Hannah Montana': Film Analysis

As children develop, they progress through many stages of life, experiencing many emotions and changes, that are essential to their development. Most of these changes are difficult for them because while their brain is still developing, they are forced to adapt in their relevant society and play along with imposed norms. When adding fame and elements of celebrity life, things only become more complicated. Take, for example, the popular television show Hannah Montana. This show aired from 2006 to 2011 and starred Miley Cyrus playing two characters, Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana. Miley, 14, was an average school girl that led a double life as a widely-known pop star named Hannah Montana, setting her apart from her classmates in a unique way. In addition to her family, only two of her friends knew her true identity, and they helped her with the stress she carried from being a child star. Episode one of the series provides introductory details, while also giving some fundamental examples of what it is like for an adolescent growing up ‘normally’ - I use this term loosely as normality is not definitive - in addition to the struggles of maintaining a secret double life of fame. Specifically, various elements of developmental theories and self-concept were drawn on to bring the characters’ struggles to life.

Application

In a way, Hannah Montana addresses some recurring issues in the field of human development and family studies. In the argument of continuity versus discontinuity, it can be argued that, having watched the whole series, the characters develop at a rather steady and continuous pace. Because the show is filmed when the main characters are entering adolescence and follows them until they are 18, the audience actually witnesses a slow progression of development. In addition, nature versus nurture is also represented in most episodes of the show. A central question that follows Miley in this show is whether or not she lets her environment influence her behavior or if she will follow the advice of her family.

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A prevalent concept that arises in the series and first episode is Miley’s struggle with her identity, as Erikson theorizes in his research. He posits that when an adolescent enters that stage of their life, the primary concern regarding their psychosocial development is the search for identity. Conveniently, Miley Stewart has two of those in her show, but she struggles to draw a clear line between the two. In episode one, a main conflict arises between her and best friend Lily--Miley does not want her to know that she is also Hannah in fear that Lily only sees her as Hannah from that point forward. For Miley, it is important that she keep her identity in tact and define who she wants to be as she jumps personas.

Miley is fairly successful in laying the boundaries between her two identities while focusing a majority of attention on her real self - that is, after all, why she chose to create Hannah Montana in the first place. In an effort not to lose herself and to maintain a life somewhat detached from fame, she remains Miley a majority of the time. This way, she can work on her three primary components of identity. Her level of self-knowledge is arguably advanced because of her split identity. She has a passion for keeping her values and has developed these values on her own. For instance, she insists against her father’s advice concerning telling Lily about Hannah. Her self-esteem is not shaken when she is bullied at school and her self-actualization is very stable, as she successfully plays the role of both Miley and Hannah when the situation demands.

There were two antagonists in the show. They were high school girls that attended the same school as Miley and her two best friends. Considered to be very popular, one of the girls makes an attack on Miley in the cafeteria after taking her seat at the lunch table. Demonstrating imitation, the other girl - clearly not the leader of the group - repeated a similar insult aimed to lower Miley’s self-efficacy. Miley deflects the comment and moves on, leading the audience to believe that this is a frequent type of interaction. While it was a negative interaction, the imitation that takes place between the two bullies is demonstrative of the social cognitive theory that says learning takes place by watching others and imitating behavior that is favored as popular.

Studies show that adolescents experience desires for increased autonomy, causing familial relationships to change. Throughout the series of Hannah Montana, some of these topics are suggested, such as when Miley wants her own credit card or when Jackson (her brother) wants to go out on his first date. However, Miley’s situation is unique in that she has a peculiar amount of autonomy considering she is a national superstar. Despite this element of her adolescence, her relationship to her parents never falters as the texts suggest. In addition to Miley’s highly broadened social networking, increased influence from peer groups, and relatively autonomous state, her relationship with family does not change - it does, however, with some of her friends.

Lastly, Miley demonstrates signs of entering the formal operational stage of development as described by Piaget. This is primarily evident in her ability to speculate about what might happen if her friends or others at the school were to find out about her alter ego. In response to her father, Miley states that Lily would no longer see Miley as her best friend, she would simply become obsessed with the idea of Hannah Montana being her friend instead. Miley’s assumptions were initially correct, but Lily adjusted and the girls were able to talk through the situation and apologize to each other for behavior, demonstrating advanced thought processes characteristic of Piaget’s fourth and final stage of development.

Research Evaluations

Due to the lack of scholarly articles that evaluate the effects of fame on youth because of issues with confidentiality, the following a research article is relative on the premise that social media and fame radiate to impact more than the individual but those that look up to the individual. As a result, there are increased perceptions that fame can easily become reality for adolescents because of television shows similar to Hannah Montana.

In beginning their work, Yalda Uhls and Patricia Greenfield preface that as learning environments move towards more complex technology and as the world around us continues to grow, humans will begin to move towards more individualistic mindsets. In reference to fame and the impact of learning through technology and television, they state, “with programs like Hannah Montana, one of the two most popular programs with preadolescent audiences in the present era, fame has become concretized in the dynamic audiovisual imagery of a television narrative”. Thanks to shows as such, social learning theory is coming into play more than it has in years past. Pre-teens and teens are learning from media that fame is something to strive for when it is actually “unrealistically ambitious” (Kowalski, 2014).

This was a mixed methods study that used one quantitative measure (the number one value independently selected by each child) and a qualitative in-depth focus group that aimed to investigate 4 key areas: “whether preadolescent children perceive a relationship between the value of fame and popular TV programs, connect fame and future aspirations, relate social networking sites to the fame motive, and use YouTube or other platforms for posting videos as tools for achieving fame” (Kowalski, 2014). Twenty children (9 girls and 11 boys) participated in five various focus groups of different sizes.

Results concluded that of 8 values to choose from 8 children chose fame as the most important value to them when they grew older. This was the highest occurring value of the options with 4 boys and 4 girls listing it on their paper. The focus group helped to answer that children are implicitly aware of most messages they see about fame. In addition, it gives the message that average people can achieve fame by simply recording their daily lives.

One of the most important connections from this study is how evident it is that children are so highly impressionable as they are developing. Social learning is more prevalent than ever as the media and technology industries are dominating cultures. Uhls and Greenfield perfectly explain why this new desire for fame is surging in adolescents and youth: “Accordingly, at this developmental stage, when children seek peer acceptance and recognition, messages about fame may be especially appealing. When, however, an abundance of messages in the media environment promotes fame and when interactive media tools give youth the potential for broad public recognition, the desire for attention from an audience, manifest in the value of fame, may become amplified, as is the case for emerging adults using social network sites” (Kowalski, 2014).

Given this research and the significance of their findings, it is important that those important figures in children’s lives intervene when necessary, concerning social media usage and television. Because children are so impressionable, this age is the optimal time for teachers/parents/other adult figures to stress those values that are important and attainable.

Conclusion

While Hannah Montana was nonetheless an entertaining television show that many adolescents have enjoyed over the years during and after its airing, admittedly it is the least bit realistic. The show focuses on a 14-year-old girl that manages school, a social life, and another double life. It would be highly impossible for this to happen in a realistic setting as there would be a significant number of responsibilities from both lives that would need attention. Not to mention, the likelihood of someone conveniently never noticing that you look exactly like a pop star, hair removed.

As unrealistic as the story line is, the writers of the show do a good job at making Miley as realistic as possible. She experiences situations very similar to that of ‘normal’ teens as described above, and still must battle the social pressures at school and home that are involved with adolescent development. It seems that she is advanced in her responses to bullying, however, because she fights against her attackers in a sophisticated manner. This was a directional approach to portray Miley’s image as strong-willed. It would not be likely that an adolescent would have as much self-confidence, self-esteem, or self-efficacy as she does.

Despite these differences, I suspect Hannah Montana was so relatable because it fostered a familial love that I think every family tries to embody. Miley’s mom is not present in the story, but she, her dad, and brother are such a close-knit, loving group of people. More importantly, they represent imperfections, showing that not every pop star lives a perfect life with perfect people. They will and do mess up. This show obviously differs from the lives of many people I know, considering no one I know leads a double life of fame.

References

1. Kowalski, R. M. (2014). 'Bullying in the Digital Age: A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of Cyberbullying Research Among Youth': Correction to Kowalski et al. (2014). Psychological Bulletin,140(4). doi:10.1037/a0035618.
2. Walsh, B. A., Deflorio, L., Burnham, M. M., & Weiser, D. A. (2017). Introduction to Human Development and Family Studies. New York: Routledge.