Sex sells again, or how Disney took a page out of Miley Cyrus' playbook

Posted Monday, September 23, 2013 at 4:14 PM Central
Last updated Monday, September 23, 2013 at 4:29 PM Central

by John Couture

Remember back four years ago when a report claimed that sex no longer sold movies? Yeah, me neither. As I stated back then, I stood by the age old tenet that "sex sells" and nothing in the last four years or today has done anything to persuade me otherwise.

In fact, I think it's gotten much more commercial recently and today even the once virginal bastion of purity Disney proved that they aren't above showing a little skin to sell their films. Far be it for me to cast judgment, I'm in the minority camp on this topic in this country. I think we are too prudish in our ways and because we make the human body so taboo, it only reinforces those moves to exploit it.

For example, take former Disney actress Miley Cyrus, little Miss Hannah Montana was once the crown jewel in Disney's little princess machine, but lately she's sort of gone down a different path. To summarize, in the last three weeks, she brought the term twerking to the masses thanks to a risqué performance at this year's MTV VMAs, broke off her engagement to actor Liam Hemsworth and set new online music video records with her naked make-out session with a wrecking ball.

In case you missed the video, I've posted it below, you know, for educational purposes.

Again, as I mentioned in last week's Embrace of the Vampire story, this route of taking drastic measures to shed oneself from their virginal child actor stigma has been going on since the dawn of TV and film. Whether right or not, or whether you agree with the tactic or not, there's very little room for argument, the ploy works more times than not.

Personally, I feel bad that child actors feel like they need to make this decision to be taken seriously, but I feel worse for us as a society. If the vast majority of this country weren't so afraid of the human body and didn't hold it up with such regard (disdain?), then I'm pretty sure choosing to show some skin wouldn't be seen as such an Earth-shattering decision.

And yet, almost everything that I have read regarding Miley lately either questions her sanity or offers to comfort her during these "trying times." Personally, I applaud her on her efforts. She's simply playing the game that she's being forced to play and it's working for her as she is, arguably, the most talked about celebrity in the last month.

Ironically, Miley has taken these measure to shed her Disney persona, but it looks like her old employer might be copying a page out of her playbook. Disney is bringing a live-action version of Cinderella to the big screens in 2015 (yeah, like we need even more big movies that year, eh?).

Cinderella is directed by Kenneth Branagh and stars Lily James in the titular role. Today, Disney released their first image from the film.

I know that it might be a bit small, but if you click on the image above you will be taken to a much bigger version. That's right, today's Cinderella has a killer rack with ample cleavage and she's riding a horse bareback.

This is the Cinderella that I remember from my youth.

Yeah, she's a cartoon, but even in rags her appearance is rather demure by even the standards of the 1950s, when the film was released. I think the image released today is more evocative of Lady Godiva or Lady Chatterley's Lover than Cinderella and that's ok.

I would be surprised actually to learn that Disney purposely chose this image to represent the first glance of this film with suggestive imagery in mind. That would be surprised in a good way.

Perhaps the culture in this society is changing ever so slightly. Maybe we can stop being afraid of the human body and simply accept it as the one thing that each of us is born with. Maybe then, we won't make such a big deal about what the next Miley Cyrus does to reinvent herself.