The Director Who Didn’t Cut Fast Enough

Miley Cyrus hosted the 32nd MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, and she seemed to arrive with a personal mission: ensure that every living person on earth has seen her breasts. The dedication is real. Consistent across years. You have to respect it.

Here’s what happened: Taylor Swift won Video of the Year for Bad Blood. Miley went backstage to change outfits, returned in something that had made different promises about coverage than it ultimately kept, and for one brief, glorious second before the director’s instincts kicked in and the camera cut to a wide shot of the audience, American cable television broadcast an uncensored nipple. Her own commentary on the situation: Oops, sorry, are my tits out?—delivered with the tone of someone who has considered this exact outcome and made her peace with it.

Somewhere, an outraged football mom was already drafting the email to Viacom. Somewhere, a Christian family association was calculating the psychological damage inflicted on children who had been exposed to a nipple on live television—the absolute worst possible thing—while simultaneously, Facebook was busy removing photos of breastfeeding and leaving up posts about shooting at refugee boats. The contrast doesn’t resolve into anything clean. It just sits there, being exactly what it is.

Am I maybe a bit too invested in Miley Cyrus’s relationship with her own body? Yeah, possibly. I don’t care. Miley, I love you.