KEY POINTS:
There was something unusual about the June 2007 issue of Vanity Fair magazine: the female celebrity on the cover was overdressed.
Inside she went even further, adding a cloak to the floor-length gown and gloves, although there was a glimpse of forearm in a photo dating from her wild youth.
All of us, monarchist and republican alike, should be grateful that the Queen was able to resist the blandishments of photographer to the stars Annie Leibovitz and keep her kit on, but she's the exception to the rule.
Vanity Fair is a schizophrenic publication, a blend of high and low culture, Hollywood puffery, mogul worship, limousine liberal politics and quality journalism. The last issue's cover features a lightly clothed Madonna striking a vampish pose. Only when you tear your gaze from the diva's toned thighs do you register that it's the third annual green issue, containing investigations into the Arctic oil rush, the plight of the polar bear and China's attempt to control the weather by military force.
It's a classic VF cover, incorporating most of the obsessions of the magazine's core readership, America's new rich: wealth, fame, sex, show business, defiance of the ageing process and the developed world's new quasi-religion cum doomsday cult, environmentalism.
A key component of the formula is the requirement that the female celebrities given star treatment on the cover and in the photo spreads inside show a little skin. For instance, to compensate for the Queen being such a stick-in-the-mud, a photo feature on yoga in that issue leads off with a double-page shot of supermodel Christy Turlington in the traditional wet T-shirt position.
A particularly striking application of the rule was the cover story in which Jennifer Aniston spilled her guts on the humiliation and heartbreak of being dumped by Brad Pitt: "Am I lonely? Upset? Confused? Yes. I never said I didn't want to have children. I did and I do and I will." Aniston bared more than her soul, frolicking kittenishly for the camera in her undies and an unbuttoned shirt revealing a discreet swell of breast. Who knows if Brad got the message but it seems safe to assume that many other men did.
So it's with a furrowed brow that one contemplates the brouhaha over the pictures of Miley Cyrus, taken by the ubiquitous Leibovitz, which appear in the new VF.
For those of you who aren't girls aged between six and 14 or don't have a representative of that demographic in your household, Miley is the 15-year-old star of the Hannah Montana TV show and its various spin-offs. Her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, who appears in the show, was formerly a mega-mulleted country and western singer whose white trash anthem, Achy Breaky Heart, for a time made him an object of desire for the sort of women who get fired up on Lindauer at office parties.
The first thing to be said about the photos is that they're hardly salacious by contemporary standards. You'll see more provocative images on billboards and during the ad breaks in the six o'clock news. Secondly, their shock value is surely reduced by the shots of herself previously posted on Miley's MySpace site which bear out the inescapable truth of the old Neil Diamond song Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon.
Presumably the outrage which spilled out of the blogosphere on to the front pages was generated by parents of Hannah Montana fans who fear that Miley is on the slippery slope to Britney Spears-style slutdom and will sweep their daughters along in her slipstream.
They were supported by Disney, which fatuously accused VF of manipulating the 15-year-old. Disney has a vested image in protecting its star's wholesome image: the Hannah Montana franchise is reportedly worth US$1 billion and, earlier this year, the corporation brought together 80 of its most creative minds to plot the character's - and therefore the star's - future.
But the message in the VF photos is that Disney mightn't be able to arrest Miley's development for much longer. Not that it should. It's clear that being a child star can screw you up in all manner of ways, particularly when bottom line considerations oblige you to pretend to be something you no longer are.
The bottom line probably doesn't weigh too heavily on Cyrus - she made US$20-odd million last year. And when the uproar dies down, she'll no doubt look for another opportunity to escape from the Hannah Montana straitjacket and position herself for the next phase of her career. Whether Disney likes it not, Miley will insist on growing up. Perhaps Disney should have stuck to cartoon characters. Like Peter Pan they remain forever young.
