Miley Keeps Undressing, We Keep Watching

Remember when shock value still felt like something? Miley riding naked on a wrecking ball felt transgressive. Smoking weed onstage felt like she was actually doing something. Now it’s the default mode—every single release is another excuse to take her clothes off. The new video with Future and Mr Hudson has her floating in space with body glitter instead of actual clothes, and it’s so familiar at this point I barely register it as a choice anymore.

I’m not even judging the nudity. I care about a lot of naked people in art and music and film. What gets to me is the predictability of it. She’s found the thing that gets attention and she’s stuck in it, which means the thing stops being transgressive and just becomes the job. Miley running the same shock-value playbook over and over is less an artistic statement and more like watching someone on a treadmill, except the treadmill is just her stripping down again for the tenth video this year.

Maybe she genuinely likes being naked in front of cameras. Maybe it’s become the only language she knows how to speak to an audience anymore. Either way, I’m waiting for the version of her career where she wakes up one morning and decides to wear clothes again just to see if anyone notices. That would actually surprise me.