The Miley Cyrus Lesson

She’s at it again. Miley Cyrus has infiltrated my parenting world once again. A few months ago I wrote about how Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus hates my baby. She still does. Now she has my son’s interests in her sights. But this time, she is being helpful, not harmful. She has created an educational video lugging a valuable lesson for all the machine-gun-bonered adolescents of the world. Here, take a look..

Pretty amazing, huh? One would think that all I would have to do is show my son this video and all of my boy-girl relationship parenting guidance would be complete. Unfortunately, my son is not bright enough to comprehend the video’s blatant message, and, even if he was, I doubt he could see beyond his hormones. So, I’ll have to spell it out for him and his partners in his gender-age continuum. The rest of you can continue reading, but what follows is for the young men of the world.

At the core, what Miley is telling us is to stay away from girls because they are psychotic. But you won’t. Nor should you. But, don’t blame me when you are sitting in your car with the tires slashed, maple syrup gushing out of your carburetor, fingernail scratches on your neck, all of your money gone and you are wondering what the hell just happened. If this should happen to you, stop wondering. You will never figure it out. Just move on and see what happens tomorrow – it’ll probably be something that will confuse you even more.

To keep it simple, I will not attempt to interpret all of the lyrics. However, I will identify some points of danger in them later on. Let’s look at the song as a whole. What is it about? What is she telling us? (I don’t mean to generalize, but I’m using “she” in a general sense applying to all women. I do this because Miley Cyrus is the voice of all women, from what I’ve heard.) First, she reflects on our prior relationship. Then she tells us there are seven things she hates about us. That’s understandable. It’s no surprise that there would be some animosity lurking after a break up. But then we find out the seventh thing she hates about us is that we make her love us. Sounds confusing, right? Well, it is, so don’t get too hung up on it. It’s confusing on two levels. First, how can she hate us and love us at the same time (unless she has multiple personalities – which she does, but this is not a psychological essay, so we’ll let that go)? Second, we weren’t trying to make anybody love us – we were just doing what our little generals wanted us to do (just so I don’t get into any kind of pedophilic trouble here, I’m using the term “we” and “us” in the general male sense, and it should only be perceived as applying to legally age congruent situations). By this point, we get the idea. We suck. Fine. We can live with that. We’ll go hang out with the fellas. But, no, we can’t do that, because, all of a sudden, without any warning, the second half of the song comes along and she’s telling us about the seven things she likes about us! Well, which is it???!!??

They can do that, you know. They can stop on an emotional dime and turn. One hundred and eighty degrees, if need be. Their emotional output mechanism is fine tuned from all the work they give it. This creates an emotional trajectory resembling a laser beam shot into a ball of uneven mirrors. It’ll drive you mad unless you learn to filter out everything except the important emotions – like the ones that will cost you money or require you to make an effort. We guys cannot be so precise with our emotions. Sure, we have emotions, but they serve us more as an infection than a social utility. When one emerges we try to ignore it hoping it will go away so we can get back to whatever it was that we were doing. We don’t have the means to make it stop and change its course. We have to ride it out until the next one comes along. In this sense, we are very much like geographic locales affected by varying weather patterns. Sometimes I like to think of myself as London, England – basically walking around in a fog. For extra credit, write a paper about your geographic emotional climate city.

Overall, as the song tells us, this is your lesson: Women are psychotic by male standards. The lyrics and the video support this claim. As promised, here are some lyrical danger zones of which you should be aware.

The initial break up has made her scared? What’s that all about? Scared? Scared of what – did the break up move her up on the Boogie Man’s list? Since she is now available, is she committed to follow through with her pre-arranged marriage to Ryan Seacrest? Will this cause George Bush to usurp the twenty-second amendment of the Constitution and stay in office? What the hell is so scary?

:~ Nothing is gonna change until you hear the seven things… ~: ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Don’t you get it, man? She wants you to change. You can’t be who you are. You have to be who she wants you to be. These seven things are your honey-do list to selfamorphosis as designed by her. Run away. Run away as fast as you can.

“I wanna be with the one I know”. This relates to the prior lyric’s demand for change. The one she “knows” is her archetype for the ideal man – the one she’s been constructing in her head since she was born. If you aren’t that man already, there is no amount of changing you can do to become that man. Besides, you are a guy, so you can’t change, anyway. You’re better of being yourself and putting up with the insults.

Somewhere in the song she asks for a sincere apology. Go ahead and give her one, but it won’t change the fact that she caught you naked in the hot tub with three of her friends. I know, apologies don’t really do anything in the real world, but somehow they make a difference to girls. Just don’t ever let her know that none of your apologies have ever been sincere. The point of this lyric is that you have to apologize because the break up was your fault for not being her ideal man. In her defense, she probably already apologized to you, but you didn’t notice, nor did you care.

“Your friends are jerks”. The people you have let into your life, the ones you’ve palled around with your whole life, the ones who accept you for who you are and still are your friends (sure, there are plenty of things about you that bug them – it doesn’t mean they are going to write a psychotic love/hate song about you and expect you to change), the ones you have shit in the woods together with, well friend, they’re just not good enough. And when you act like them it hurts her. So quit trying to have fun, go sit in the corner and do as you’re told.

There is more evidence if you want to delve further into the lyrics. You can do that on your own for more extra credit. And be sure to explore the purpose for choosing the number "7" as the break point number of love/hate selections (it would be an ideal thing to do). As for the video, try watching it with the sound turned off and concentrate on the girls’ expressions and their mannerisms, especially the stuffed animal clutching. If you didn’t know this was a Miley Cyrus music video, you very well may mistake it for a documentary depicting women in a prison for the criminally insane.

There you have it, young men. Miley Cyrus has given it to you straight. She is very wise with her manipulation of the music video art form. As I said before, this should not deter you from trying to have meaningful relationships with women. Miley Cyrus can only tell you so much. There is much more to learn about them, although, you will find that it eventually comes back to what Miley has taught you in this video. Try to enjoy the good times, and take the blame for the bad times.

As a personal note to Miley Cyrus, I thank you for your help in this matter, but it does not make up for the hate Hannah Montana launched at my little girl. You still owe me for that.

Oh, and just in case any women or Alan Aldas out there take offense to anything I’ve written above, remember, these ideas were all those of Miley Cyrus, not of my own. I was merely acting as a conduit to enlightenment, kind of like a hookah.