Miley Cyrus

After wearing that same cartoon VMA bodysuit in the opener -- the one she had on before the rubber bra and panties -- Miley went Gwen Stefani again: sneaker-like flat shoes, midriff, black and white, and horn buns. It works on her, actually. It's young and fine and twenty (most of the time I forget that she's not 27), but it really does also feel derivative rather than an homage. Which is fine except that she may not know the difference.

Miley Cyrus

And then she joined Team Poison for "Wrecking Ball." (Somewhere Bret Michaels just frowned and thought, "Wait, I didn't put her in my lineup this week -- did I even draft her?") And I feel like her whole MO with this album, and everything else, is to let us all know that, like every other rose, she has her thorns. And the outfit is essentially the appearance of being clothed, but in fact, making sure with artful lighting that you can see right through it. Which is probably deeply symbolic of a lot of things, some of which are intentional and some of which are not.

Charmin Bears

We need to pause here to discuss the bane of my advertorial existence (maybe tied with the redhead in the Wendy's commercials, with Flo from Progressive in a distant third). Why are the Charmin Bears ALWAYS SO OBSESSED WITH BUTTS. They used to do those ads where they danced around and discussed how many squares they should wipe with, and what you are watching HERE wasa a) an ad about how hard it is to keep things clean LIKE HER SON'S UNDERWEAR, and b) the son complimenting the mother on how well she cleaned up -- meaning his room -- and her LOOKING AT HIS BUM and then saying, "You too," BECAUSE SHE IS CHECKING HIS WIPING SKILLS. STOP MAKING CARTOONS ABOUT SKIDMARKS. BEARS DO NOT NEED TO BE FECALLY OBSESSED. Did the Care Bears and the Gummi Bears break all that ground for NAUGHT?

Miley Cyrus

Appropriately, we came back from THAT break to the sight of Miley dressed as a lingerie bag -- practically literally, as she is wearing only her intimates inside it, as if they're going to pop her whole into the machine with some Tide after the show.

Miley Cyrus

It is also a JUMPSUIT, and she paired it with shower shoes. Yes, shower shoes. She is a combination of gym class and the locker-room bathroom. (She wore the slides in the next sketch to play a hunchy student, but I refuse to acknowledge that she needed to wear them here, too, to save time. You can change your shoes in the span of a commercial break.) Is this her symbolically trying to wash the haters right out of her hair?

Fug the Show: Miley on Saturday Night Live

It was an interesting musical night on SNL -- like Miley was making a concerted effort to change the narrative around her after the VMAs, turning the volume way back down from eleven to about... six. She starred in an opening sketch parodying her twerking performance as the end of humanity as we know it, and for her performances, stayed clothed (although went with transparency) and belted out the ballad "Wrecking Ball" and then a stripped-down acoustic "We Can't Stop," as if to try and quiet the people who claim she hides behind tomfoolery and over-production because she has no talent. (The problem being that when you have fairly dumb lyrics, like "We all so turned up here, getting turned up, yeah, yeah," this kind of arrangement exposes them -- even Miley snickered a couple times.) Sure, she had a couple flat notes here and there, and at this point if you don't like her voice then this likely wasn't going to change your mind. But it was a ballsy, confident move, and probably a smart one. She may, like Kanye, overimagine her own schematic brilliance. But she's still no dummy.