It is a trait that many beg and plead for their political candidates to do.
So why does Cyrus, a young female exploring her sexuality, but has an interest in current and modern events, appear goaded and attacked in popular culture, but a presidential candidate can speak freely about his nonconsensual sexual desires that can be touted as “Locker Room banter”?
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