The votes of 50,000 teenagers crowned Miley Cyrus with the dubious honor of being the worst influence of 2009 in a digital poll. The singer, then still alter ego Hannah Montana in the eponymous television series, split into a normal girl by day and a pop superstar by night, was on her personal crusade to leave behind the role that made her a celebrity. She had all the odds against her: a long history of broken toys from the Disney factory, a very deteriorated media profile and the withdrawal of executives who believed both the fiction and its protagonist were written off. But she succeeded. She avoided her fate by navigating through scandals and furious attacks from the most puritanical sectors, incapable of understanding that that angelic Disney girl wanted to do something twerkingthanks to her chameleonic musical talent and her honesty regarding the challenges and addictions that nearly derailed her.
Today, 15 years after that survey, Miley Cyrus has not only managed to make a name for herself in the pop scene, but has earned the respect of the press, industry and academics, and even the love of Disney, which this August crowned her as a Disney Legend, an award created by the company in the late eighties whose purpose is to reward those people who have contributed in an exemplary way to the company. Cyrus is, at 31 years old, the youngest person in history to receive this recognition, which is also held by personalities of the stature of Elton John, Bette Midler, Angela Lansbury or Carrie Fisher. As if this were not enough, a new generation of pop stars coincide in time when it comes to claiming her – good – influence.
“I remember watching the first episode and thinking, ‘I want to do that. I want to sing, I want to act, and I want to dance. I want to do all of those things.’” Sabrina Carpenter (25, Quakertown, USA), the most dazzling star of international music today, has spoken with this devotion about Hannah Montanathe series that from 2006 to 2011 obsessed a whole generation of children who now, grown up, take the reins of the entertainment industry. With hits like Espresso and Please Please Pleasewhich trade the top two spots on the summer charts, Carpenter has built on a career that began when she was just 10 years old. She entered a crowd-sourced contest called The Next Miley Cyrus Project who searched throughout the United States for a student for the famous actress and, although she came third, guaranteed her a contract with Disney that launched her career.
“We are entering the Hannah Montana era of pop stars,” the magazine confirms. Rolling Stone in an article published last July. “Carpenter is the best example of the inclination towards hannamontanification of her career and brand: in recent years she has adopted that ultra-feminine style, makeup and long blonde hair until it became her distinctive mark on stage. That flirtatious, pastel-colored, bejeweled and childlike personality has been transferred even more to her latest singles (…) Pop hasn’t been this fun for years.”
Cyrus herself is enjoying this vindication of her figure firsthand. Last year, her song Flowers She became the most listened to artist in the world and in February she won her first Grammy Award, which she celebrated by offering one of the most unforgettable moments of the gala. In addition, she is the big favourite in the bookmakers to liven up the next Super Bowl halftime show, a privileged spot with an audience of more than 120 million viewers that revalues whoever is lucky enough to hold the microphone.
For singer Chappell Roan, the fact that Miley Cyrus knew her name was already a cause for embarrassment, but the fact that she personally handed her an invitation to one of her private parties was unthinkable. “When she invited me, I was like, ‘You don’t know that you were my first concert,’” she said, who at 26 years old has become the new great pop promise. Imitating the duality of Hannah Montana, Chappell Roan is the drag identity of Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (26 years old, Willard, USA), a character queer and camp built over the years that has enamored Elton John and Lady Gaga, but that has little to do with the young “introverted, homely and with a strict Christian education” that gives life to it. “Having this version drag about myself is good because it helps me separate the public from the private,” she said in The Washington PostIn other interviews, she has been very clear about the extent to which the fictional singer influenced her career: “I just want to be Hannah Montana. She was the one I liked when I was a little girl.”
The sentiment is shared. Roan rose to fame as the opening act on the tour of Olivia Rodrigo (21 years old, Murrieta, USA), another Disney girl who has followed the emancipation manual written by Cyrus. What’s more, this year she was accused of plagiarism due to the similarity of one of her latest singles, All American Bitchwith a theme (Start All Over) released by Cyrus in 2008. Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Jonas Brothers… their careers were also shaped by the success of Hannah Montanawhich reached a global audience of 200 million viewers.
On the male side, Troye Sivan (29 years old, Johannesburg, South Africa), well established as one of the great international music stars and an LGTBI icon, is another of the young leaders who has publicly expressed the impact that Miley Cyrus had on his personal and professional identity. “When I was 13 years old and I saw Hannah Montana I thought she was the most beautiful person cool of the world. Miley wrote a song called My Heart Beats For Love and said in an interview that it was about his gay best friend. I thought, ‘Oh my God, Miley Cyrus has a gay best friend. Why am I not that person? If everyone rejects me, at least I can be friends with Miley Cyrus,” said the interpreter of hits such as Rush in Buzzfeed.
The rapper queer Lil Nas X (25 years old, Lithia Springs, USA) channeled his love for the fictional character to propose a collaboration with the star’s father both in the series and outside of it. The version of the hit country Old Town Roadalongside Billy Ray Cyrus, became a viral phenomenon and the favorite soundtrack of 2019. “When my peers talk about how they managed to accept themselves as children because of what I symbolized as a child, that’s when I say: ‘Holy shit, I’m fucking Hannah Montana,” Miley confirmed to the magazine. Billboard.
On the national level, the artist most compared to Cyrus has been the singer Aitana Ocaña. In addition to the fact that the 25-year-old Catalan vocalist has expressed her admiration for the American on several occasions, her recent evolution from bubblegum pop to electronic, and from a more adolescent attitude to a more sensual and provocative stage and lyrical pose, has led to the germination of hundreds of articles and tweets that draw parallels between her strategy of professional maturity and that of Cyrus. If on an afternoon in June 2010 she was in charge of killing Hannah Montana on Family Day at the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon wearing a suggestive and very tight bodyAitana has also shattered her memory as a child of Operation Triumph In recent times based on pelvic movements in the choreography of my loveher most recent hit. I’m sure that both Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana would be proud.
