Miley Cyrus! Miley Cyrus! Miley Cyrus!

In 1912 and 1913, 25-year-old painter Marcel Duchamp scandalized first the Parisian, then the New York art worlds with his painting Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2. Now considered one of the most important paintings of the 20th century, Duchamp was mercilessly vilified and ridiculed.

When Frank Sinatra was a young artist, he outraged the establishment by the way he caused his audiences of "bobby soxers" to scream and swoon, finding himself banned from several venues. In 1965, Sinatra said of the up-and-comer Elvis Presley, "His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people." In 1970, Elvis said, "The Beatles laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are having with young people by their filthy unkempt appearances and suggestive music."

If you thought that Teacher Tom's blog was the place to get away from reading about Miley Cyrus, you were wrong. For those of you who don't know, the 20-year-old pop star has apparently outraged the entire internet by her performance on MTV's Video Music Awards on Sunday night. I don't really follow popular music any longer so it takes something really big to catch my attention and apparently this was huge! My Twitter feed, which is usually, embarrassingly, overrun with tweets about baseball and breastfeeding suddenly started filling up with comments vilifying and ridiculing "Hannah Montana," a character of whom I am aware since I'm the parent of a daughter who, when she was little, watched the girl's TV show.

So I watched the offensive video. After the first few seconds I started laughing and couldn't stop until it was over. I am, frankly, overjoyed that young people can still outrage old people. Good on her. I mean think about this for a second. I did a little research and discovered that she took the stage after Lady Gaga and before Kanye West: never in anyone's wildest dreams could we have imagined that she would be the most scandalous one on that stage, but being the youngest it was certainly her turn. I keep waiting to read some quote from Kanye accusing her of corrupting someone's morals or something. That would make it about perfect.

I'm not saying that Miley Cyrus is destined to be the next Sinatra, but I am saying that it is perfectly meet, right and salutary that young people outrage their elders, especially when it comes to art. You don't think it's art? Well, most people didn't think what Duchamp was doing was art either. Most people thought the Beatles were just making a bunch of noise. What I saw on that video was a dance, and not even the most sexual dance I've ever seen: that was Madonna's 1984 VMA performance of Like A Virgin. What made me laugh was how joyfully she pulled it off, sticking that tongue out of her mouth like a kind of crazy jester. She reminded me of Keith Moon kicking over his drum set or Ozzie Osborn evoking Satan, just having a grand time sticking a finger in the old folks' eyes.

What outrages me far more than a 20-year-old gyrating her young body, was that she was performing on stage with an older, married guy named Robin Thicke (of whom I've never heard) yet she received at least ninety percent of the criticism. Talk about slut shaming.

Oh, and what about the "example" she's setting for those young girl fans of hers? My own daughter is now 16-years-old, a former fan of her Disney Channel TV show, no longer a little girl. I asked her what she thought about Miley Cyrus. She answered, "I think she's talented and cool. I like her new hair, although I don't really like those top knot things she's doing." And about the VMA video: "It was funny. She's a comedic actress, remember? Of course it's not serious. That's what the VMAs are for. She's a performer trying to entertain people."

So good, she didn't mistake the performance for an instructional video on how to live life. I also don't expect her to start wearing those top knots. As an aspiring artist herself, I hope that she is someday in a position to really outrage her elders, including me.

And for all any of us know, Miley Cyrus could be the next Sinatra.

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