Hannah Montana

So what is the big deal? Every 5 year old girl in the country is watching every move of the new pop-preteen-queen Hannah Montana. Why shouldn't my 5 year old girl watch too? After all, don't the shows promote good ethics and have a good moral in every show? It's not like the show is full of adult content, sexual humor and drugs.

It is a big deal for a couple of reasons.

Reason 1: It may not be adult content, but I believe that teenage content by today's standards is only subtly different than adult content. I have not seen enough to really know how this show approaches topics such as dating or having a boyfriend. The few glimpses that I have seen make it apparent that fashion, clothing, popularity and parties headline important themes of the show. Howbeit these are most likely not the only messages conveyed to the little girl audience, and that there may be very positive messages mingled in with these core themes, I am very weary of today's Disney Cooperation's motives when teaching little girls life's lessons. Disney's primary motivation for everything they do (like any other big business) is making money. They are already making a fortune on Hannah Montana products, including: clothing, jewellery, apparel and dolls. Keeping in mind the continued potential to generate revenue on these superficial items, I have watched the show and felt bombarded with some subtle and other not so subtle messages that relate a girls worth to her body, clothes, friends, and popularity. These are the same messages that are more blatantly broadcast through teenage magazines and adult shows that are obviously inappropriate for little girls; but they are taught with more subtlety and suggestion in a preteen show like Hannah Montana.

Reason 2: Miley Cyrus as an actor plays a sweet preteen girl who genuinely seems concerned with the welfare of those around her. As a preteen girl, I would be a little surprised if she wasn't a model citizen. It is not fair to take an innocent girl with as much popularity and fame as she has, and expect that she will not succumb to the tremendous worldly pressure to party and live today's standard of normalized promiscuity. Whether or not she eventually hits rock bottom like her predecessors such as Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan, or she simply makes constant headlines of the many relationships, sensationalized or legitimate, that the entertainment media will capitalize on for their profit, it is certain that her teenage years will be far less wholesome than the ideals that her preteen show may suggest. Media pressure has already forced its ugly hand into convincing her that the provocative pictures she posed for in Vogue magazine were classy. I am concerned that Miley Cyrus, who is a pretty, smart, presumably wholesome girl, to whom millions of little girls idolize and emulate, will soon cause these little girl fans to become grossly desensitized to frank immorality when their role model becomes entangled in the typical Hollywood lifestyle. Anyone who believes that she will be above this lifestyle is fooling themselves, and risking some portion of the innocence of their little girls in a wager with odds stacked steeply against them.

Reason 3: Even if the show had no message that associated a girl's worth to popularity, fashion, body, ect., and even if Miley Cyrus became a model citizen, and showed she deserved the fanaticism of all of her little fans by leading a good and wholesome life, little girls ages 4 through 6 or 7 really shouldn't be obsessing about teenage topics. These little girls should be learning about little girl topics, boys should have cuties, universal worth for everyone in their preschool, kindergarten or first grade class should be thought of, they should be learning about the natural wonders of the world around them, learning how letters come together can make works, and understanding how the right words coming together create powerful messages that can enlighten or destroy. These messages are what little girls should be learning, and are available on TV programming, but are more powerful through a book, quality time with parents or friends, or even simple kid games. The shear quantity of time watching and obsessing about teenage topics at best becomes voided time when more pertinate education could not occur. At worst it is a destructive influence on little girl natural development.

Therefore, to answer the questions I initially proposed about Disney's Hannah Montana: Yes, I think it is a show that in some ways promotes good ethics and has good morals in each show, no, it does not have true adult content, and no, my 5 year old daughter will not be watching it.