Miley Cyrus resurrects Hannah Montana: nostalgia or creative crisis?
It was August 25, 2013. At the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, the MTV Video Music Awards. Miley Cyrus is performing on stage, promoting her new album “Bangerz”whose release is imminent. Surrounded by male and female dancers dressed as teddy bears, the former Disney starlet sings her promotional single in front of approximately 20 thousand spectators in the New York arena and the MTV cameras, “We can’t stop”: with the exception of a provocative glittery bodysuit and some sexy moves, nothing too sensational to report. Then, however, at the end of the song the unexpected happens. «Everybody, get up!», he shouts Robin Thickejoining the pop star on stage to the tune of “Blurred lines”the hit of that recording season. Miley, who in the meantime has taken off her bodysuit and remains in lingerie, begins to sing the first verses of the hit, showing a foam rubber finger. The result is a hot scene destined to mark that edition of the MTV VMAs and to conquer the pages of newspapers and magazines in the following weeks: Miley, after touching Thicke’s intimate areas, bows from behind and twerk rubbing her butt on the singer’s genitals. The night goes down in history as the one in which the former star of Disney Channel “kills”, so to speak, the character who had brought her to success, that of Hannah Montanathe protagonist of the phenomenon series for teenagers of the same name that aired between 2006 and 2011 and transformed Cyrus into one of the most famous child stars in history. «From the exact moment I lost my virginity, at 18, I understood that I could no longer be Hannah. Come on, that would have been ridiculous,” Cyrus reportedly said. Now, thirteen years after that episode, Miley Cyrus revives his alter ego.
“The resurrection of a pop icon”
From March 24, exactly twenty years after the debut of the original series, on Disney+ in Italy and beyond Hulu it will arrive in the USA “Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special”a special dedicated to the phenomenon series of 2000s which told the story of a teenage girl named Miley Stewart struggling with one double life as a pop singer, billed as “a love letter to fans full of soulfulness and nostalgia.” During an interview conducted by the podcaster Alex CooperCyrus will retrace the most memorable moments of the series: between archive footage and surprise guests, there will be a special performance by Miley Cyruswho will return to sing the songs of Hannah Montana. Starting from “This is the life”. Varietythe “Bible” of US entertainment, defined the revival as « the resurrection of a pop icon».
A fluctuating career
Fan enthusiasm is through the roof and it’s easy to see why. “Hannah Montana” it was the flagship of the empire of Disney Channel at the height of his domination over young Americans. The first season album was the first television soundtrack to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 and the tour “Best of both worlds” of Cyrus in 2007 recorded everything sold out in 71 arenas in North America. “Sometimes Hannah Montana it seemed the Beatlesor something like that,” muses Cyrus, whose post-Hannah Montana career it was very mixed in terms of results. Yes, certainly, “Flowers” in 2023 it was one huge hit (won two Grammy Awards as “Recording of the Year” and how “Best Pop Solo Performance”). But for such a success, there were many holes in the water. The latest in the series is “Something beautiful”released last year. In the USA the album did not go beyond fourth place on the Billboard 200only to then quickly disappear from radar. He paid for being a record (too much) brave, ambitious and also commercially risky: «Once you receive the Grammys I thought, “Well, when you Google me now it says ‘Miley Cyrus, Grammy-winning artist’.” Now I can go do mine strange stuff which I like to do. And somehow I ended up making a experimental album», Miley had said the day before. Perhaps he was expecting a slightly less cold welcome. But that’s it.
Running out of ideas
The return to Hannah Montana fits into one very delicate phase of his career of the pop star, who after having tried them all in recent years, from country pop al glam rockfrom the dance al psychedelic popit seems to be a little running out of ideas. And so he relies on anostalgia operation. “I felt at home again,” Miley says. This will certainly be the case, but it is also true that the context in which the revival makes it hard to ignore strategic component. If in 2013 Miley Cyrus he needed destroy Hannah Montana to assert their own artistic maturitytoday it seems to need recover it to reaffirm their own cultural centrality. One question remains open: the effect has worn off revivalMiley will be able to find one continuity in results?
