Miley Cyrus, America’s billion-dollar girl sensation
Tangi Quemener

LOS ANGELES—Fifteen-year-old Miley Cyrus stars in a wildly popular Disney television series, sings to packed concert halls and this week announced the billion-dollar publication of her “memoirs.” She is the idol of countless American girls, but experts warn Cyrus, star of “Hannah Montana” could be headed for a bad-girl breakdown along the lines of fallen pop singer Britney Spears and child-star turned substance-abuser Lindsay Lohan.
Disney Book Group made waves with the revelation that Cyrus’ memoir would be published in spring 2009, with People magazine setting the windfall for the rising teen sensation’s first book at around one billion dollars. The book is to tell the story of how the teenager shot to fame and yet has managed to keep her feet on the ground with the support of her family, which Cyrus said she hopes will “inspire kids around the world to live their dreams.”
At the root of Miley-mania is Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana” series, the story of an American teenager, Miley Stewart, who leads a normal life by day and is a pop star by night. It has become one of Disney’s most effective marketing campaigns ever. Millions of viewers age six to 14 watch the show each week, in which the on-screen father of Miley Stewart and her alter ego Hannah Montana is her real life father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus previously best known for singing “Achy Breaky Heart.”
“This phenomenon really plays into the ‘anybody can be a star’ (idea). Hannah Montana provides the illusion of a reality show. She’s an everyday girl, and lives this fantastic life. It’s really a way to market to that fantasy,” said Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California. Cyrus and her good-girl image is the latest embodiment of “a long line of these young female stars that are as much packaged for the children’s parents as for the kids themselves,” she said.
“We kind of build up these good girls and tear them down when they can’t live up to this impossible ideal,” said Sternheimer, citing Lohan and Spears, whose drug-and-alcohol escapades have been well publicized, and Spears’ younger sister Jamie Lynn, star of Nickelodeon’s teen series “Zoey 101” who recently announced she is pregnant.
Disney has not held back when it comes to packaging the brown-haired, blue-eyed teenager’s brand, which can be bought in the form of dolls, bed sheets, clothes, schoolbags and even video games. The original songs in the TV series have also sparked a buying frenzy, with more than eight million albums sold and a series of concerts in 2007, tickets to 70 of which sold out within minutes and spiked in value on the black market.
For those who couldn’t make it to a live show, Disney released a live concert video in 2008, which reaped 31 million dollars in three days. Miley Cyrus also figured among the presenters at the Oscars on February 24, an event watched by hundreds of millions of viewers. “This is a huge financial bonanza for Disney,” said Jerry Del Colliano, an expert on the music industry at the University of Southern California. “You’re not going to see a company that equals it. This is their area, young people,” he said. “They have a tremendous reach between their cable channels on TV, Disney radio stations that get the kids early in life.” The younger teenage market, of 11-12-year-olds known as “tweens,” is particularly lucrative, according to Del Colliano.
“The tweens buy things with parents’ money. And interestingly enough, the parents are so taken into this, that they’re fighting to pay the 1,000 dollars or more for a ticket,” he said. “This thing is so textbook for Disney, that you whip the kids into a frenzy, but also the parents who are the ones who pay. Parents are happy to spend the extra money because they feel that they’re spending it on something that’s pure.” Cyrus has said her memoir will focus on “how important my relationship with my family is to me,” and that she hopes “to motivate mothers and daughters to build lifetimes of memories together.” But Del Colliano said she is likely to remain Disney’s darling only so long as she remains young, cute and perfect. “All stars are perishable and disposable. They do run some risks, that these young kids become big stars and cross over to the slutty side. They got to keep them pure for a while, at least in the minds of the parents,” he said.