Miley Cyrus has been under fire for her many stage performances over the past year, but most recently, she was called out for exploiting black dancers and little people at her Jingle Ball performance.
Her response? "I don’t give a shit. I'm not Disney."
Cyrus' latest backlash is outlined in the cover story of W's March issue, written by Ronan Farrow. The Guardian called her use of twerking black dancers "a minstrel show," while a Jezebel columnaccused the Bangerz singer of "accessorizing with black people," and little person Hollis Jane described her appearance in Cyrus' VMA performance as "one of the most degrading things -- I was being looked at as a prop, as something less than human." Still, some of Cyrus' dancers note in the profile that "we're just having fun ... it's not degrading," and that "Miley treats me with the utmost respect."
The singer herself says that she doesn't need to represent every ethnicity in a certain way, as her former employer does. "I'm not Disney, where they have, like, an Asian girl, a black girl and a white girl to be politically correct, and, like, everyone has bright-colored T-shirts. You know, it's like, I'm not making any kind of statement."
And to her critics, she noted, "Anyone that hates on you is always below you, because they're just jealous of what you have."
She also offered more explanations as to why she prefers a less-is-more approach to clothing -- of her childhood, she recalled, "We never were inside, and we never wore shoes. I think it's why I like wearing no clothes so much and I'm always naked" -- and shed more light on her calculated, provocative image, as a response to a lack of authenticity in her peer group.
"I just don't get what half the girls are wearing. Everyone to me seems like Vanna White. I'm trying to tell girls, like, 'F--- that. You don't have to wear makeup. You don't have to have long blonde hair and big titties. That's not what it's about. It's, like, personal style. I like that I'm associated with sexuality and the kind of punk rock shit where we just don't care. Like Madonna or Blondie or Joan Jett -- Jett's the one that I still get a little shaky around. She did what I did in such a crazier way. I mean, girls then weren't supposed to wear leather pants and, like, f---ing rock out. And she did."
Cyrus also mentioned that kids today are "so f---ing mean" in how they address their parents, and doesn't want to join in the national conversation about the legalization of marijuana, but does have a concern on the matter. "I love weed," she told Farrow. "I just love getting stoned ... I just want it to be back to where it's, like, organic, good weed."
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