Justin Timberlake points the finger: The times are to blame

The Miley Cyrus post-coital picture that did so much to help sales of Vanity Fair, clearly, needs to be blamed on someone. Thankfully, Justin Timberlake knows who to point the finger at.

Not Annie Leibowitz for taking the photo; or Miley's management for approving it; or the magazine for running it; nor any of the people who try to justify the picture because it's not actually, definitively a sexual image of a minor so that should be alright, then; oh, no, it's the "times":

"Of course they're going to pick [on] a wholesome, American, young female [for] the first sign of anything," Timberlake said. "Unfortunately, there's a picture of her that's published with her in just a blanket. ... And that's the photo, that's the catalyst. But that's also the age we live in. People want to take a photo, and that's who you are for a year's time. We've all become victims of that."

We're not sure that Timberlake has even thought about if he has an opinion, much less if it is in any way coherent - it's not like this is a long-lens snap through a window; this is a stylised, organised photo-shoot, with artistic sign-off. The furore has been created, but not by people who wanted to attack Cyrus, but by the people who wanted to feed off her. Liebowitz, the Cyrus organisation, the magazine - they're the ones who decided to run this photo and since none of them are stupid, they must have known exactly what the reaction would be. To try and blame that on the "times we live in" is like feeding seagulls alka-seltzer and then blaming the seagulls' constitutions when they explode.

And what are the times, anyway, Justin? Isn't the nasty, over-sexualised public culture we have partly due to, ooh, songs about bringing sexy back, and pop stars dry-humping each other on stage like in New York last week? When you've helped made a culture, you can't start tutting over the culture you've made, can you?