The most shocking thing about the Miley Cyrus Bangerz Tour may be the fact that anyone would find what Cyrus did at US Airways Center Thursday, Feb, 27, all that shocking in 2014, decades down the road from “Like a Virgin.”
Yes, the show began with Cyrus sliding down a giant tongue that snaked out of an even bigger video projection of her face. And yes, she rode a very phallic hot dog through the air.
But like most of the sexual content in the Bangerz show, it was done with a wink and a smile, a point that should have been clear from a glance at the gleeful expression on Cyrus’ face as she came down the slide in a skimpy red leotard.
At 21, Cyrus is certainly celebrating her sexual independence after four seasons of “Hannah Montana,” a Disney Channel series whose squeaky-clean image she’s desperately trying to shake. But there’s something inherently campy and, at times, cartoonish to the way she’s gone about it — cavortng with furries and a dancing horse in a red-and-white-checkered-tablecloth pattern whose tongue is also hanging out. Even the part of the show that found her frolicking with dancers on a giant bed — the male dancers in boxers, the women in nighties — felt more like a scene from “Grease” as filtered through Madonna than anything that should be causing panic at the PTA or being called an “orgy.” It was kind of cute, like most of what she did.
