As the world collectively gasped during Miley Cyrus’ performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday night, one group is calling on the former Disney Channel star to right her wrong and restore innocence back to teddy bears.
The Teddy Bear Fund told TMZ on Thursday the pop singer used teddy bears in an “offensive way” and could reverse the situation if she so chooses.
“Miley made a poor choice to use a universally loved children’s teddy bear in an offensive way,” a representative for the Fund told TMZ. “There is always good art and bad art — unfortunately … this was bad art.”
The Teddy Bear Fund, started in 2010, gives stuffed animals to abuse shelters. Its website tells the touching story of its origins, recounting the tale of a 6-year-old boy wanting to give back to his hometown fire department.
“It all began in the summer of 2010 with a lemonade stand in Provincetown, Massachusetts,” the organization’s website states. “…[The boy] had been taken to the hospital with a very high fever and was comforted with the gift of a Teddy bear in the ambulance.”
During her now-notorious performance at the VMA’s, Cyrus gyrated on dancing teddy bears and made sexual gestures to dancers wearing the stuffed animals on their backs.
“Hopefully she might consider reversing this situation by giving lots of teddy bears to children in need of comfort,” the representative from the Teddy Bear Fund said.
One can only hope she does a lot more than that to regain her — and the teddy bears’ — innocence once again.
