Essay

Why is the public row between the music artists Sinead O'Connor and Miley Cyrus important in understanding the relationship between artistes and between artiste and audience? Explore with reference to the representation of women, media institutions and the role of the media.

The relationship between artists and their audience is the most important as the audience are what determines an artist’s success. Ideally, the more fans an artist has the more success in terms of profit, publicity and popularity. On the other hand, the relationship between artists is also important as it can connect two different audiences and define personalities based on how they interact. Also if the relationship between artists is not as friendly, it may have a negative effect on each of their careers and may even cause problems and rows between the two fan groups.

The row between Sinead O’Connor and Miley Cyrus started after Miley said that she was inspired by O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To you video which is surprising as they are two completely different artists in terms of personality and style of music. Sinead O’Connor is part of the 1980’s success with her debut album ‘The Lion and The Cobra’ whereas Miley Cyrus is part of today’s most famous with her latest album ‘Bangerz’. In response to Miley’s comparison comment, Sinead replied to which she nicely advised Miley about how she shouldn’t allow herself to me so exploited sexually just so other men can make money from it, as if referring to the male gaze theory.       The response that O’Connor gets from this, that many would find rude and offensive, is screenshots of some of the things Sinead has tweeted when she was mentally ill and seeking psychiatric help and mentions Amanda Bynes’ similar mental illness. Sinead O’Connor was offended by this and warned Miley that she would take legal actions unless she removed her tweets. We can see from this the differences between the morals each of these artist believe in and the way Miley Cyrus feels about this type of mental issue to use it as a mockery and a defence mechanism.

Miley Cyrus started her fame from a show on Disney Channel called Hannah Montana from the age of 11 so her fans and society watched her grow up and witnessed the change of personality from innocent to erotic in the last year which is quite a surprise for everyone but she has managed to do so well for herself that most of her fans still adore her regardless. Miley’s fans are, or at least used to be, young girls but it seems that Miley has officially grown up and wants to change her audience to an older and mature age of not only girls but also males. She has been criticized by the press to represent ‘stripper culture’ not only her videos but in some of her appearance in talk shows, interviews and the most recent VMA awards ceremony. One of the most disturbing yet talked about publicity stunts that Miley pulled recently was at the 2013 VMA awards were she ‘twerked’ during her performance. The incident caused a huge negative reaction from nearly everyone in the media business and the audience however she refused to let any of the negative comments get to her and continued her high profile stardom. For many it seems as though she has officially left the Hannah Montana phase, and is now following the steps of Lady Gaga and Madonna, which is quite interesting in relation to the feud between her and Sinead O’Connor.

The history behind Sinead O’Connor is very significant in helping to understand the relationship between artists and their audience and representation of women. Sinead is known for her strong interest and support in Child abuse, was and women’s right and also for her objection towards the Roman Catholic Church despite coming from a catholic background. During a Saturday Night Live performance in 1992, Sinead O’Connor tore up a photo of the pope while singing “fight the real enemy” to a nationwide audience, while the producers were in shock and tried to cut the camera away of her while the studio audience were not allowed to applaud or show any reaction to the live incident. The controversy was later brought up by Madonna on SNL later as she pulled out a photo of Joey Buttafuoco and tore it up and said that there are better ways to deal with hate towards someone that means something to a lot of people aimed at O’Connor. The public argument continued for quite a while and the last thing saved was that Madonna had made comments about Sinead’s appearance. This entire row seems like a dated version of what is happening today with Miley Cyrus and O’Connor and both artists lost and gained many fans because of the incident just like what is happening recently.

Both Miley and Sinead are huge influences to young girls and women, although for entirely different reasons. Miley’s ability to express herself as being free using her body and actions carelessly can be seen as an admirable trait in young teenagers today who watch all sorts of similar shows in the media whereas Sinead O’Connor really believes in prevention of child abuse and enforcing women’s right. She explains that she can support this by shaving her head so she is not define by her female looks while Miley Cyrus also recently shaved her head but only for a new look and style for her return. The music videos for ‘Nothing Compares To You’ and ‘Wrecking ball’ are similar due to their use of close ups of the singers’ face shedding a tear. O’Connor describes the tear as an impulsive thing as the lyrics of Nothing Compares to You mean something to her. However it was revealed that the tear during the chorus of the song was for her dog which has recently died.

The male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey explains the idea of how females are presented and visually consumed by the audience of that media text. The 3 main things that this theory succeeds to highlight are how men see women, how women see themselves and other women.  The features of the male gaze are created by the use of camera where the lens is pointed at. The camera focuses on the curves of a woman and the events that happen to her, mostly from the perspective of a heterosexual male.  This theory can be used to explain Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking ball video as she appears to be unclothed throughout most of the video. However, others such as Miley Cyrus herself and the director of her Wrecking Ball video, Terry Richardson, would disagree to this as they believe that nudity is a form of expression and art. However, a second version of the Wrecking Ball video was created, known as the ‘directors cut’ and in this version the entire song is film in a close up of Cyrus’ face miming the lyrics. The purpose of this may have been that the director wanted the audience to focus on the emotions and story behind the lyrics of the song rather than anything else. If we look at this from another perspective, Miley’s Video was one of two videos which featured nudity in the top ten of Billboard’s Hot 100 meaning there has to be some sort of pattern and success rate of such videos.