poptimists | Girls just wanna...

I've been trying to figure out why I have suddenly taken such a strong dislike to Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana. After all, it wouldn't be very poptimist of me to dislike her just because she's a manufactured pop princess, right? I should judge her on the basis of her songs/performances.
Yeah, she's a precocious 15-year-old, but I can't blame her for that - let her have her fun. And I may cringe a bit at the nepotism inherent in the daughter of a country-pop crossover star "proving" to the best of a thousand little girls eager for a starring role in a Disney project, but I don't really care about her so much to let that bother me.

To be honest, I think it's actually Disney that unnverves me. (Here, to be honest, I must note that I have never watched Hannan Montana on small or large screen, so I am mostly speaking on the basis on what filters through pop culture media. On one hand it's ignorance, on the other hand there are some things it's impossible to remain ignorant of.) There are lots of "machines" out there that generate stars. Not so many that create them across the whole media spectrum - usually it's the ambitious star theirself who parlays their album sales into a movie role (Madonna) or their movie roles into music careers (JLo). More power to them, I guess, if they've got the combination of talent and marketing moxy to pull it off. Something about Disney seems sinister, though: their own network, their own movies, their own record company, their own radio station.

Sure, it's all about money - Miley's aspirations to be famous are convenient to be exploited - so targeting a specific family-friendly, tween-teen audience makes sense. Maybe I've spent too long immersed in US politics, and so a market strategy aimed at keeping the conservative/religious right happy through wholesomeness while not alienating the left through keeping overt religion out of things just seems like a fifth column move to me. There's a kind of denial of reality in the Disney universe, as if we still don't know what will become of Michael J. or Britney S. when they grow up, not to speak of Kurt C. or the millions of people stuck in dead-end office jobs. So really, folks, of everything out there, was she really among the ten best things you heard this year? No better voices? No more interesting sounds? Can this fifteen-year-old really tell you things about life you didn't know? How can that be?

By general convention - and the spirit of poptimists, I think - we try to post questions and generate discussion. So my intention here is not to attack those that like Miley/Hannah - each of us appreciates different things, or sometimes the same things for different reasons. And for the same reason, I guess I'm not asking why you might like Miley. Maybe what I'm asking is to what extent... let's call them "political" considerations figure into your enjoyment of music. A lot of times we sniff at artistic pretensions by singers because we don't see any art in what they're doing, or because we're jaded from seeing art/authenticity rolled out as a marketing ploy. But sometimes these things are important, no?