fracas

Often, I talk about my fabulous sister Linda, and it’s easy because I can link to her and you can visit her blog and see that indeed, she is pretty fabulous. I have many fabulous fraccy family members though, and they don’t all have blogs for me to link, so sadly, they don’t get as often a mention here even though they share the same big chunk of my heart.

Today, I got mail from my other fabulous fraccy sis who is currently shivering as the colder weather in Australia makes her finally start to wonder if maybe she should come back and enjoy summer here in Canada, (I vote yes.. and she should drag her Mr. Aussiebabe and her Charmalicious daughter back too) and for very personal reasons, it made me think about how important it is to not forget to ask God for some ice cream every now and then.

Please enjoy the story below. If you like, share it with someone else too.

And thank you Aussiebabe. I love you so much!

You always send me something just right at the most fitting time. Must be that sister thing… 

Last week, I took my children to a restaurant.

My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace.

As we bowed our heads he said, ‘God is good, God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And Liberty and justice for all! Amen!’

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark, ‘That’s what’s wrong with this country. Kids today don’t even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!’

Hearing this, my son burst into tears and asked me, ‘Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?’

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job, and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.

He winked at my son and said, ‘I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer.’

‘Really?’ my son asked.

‘Cross my heart,’ the man replied.

Then, in a theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), ‘Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes.’

Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal. My son stared at his for a moment, and then did something I will remember the rest of my life.

He picked up his sundae and, without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, ‘Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes; and my soul is good already.’

Sharing this post with others would be like giving fracas an ice cream! Pick one and click!

The first thing I want to know is what the frac is wrong with adults these days?

15 year old Miley Cyrus has come out stating that she is embarassed of the Vanity Fair photos she sat for. In an ABC News article,  Susan James quotes the younger Cyrus.

“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic,’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Miley, the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, told the press this week. “I never intended for any of this to happen, and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.”

But James writes that the photos may have been a marketing move gone wrong, explaining that just as with other young stars like Brooke Shields and Britney Spears, the plan may have been to begin preparing the world for an older Miley.

Not so, insists Cyrus, and while the media world in ready to blame her parents and critics are ready to blame the media, fracas would like to ask why no one is considering placing a bit of blame upon Leibovitz? 

After all, as Joey Bartolomeo, celebrity writer for Us magazine speculated,  

“The young actress may have been cajoled by the charming Leibovitz. “The only person who ever said no to her (Leibovitz) was Queen Elizabeth.”

So fracas wonders then, how much pressure was there, to agree to a Leibovitz shoot? And why would Leibovitz even come up with the concept of shooting a 15 year old Miley to appear to be nude? Though all concerned have been adamant that she was not, the photo is designed to give that impression. In her article, Sheila Marikar writes,

“In one of the photos, Cyrus is shown from the side, with most of her back bare, clutching what appears to be a satin sheet loosely around herself. In another, she’s draped over the lap of her dad, baring her midriff.”

Said Leibovitz of the misleading photo,

“The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful.”

Defend her artistic ideas she may, as does Vanity Fair representative Beth Kseniak when she said,

“Miley’s parents and/or minders were on the set all day,” she said in a statement. “Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley.”

Libovitz should know that some of us view the photo and see not a “beautiful, natural portrait” of Miley, but rather one that looks out of sorts, unnatural and quite honestly as though she were a child being forced to pose like a woman.

Gosh. Perhaps she appears so, because she is.

Did I mention that the angles and lighting used give her a somewhat unhealthy and emaciated look? They do. Perhaps Leibovitz thinks the emaciated and slightly child-porn look is beautiful and natural, but I doubt everyone else does.

In fact, when Keira Knightly and Scarlett Johansson were snapped by Leibovitz, some felt the “just wheeled from the morgue” look Annie gave to the poor gals was enough to make a fella take a pass.

In her statement about the photos given this past Sunday, Miley said she was embarassed. Given that in her Vanity Fair interview that was to accompany the photos, she said the bare-back shot was,

“really artsy” but not “in a skanky way” and said “You can’t say no to Annie.”

Did you catch that? Miley said you can’t say no to Annie.

Apparently not.

No one has.

No one except Queen Elizabeth, and even then… it wasn’t an outright refusal to sit for a photo, it was that  Queen Elizabeth refused to remove her crown. Even then, Leibovitz managed to release four official photos of the Queen.

So do we insist that it is her parents to blame? Perhaps the media? Do we blame Miley herself, despite being an age that most of us with children could argue to be an age most are hardly capable of making the best decisions at? 

Or do we stop and ask the motives of a photographer who wields enough power and provides enough pressure to submit that she has managed to coerce many a celebrity into a photo they may othewise have refused? We’ve seen Whoopi Goldberg in a tub of milk, Clint Eastwood tied with ropes, Kate Winslet dunked in a tank of water, John Lennon naked, Sting naked and covered in mud, and countless others, with the only person having refused her requests being Queen Elizabeth. Do we ask why she thought that scheming a photo session where a young Miley would appear to be nude, emaciated and taken advantage of… is what anyone needs to see?

I think so.

I am ready to understand that Miley is what Miley is… a young and impressionable girl who just might’ve been overwhelmed and indeed, flattered to be chosen to be photographed by Leibovitz. Fracas is prepared to excuse Miley for “not being able to say no to Annie.” Fracas isn’t prepared to totally excuse Miley’s parents. While the pressure to go along with a Leibowitz shoot must’ve been great and perhaps they feared a refusal would be harmful to her career, they are after all, her parents and must be prepared to make the tough choices to protect her, even perhaps when she doesn’t think she needs protecting (as so many young teens so typically think).

The person in this who didn’t face those pressures, the person in this who should’ve known better and who should’ve known not to take advantage of a young teen this way, the person who has no real excuse other than personal selfishness for the choice of photos taken… is Annie.

And I’m just not prepared to excuse Annie because when I see the photo, I see something reminiscent of child pornography, and honestly Annie… photographing a child to look as you did is just wrong.

So Annie… what is wrong with you?

[Image Source: Miley Cyrus, star of Disney's "Hannah Montana," appears in the June issue of Vanity Fair. (Annie Leibovitz exclusively for Vanity Fair) Photo via ABC News; Leibovitz photo source: Tuesday Metro]

(Read more about Annie Leibovitz. Decide for yourself why she seems to enjoy taking photos that make young females look emaciated. Heck, if you know her… ask her, and then let me know too, because it just seems a little creepy to me.)

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