A normal girl, Miley Ray Stewart, who by putting on a wig becomes the superstar Hannah Montana, in the eponymous series that aired from 2006 to 2011. The magical lair of the three Russo brothers, who compete to inherit the powers of the family, behind the refrigerator of their sandwich shop in Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012). Shy and clumsy, Lizzie dreams of being popular while her animated cartoon chronicles her teenage life in Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004). And Raven Baxter’s visions punctuate every episode of It’s so Raven (2003-2007). Are sitcomsaround which an entire generation gathered, consolidated the golden age of Disney Channel in the 2000s—before them and since the birth of the network in the early 1980s, Disney Channel was basically fueled by cartoons. However, when the lights went off, the eating disorders, the constant media scrutiny of its young stars and the aspirations for perfection came to light. And it is precisely this dark side of the boom of this channel aimed at children and adolescents that the writer Ashley Spencer narrates in her new book, Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire (Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of the Disney Channel Teen Empire).
Spencer has reviewed the Disney Channel catalog — “My Disney+ account probably thinks I’m 13,” she joked in an interview with Vanity Fair —, has delved into the newspaper archive and has spoken with 150 people who were involved in the company to illustrate how the problems behind the scenes began when the channel was increasingly defined by those novice actors whom it turned into stars. That is, when the company realized the commercial value of linking actresses with their characters, above all. “They needed marketable, beloved stars to open movie franchises, record deals, and market Disney to a whole new level,” Spencer writes in Disney High. “They did it.” And its stars, including Hilary Duff, Raven-Symoné, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gómez and Demi Lovato, suffered the consequences. These are some of the revelations of its 336 pages, in which it does not forget the Jonas Brothers, the twins Dylan and Cole Sprouse and the phenomenon that was the premiere of High School Musical in 2005. A review that begins in 1996 and ends in 2010, when young viewers turned their attention to social networks.
The pressures around Hilary Duff and Raven-Symoné’s body image
The fiction Lizzie McGuire showed the reality behind a 13-year-old girl: the shame of buying her first bra or how to deal with an eating disorder (ED) were some of her stories. In reality, Hilary Duff, its leading actress, was also fighting against them. And although the famous sitcom allowed him to grow outside of Disney, the problems that arose in the setincluding the pressure to look thin on camera, accompanied her for years. “I tried to navigate between being the person I wanted to be instead of the person everyone wanted me to be,” the actress said in 2023 at the Good Guys podcastsome statements collected in the book.
The consequences of extreme beauty standards were also not alien to Raven-Symoné, who competed with Duff on screen with her series It’s so Raven. That a black and non-normative girl would star in a sitcom It was revolutionary. “I want to bring a new beauty to television. I want to wear what normal people look like. “I would love to see people on screens who look like me,” Symoné said in 2006 in an interview for Los Angeles Times. However, she was not immune to criticism and the pressure got the better of her. The recurring comment that he heard at the time when he was 17 years old in the set of It’s so Raven and The Cheetah Girls (2003), a Disney Channel movie in which he starred, was that he was gaining weight and, therefore, could only eat on a diet. Furthermore, during the recording of the series, her body image was manipulated at the whim of the producers, who edited some images to make her thinner, according to Disney High. Symoné, before she turned 18, had two breast reduction operations and liposuction, reveals in her first book Spencer, also a journalist in media such as The New York Times, Vanity Fair either The Hollywood Reporter. The team’s most common defense, according to Spencer, was: “Well, we wanted to protect her. “We didn’t want viewers to judge her.”
Miley Cyrus and the problems of being a Disney star
“Once Disney’s record labels began to cooperate with the Disney TV part (something that did not happen, for example, with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake or Christina Aguilera, part of the cast of The All New Mickey Mouse Club) and everyone recognized that there is a mutual benefit in cross-promoting talent on both ends, that’s when you start having Disney Channel stars who are also releasing record-breaking albums, who go on concert tours, and who sell so much merchandise,” Spencer has reflected on an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “That’s how it became so ubiquitous in American society in the mid-2000s. That’s when the magic happened.”
Extreme pressure, overwhelming mental load and being a product at the service of the company are the tests that had to be overcome in the devastating Disney Channel circuit to become one of its stars, Spencer says in his book. And the chain’s three best-known artists, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, toured it.
Kevin Mazur (WireImage/Getty Images)
Cyrus was the first. Among the problems that came with her rise to fame are her connection to her character, an abusive work schedule, constant media scrutiny, and concerns about her body image. Disney High She says Disney Channel executives didn’t want her role as Hannah Montana to reinforce the idea that a pop star had to be ultra-thin. “They didn’t want to create the image of, ‘This is what beauty is,’” Spencer says. “They wanted it to be an inspiration, not something harmful to children.” However, this led to another problem: Cyrus could not be the role model that her teenage viewers demanded she be because she was also a teenager herself at the time.
The puritanical image in which Cyrus had been corseted exploded in 2008 when, at the age of 15, she starred on a cover in Vanity Fair in which he covered his chest with a blanket and went out with his back bare. It was a scandal for which the singer had to apologize. “My job is not to tell your sons and daughters how to act or how not to act, because I’m still trying to figure it out,” Cyrus defended herself in an interview for Harper’s Bazaar in 2010. And in 2018, through a publication on X, he retracted his apology: “No, I’m not sorry. “Fuck you.”
“The concept of Hannah Montana “It’s that when you were the character you had courage, fans and you were the biggest star in the world,” Cyrus said in 2021, years after leaving Disney. “So when I was me, when I didn’t have the wig on, no one cared about me. That stuck with me. “Without Hannah Montana, no one cared.” This dichotomy between her character and her product was exploited by Disney, which ended up turning the actress into a product at its service that never rested. During the week I recorded Hannah Montana and the weekends were dedicated to concerts, television appearances, press conferences, photo sessions and recording music, among other things. “I was a hamster on a wheel that was spinning non-stop,” says Spencer in Disney High.
Media harassment of Selena Gomez
Like her predecessor, Selena Gomez also felt pressure—her own and from producers—to be a role model for her fans. “That was my job in a way. Be perfect”, she was honest with Vogue, years after his departure from Disney, about his role in Wizards of Waverly Place. But, unlike Cyrus, she not only became a massive star thanks to her fictional character, Alex Russo, but also due to her relationship with the teenage singer of the moment, Justin Bieber.
Christopher Polk (ESPN/Getty Images)
As of 2010, Gomez was in the eye of the storm. The paparazzi began to appear at her filming locations, on her family vacations, to follow her on her outings… hoping to capture an image of the couple or just her. Her relationship with the singer was under constant public scrutiny, even years after their breakup, when a narrative was established, especially on social networks, that constantly pitted her against Hailey Bieber, the singer’s current wife. “A burden too heavy for a teenager to carry,” says Spencer in Disney High.
The hell of fame for Demi Lovato
For Demi Lovato, the third star of the golden age of Disney Channel, the fame she achieved thanks to the company was a nightmare. The actress always dreamed of leaving her native Texas and becoming a movie star. He did it. However, his past experiences—victim of bullying in high school, she was bullied because of her weight and encouraged to take her own life, according to Disney High—were recreated in his characters and he was unable to get rid of them. According to Spencer, “it was difficult for him to build a wall between himself and his characters to protect himself.”
The oppressive schedule, substance abuse, bulimia, self-harm, and a traumatic rape she suffered as a teenager did not help her cope with the pressures of fame and plunged her into severe depression. “I didn’t sleep, I was miserable and I was angry all the time. I felt like I was overworked. And he was,” he stated in his documentary Dancing with the Devil (2021). On the weekends he was on tour, and on Mondays he returned to the set of Sunny, among stars (2009-2011) or that of Camp Rock (2008). Lovato’s hell during her Disney era culminated with her admission to a rehabilitation center in 2010. And although the company hoped that, upon her departure, she would resume recordings and concerts, Lovato cut ties. He had reached a point of no return.
Despite all the problems and the hell of childhood fame, in the Disney Channel shows the characters played by Duff, Symone, Cyrus, Gomez and Lovato will always be smiling, carefree and with all their obstacles overcome.
