Tongue Tied: Miley Cyrus, Latex, and a Two-Minute Nowness Short

Miley Cyrus: Tongue Tied, also called Miley, is an American black-and-white short directed by Quentin Jones, who also made the animations. Miley Cyrus stars. The New York company Cadence produced it. In February 2014 it first played as an opening interlude on her Bangerz Tour, musically tied to Alt-J’s “Fitzpleasure.” The lifestyle site Nowness released it again on May 1, 2014, while Cyrus was recovering from an allergic reaction that had delayed the tour. The Nowness cut uses “Stockholm Syndrome” by 30’s featuring Zoee. The lyric includes being held down so it is hard to breathe. Real suspension and real breath restriction are risky. They need an agreement beforehand and a way to stop. This entry only records what the short shows. The performer is an adult.

The Nowness version runs about two minutes, in a square frame with white borders. Cyrus is topless, in black latex underwear, with electrical tape over her nipples, and sometimes in fishnets. The images are taken from sadomasochistic visual culture: latex, suspension, stuff smeared on the body. The edit jumps between facial close-ups and S&M prop shots. Cartoon eyes and noses are laid over her face. She is suspended mid-air by ribbons in an acrobatic pose, hangs from a rod with her legs spread, and turns her buttocks to the camera. Later she cries while spreading black oil across her face and smearing it over her body in a sexualized gesture. The short is montage and mood, not a narrative of negotiated dominance and submission, but the wardrobe and the props are BDSM visual language.

The crew and the reviews

The credit list reads like a high-end fashion film, not a DIY fetish shoot. Neil Cooper and Nina Qayyum were executive producers. Michael Angelos produced. Paul Laufner was director of photography. Sandra Winther assisted on artwork. Simone Harouche styled, Andy Lecompte did hair, and Pati Dubrogg did makeup. Creative director Diane Martel had already worked with Cyrus on the “We Can’t Stop” video and on the controversial 2013 MTV Video Music Awards performance. Critics took the SM imagery as fashion-art shock, not as a document of an underground scene.

Reviews at the time stayed on Cyrus’s ongoing shock strategy. Leigh Silver at Complex called it a bondage-themed joy ride and said the shock was blunted by her earlier sexual displays. Leanne Bayley at Glamour found it very Fifty Shades of Grey-esque, and unsurprisingly controversial. Mike Wass at Idolator thought the wardrobe quite demure by her standards, and said the sadomasochistic inspiration spiced it up. He called the film stylish and beautifully shot, and argued that, set next to Rihanna’s then-recent topless spread in Lui, it put Cyrus back as the queen of shock. Oscar Lopez granted that it was sexy and still called it unoriginal, because the pictures sat close to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Like a Prayer.” Robyn Munson at Look put it among Cyrus’s most attention-grabbing artistic pieces and was surprised she could still shock after years of sexualized branding. Emily Hewett at Metro said this one was done in the name of art, where earlier moves felt like sales provocation. Lauren Valenti at Marie Claire labeled it not safe for work and a viral reminder that Cyrus’s Disney days were behind her. Ryan Reed at Rolling Stone called the video jaw-dropping and linked it to the psychedelic stage work Cyrus was doing then with members of The Flaming Lips. Amiya Moretta said the clip confronted double standards about which kinds of sex are socially acceptable, called it extremely sexualized and aesthetically grabbing, and described photography, illustration, and animation stacked into a short surreal story for a short attention span.

For readers of BDSM, fetish, and adult images, Tongue Tied is a mid-2010s case of pop culture turning latex, tape, suspension, and a “held down” lyric into celebrity art. It does not teach negotiation or aftercare. It shows sadomasochism treated as stylish self-presentation. The suspension and the breath line are images. The visual vocabulary leather clubs and pro-domme studios use for play is, for these two black-and-white minutes, an object on Nowness and on an arena tour.