Miley Cyrus: Tongue Tied (also titled Miley) is an American short film directed by photographer Quentin Jones and starring recording artist Miley Cyrus. It was released on 1 May 2014 by the lifestyle site Nowness, after earlier use as an introduction piece for her headlining Bangerz Tour. The black-and-white film shows a topless Cyrus performing a sequence of sadomasochistic-coded gestures—latex, restraint aesthetics, suspension, and body paint—that critics immediately linked to Madonna’s erotic video history and to the mainstream SM chic of Fifty Shades of Grey (2011). For pop-culture BDSM watchers, it is less a community documentary than a polished celebrity short that used S&M wardrobe and pose language to extend Cyrus’s 2013 sexually explicit public reinvention.
Background and Production
The piece first screened during the Bangerz Tour in February 2014 as an introductory interlude, then musically tied to Alt-J’s “Fitzpleasure.” Nowness re-released it on 1 May 2014 while Cyrus was recovering from an allergic reaction that delayed the tour. New York agency Cadence produced the project; Neil Cooper and Nina Qayyum served as executive producers, with Michael Angelos as an additional producer. Quentin Jones directed and created animations. Peter Duffy and Johnny Langer handled music and sound design. Diane Martel was creative director—she had already worked with Cyrus on the “We Can’t Stop” video and the controversial 2013 MTV Video Music Awards performance. Paul Laufner was director of photography; Sandra Winther assisted on artwork. Simone Harouche styled; Andy Lecompte did hair; Pati Dubrogg did makeup. The credit list reads like a high-end fashion film more than a DIY fetish shoot, which shaped how critics received the SM imagery: as fashion-art shock rather than underground scene realism.
Synopsis and Visual Language
Running about two minutes, the Nowness cut features “Stockholm Syndrome” by 30’s featuring Zoee. The electronic track’s lines about being held down so it is hard to breathe amplify the overtly sexual framing. A title card names the film Miley; the black-and-white image sits in a square frame with white borders. Cyrus wears black latex underwear with electrical tape over her nipples and is sometimes seen in fishnets. The edit flips between facial close-ups with cartoon eyes and noses layered on her face and shots of latex bands associated with S&M play. She appears suspended mid-air by ribbons in an acrobatic pose, hanging from a rod with legs spread, and presenting 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 D/s—but the wardrobe and restraint props are unmistakably drawn from sadomasochistic visual culture.
Critical Reception
Contemporary reviews clustered around the SM content and Cyrus’s ongoing shock strategy. Leigh Silver at Complex called it a “bondage-themed joy ride” whose shock value was somewhat blunted by Cyrus’s prior sexual displays. Leanne Bayley at Glamour found it “very Fifty Shades of Grey-esque” and unsurprisingly controversial. Mike Wass at Idolator thought her wardrobe “quite demure […] by her standards” yet said the sadomasochistic inspiration “[spices] things up”; he called the film “stylish and beautifully shot” and argued it restored Cyrus as “the queen of shock” relative to Rihanna’s then-recent topless Lui spread. Oscar Lopez admitted the project was “sexy” but unoriginal given similarities to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Like a Prayer” visuals. Robyn Munson at Look ranked it among Cyrus’s most artistic and attention-grabbing pieces and still expressed surprise at her ability to shock after years of sexualized branding. Emily Hewett at Metro suggested this one “was done in the name of art,” whereas earlier moves felt like sales provocation. Lauren Valenti at Marie Claire labeled it not safe for work and a “viral reminder that Miley’s Disney days are far behind her.” Ryan Reed at Rolling Stone called the video “jaw-dropping” and linked it to the psychedelic stage collaborations Cyrus had been doing with Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips. Amiya Moretta argued the clip “boldly confronts double standards” around socially acceptable sexuality and described it as “incredibly sexualized and aesthetically captivating,” layering photography, illustration, and animation into a short surreal story for short attention spans.
Why It Circulates in BDSM Media Lists
Credits on Nowness document the full fashion-film crew. Related listening includes the longer audio of “Stockholm Syndrome” featuring ZOEE. For this site’s readers, Tongue Tied is a primary example of mid-2010s pop deploying latex, tape, suspension, and “held down” lyric metaphors as celebrity art. It does not teach negotiation or aftercare; it sells an image of sadomasochism as stylish self-authorship. That is exactly why it matters in mass-media BDSM history: the same visual vocabulary that leather clubs and pro-domme studios use for play was, for two black-and-white minutes, a Nowness and arena-tour object starring one of the world’s most watched pop figures.
For readers of adult BDSM media and community history, this entry is kept at full informational density: names, dates, venues, and practices retained so the rewrite can stand alone without sending you back to an encyclopedia stub. Use it as a practical orientation piece—what the person, place, work, or title is, why it matters to kink culture, and which related threads (leather titles, rope craft, club geography, pop imagery) connect outward.
For readers of adult BDSM media and community history, this entry is kept at full informational density: names, dates, venues, and practices retained so the rewrite can stand alone without sending you back to an encyclopedia stub. Use it as a practical orientation piece—what the person, place, work, or title is, why it matters to kink culture, and which related threads (leather titles, rope craft, club geography, pop imagery) connect outward.
