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Hannah Montana: The Movie

Miley Cryus, Emily Osment, Jason Earles

"If you don't like my peaches, why do you shake my tree." – Mae West

I want to do a video series called Girls Gone Wild: A Decade Later. I think everyone has seen the infomercials for Girls Gone Wild where Spring Break drunken college coeds flash their mommy parts for a t-shirt. Does a father proud to know that his little darling is showing everything the good Lord blessed her with for about a buck and some change worth of cotton and rayon. Blame it on the sun. Blame it on the Bud Light and Johnny Walker Blue. Blame it on surf. I tend to blame it on bad parenting. Still, nothing says sexy like a pie-eyed bleach-blonde doffing off her bikini top as about fifty brainless frat rats yell, “Show us your t!ts!” Who needs candle light, wine and poetry, with that kind of romance? Class is written all over the series. Girls Gone Wild: A Decade Later would track down these tramp stamp-wearing babes to the suburbs where they live with their increasingly boring husbands and ugly kids. My camera crew would be camped outside of their mega-churches, the soccer fields where their kids play, and at the self-absorbed high end grocery stores they shop. When they would emerge from the air conditioned comfort of their shallow lives, in front of their neighbors, family and/or friends, my crew would shout, “Let’s see the tomatoes, and we are not talking about the ones picked by Mexican farm workers. Okay, we are. We got a t-shirt here for you.” “Kick out those soccer balls, big momma. Show us what time and gravity has conquered.” “Wet t-shirt time. We got juice boxes and sippy cups.”

I mention this because, maybe it is just me, but we seem to have a lot more whore running around lately. I would be all in favor of it, but for our wholesome, fresh-faced, innocent, kissed by Walt Disney, teen queens influence. I have a lot of nieces, and friends with little daughters, who seem to look up to these pop culture icons in an age where we have actually had to coin the term “wardrobe malfunction” and seem to be overusing it. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, the Simpson sisters, Britney, Vanessa Hughes, Adrienne Bailon, the Olsen twins, and gaining ground quick is little Miley Cyrus and clocks all over the internet are counting down until she is Playboy legal. She has already posed half-naked for photographer Annie Leibovitz, let her representatives express outrage over how she was taken advantage of and then a few months later talked about how she wants to work with this seducer of innocence again; and let us not forget the suggestive cell phone photos, the making fun of a fellow Disney teen queen in internet videos (for which she was “supersorry”), and the rumors of her wanting a divorce from her parents because they disapprove of the young man she is dating. That is a lot under one’s belt for someone who just got their driver’s license and talks frequently about her love of Jesus. All fine and good, but if Miley goes clubbing, will our daughters follow? If young Miss Cyrus goes off the tracks, will a whole generation of pre-teen tarts follow?

Miley Cyrus is, and Disney has set her up to be, a role model. According to a recent survey, 77 percent of Americans believe that these teen queens gone wild have an influence over young girls lives. Pediatric studies have shown that sex images in our mass media do have an affect on middle class, white teenagers. (Surprisingly African-American teenagers are less influenced by popular culture, relying more on the morale of peers and parents for guidance.) According to another survey, 85 percent of Americans see the increasing glorification of sex as a bad thing. When you are a parent, your daughter’s sexuality, and anything that can influence it, are scary things and that might be one of the few things that unite us with our caveman ancestors. The double standard was around long before Jesus was saying, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” (Notice that in the story the male co-adulterer is nowhere to be found.) Muslim terrorists want their 70 virgins. Most fathers just want the ones they are claiming as deductions to stay that way until they have someone else’s last name. Our boys… that is a different story. Make the old man proud. What does it say about us that there are no male teen queens gone wild that we worry about? No Teen Beat, XY chromosome, Romeo leading our boys down the primrose path. If the next generation Tiger Woods goes wild, he is a lucky man.

If you have been living in a cave or do have the Disney channel playing 24/7, you might not know that the biggest movie in our pre-teen daughter’s lives is coming out in a few weeks, Hannah Montana: The Movie. If you do not believe me, just ask the Disney p.r. guy who has just brain washed your daughter to believe such. For the last three years (the anniversary is coming up on the 24^th), the backbone of the Mouse’s channel has been the television show Hannah Montana, the adventures of average teen Miley Stewart, who secretly at night is the famous pop singer Hannah Montana. Only her family and closest friends know the truth. Although Disney exes, at first, when she first auditioned for the role thought she was too small for the role, they eventually came around to her hire because of the energy she put forth. Her father on the show is played by her real life father and the man who destroyed radio for me as a child, Billy Ray Cyrus (“Elvis with muscles” if Elvis had no talent and only one hit, a gimmicky song that fat chicks could line dance too. “Achy Breaky Heart” was achy breaky awful. If there is a hell, I truly believe that song is played on a loop there.) 5.4 million kids tuned in for the premiere episode, going well beyond what the Magic Kingdom brass had hoped for. Add to this the mountains of cash made when Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus performs in concert and Mickey is one happy rodent.

Some of you are saying, “Come on, come on, spill the beans. What is the movie about and is it any good?” Answer: It is Hannah Montana. Let me repeat that, it is Hannah Montana and if you care about Hannah Montana, you are either a teenage girl with no taste, (That is not putting you down. When I was your age I watched a show called “CB Bears” and it was about truck driving bears, that is right, bears, driving semis. So I have no room to talk) or you are a pedophile, or a parent. The group it is geared for probably will not read this column, and the others, well, you need to get a life. It is one of those “celebrity is bad and a person needs to return to their hometown roots (Here Crowley Corners, Tennessee) to get back in touch with themselves and what really matters” stories that Hollywood with their values does so well.

Still, if Hannah goes wild, will the legion of little girl fans follow? Statistically it does not appear so. The fans of Britney and Lindsay seem to have kept their panties on. The average age of first sexual intercourse, 17, has not changed much in the last twenty years. The teen pregnancy rate has continued to go down. Thirty-five percent lower than when Ronald Reagan had left office. Even the abortion rate is down as well. These teenage girls are not even drinking, smoking or taking drugs on the level of their parents. If Girls Gone Wild has caused other girls to go wild, it is not in the numbers. Maybe it is because girls have other role models like Hillary Clinton, Sally Ride, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Palin (although it hurts to say that), and JK Rowling. Today there is nothing a girl cannot grow up dreaming of being. Maybe these role models contradict the Britneys, Parises, and Mileys that go wild. I do not know. All I know is long before Clara Bow was the “it” girl, parents have worried about bad influences. I tend to believe that people go through stages and change over time. Girls that go wild and those that do not can turn around and be great wives and mothers. Things don’t change much.

Verdict: It is Hannah Montana, Give Me A Break