It's an outrage.

A shocker.

A scandal.

Shameful.

That Miley Cyrus. She's baring her back and shoulders in a photograph.

My goodness, what will we tell the children?

Forgive me for not doing my bit and getting worked into a state of high dudgeon over the Miley Cyrus photo "controversy" that's consumed so much ink and airtime over the last week or so, but, I have to admit, I really don't see what the big deal is.

In case you've been vacationing in the Arctic Circle since last Sunday, the 15-year-old Cyrus has apparently endangered the incredibly lucrative "brand" that is the "Hannah Montana" Disney Channel series, as well as its merchandising and touring offshoots, thanks to posing for renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz for the June issue of Vanity Fair. Leibovitz specializes in striking and unusual celebrity photographs - this is the photographer, after all, who snapped the famous photo of a nude John Lennon clutching wife Yoko Ono just hours before he was killed - and the Cyrus photo isn't a great departure from Leibovitz's well-known body of work.

The photo that's getting most of the attention features Cyrus covered in a silk sheet. Her hair is tussled and we see her bare shoulders and back. A spokesman for Vanity Fair called it "a beautiful and natural portrait." It's certainly not "raunchy," which is the word one of the more hysterical British tabloids used to describe it.

Nevertheless, some worried parents have reportedly been pouring out their concern on blogs and Internet chat rooms. A commentator in The Times of London - owned, it should be noted, by Rupert Murdoch, who's never shy when it comes to chasing the lowest common denominator - slammed Leibovitz, contending that the photographer saw "the shock potential, the lip-smacking titillation..."

It goes without saying, of course, that there are other, far weightier problems in the world right now. There are food riots in Haiti and Bangladesh, gas prices going up by the hour, houses that have gone unsold for two years or more, and, lest we forget, the low-grade fever that is the never-ending Iraq war. The Miley Cyrus photo contretemps would have to take steroids to rise to the level of small potatoes. But even in the annals of celebrity scandal, this one feels measly and manufactured, and the alleged outrage carries a whiff of the puritanical.

Consider, for instance, the Beatles posing in butcher smocks, draped in chuncks of meat and dismembered baby doll heads for the cover of the 1966 "Yesterday ... and Today" album (the cover was quickly withdrawn and is now a pricey collectible). Now that, my friend, was certainly a decisive break from the jovial moptop image they had cultivated, but it didn't seem to cause the Beatles or their baby boomer fans any lasting harm. It certainly didn't receive the wall-to-wall coverage Cyrus and her exposed epidermis have received.

And I know I'm not the first person who has wondered whether this whole "controversy" has, in fact, been a calculated move, designed to make Cyrus seem more grown-up. This isn't quite as in-your-face as the efforts of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera to shed their teenybopper image earlier this decade, but when you consider that Cyrus and the "Hannah Montana" juggernaut are a $1 billion industry, you can rest assured that Cyrus and her handlers are thinking about how to keep her fame alive after all the "Hannah Montana" toys have been put out at garage sales a few years from now.

As Peter Castro, the deputy managing editor of People magazine told the Associated Press, "She has to find a way to gain a new following."

As others have pointed out, Cyrus's apology over the photo shoot was likely at the behest of worried Disney executives. Despite the contention that Cyrus was manipulated into posing for the photos, her parents and entourage were present at the February photo shoot. Couldn't they have pulled the plug if they thought any poses were objectionable?

Sarah Hepola summed it up well on the Salon Web site: "Am I supposed to be outraged? I'm not. You can see more skin at a prom."

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