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Home , High School Musical, Miley Stewart, Stick to the Status Quo, Who Said

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I wannabe famous A wave of Disney-manufactured musical teens has captured the imagination of millions of small girls worldwide. Felicity Monk meets some living-room pop stars

“, who said, I can’t be Superman? a speaker in its chest. There is Hannah with tennis ensemble, I say, I say that I know I can. with ‘soundbytes’, with electric guitar and with light-up dance Who said, who said, I won’t be President? lounge. In February, Disney deemed the I say, I say, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” franchise so important they convened an 80-person, all-platform, international meeting to discuss her future. This, audaciously sung by one , the toothy, saucer- Cyrus is just one of the new wave of Disney-manufactured eyed teenager, helped her bank a cool $25 million over the past musical teens who has dominated the pre-tween scene for year. Far more than any superman or president. Cyrus is the star the past two years. Other major players include the key cast of of ’s insanely popular television series Hannah (, and Ashley Montana in which she plays a character who leads a double life. Tisdale), the , and the crew from the movie By day she is schoolgirl , and by night she is . Gone are the half-naked Britneys and gyrating famous pop singer Hannah Montana. Only close and family Christinas who purr such lyrics as, “I’m a genie in a bottle,

(her real-life father, , of ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ fame, baby. You gotta rub me the right way, honey.” The new guard plays her dad, and plays her aunt) know the truth. chirrup, “We’re all in this together.” They are wholesome and hop

Like most Disney child stars, Cyrus, 16, hit the genetic jackpot. earnest and blather on about following their dreams. Good k S oc

She is cute, she is peppy, and she can sing. It’s a husky noise thing, too, since their adoring fan base is mostly made up of R he ) d but it’s in tune. And for someone who still has homework, she small girls. Teenagers largely feel that Miley is, like, OMG, T : ’R K

is ridiculously self-assured as she minces around the stage. fuggedaboutit, way too cheesy. In the course of this research, ( guitar

Tickets for every one of her concerts sell out, with some one jaded teenage source officiously informed me that word on hop k S Kitty

being scalped for thousands of dollars. Her concert film,The the street is, ‘Miley Cyrus is not cool.’ Some factions even oc R

Best of Both Worlds, brought in more than US$8.5 million cruelly refer to her as ‘Smiley Virus’. ello he : T : on its opening day, breaking all kinds of records. There’s the Six-year-old Nico Penny, however, is a MAJOR fan. She threw . H merchandise: Hannah Montana , CDs, a fashion line, a rocking Hannah Montana party for her birthday in April. Her nunes guitar

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dinnerware, furniture, sheet sets, drapes, jewellery and friends came over dressed as pop stars. “I was wearing a denim k blac bec

Playstation games. And there are dolls: Hannah dolls, Miley skirt with gold glitter on it and some purple leggings with glitter, : ), dolls, fashion dolls, singing dolls and one particularly alarming and a really cool top. I was wearing a special wig.” Nico dashes Nina and Heidi Simpson rock out at home in New Lynn specimen which, when you push its distended belly button off to retrieve the wig. “I’ve got it,” she hollers from her enderson

or crank its right arm, bleats a loud and distorted tune from bedroom. “It’s really hairy.” At the party they danced, sung, photograph (H

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played dress-ups and ate Burger Rings off their fingers. Nico says she likes Hannah Montana because, “she has got a really cool voice and she has funny scripts. Sometimes when the show finishes I fall back on the couch because I hate when the show finishes. All night long I wish it would go on, and then in the morning I still want it to be on.” Nico is considering a career in fashion, but would also “kind of like to be a singer. It’d be quite cool because you would rehearse every day, and it would be fun and you would also do some dancing as well. You might have to learn the moves like Miley Cyrus. You might have to hit the microphone on the ground and then quickly put your foot out and go ‘bam’.” Nico considers for a moment whether it would be hard work and concludes, “Not really. But you will have to get used to singing for a really long time, like without swallowing your breath and stuff.” Thirteen seems about the right age to be a rock star, she reckons, “so you’re not too old”.

“Who said, who said, I can’t be worldwide? I say, I say time is on my side. Who said, who said, I can’t be 10 feet tall? I say, I say that I can have it all.”

There is nothing new, of course, about kids wanting to be stars. My mum wanted to be Lulu from To Sir With Love, my sister attempted to dress like , and I tried to moonwalk like Michael. It is the marketing that has changed. It’s slicker, savvier and far more precise, targeting ever younger audiences. This fertile and lucrative field of children besotted with the concept Miley Cyrus of fame is being carefully seeded and groomed, and is turning out crops of voracious little consumers. In a sunny lounge in the Auckland suburb of New Lynn, Heidi and Nina theatre the opportunity to see a musical in a movie format, that was, in a way, Simpson, aged seven and four respectively, are wrangling over who gets to like traditional theatre.” wear the long blonde Hannah Montana wig. The girls’ previous deep affection Janine Donnell, artistic director of ACTA (Auckland Children’s Theatre for Gwen Stefani and The Veronicas has waned, says their mum, since they Academy) agrees. “The sheer appreciation is getting now is the entered their dedicated Hannah Montana phase. They like to watch Hannah upside. The grand scale of this craze of movie musicals, it’s kind of reminiscent Montana on television every day, and if they know they are going to miss an of the 1950s, the golden era of musicals when you had people like Doris Day, episode, they will record it. Heidi shows me some of her Hannah Montana and Rodgers and Hammerstein were at their peak. I think the good thing about booty: there’s a singing doll, a CD, a clock, a book and two tops which, it is that it is giving us press. It is giving music and singing and dancing an area when she wears them, she says, make her feel a little bit rock’n’roll. In the to shine in.” background, Nina waves about her naked Miley doll. (“Nina always takes Donnell says she sees many little pop star wannabes rock through her door the clothes off,” Heidi tells me.) Both sisters desire to be famous rock stars. come audition time. “They come in and they will have prepared a for me. Heidi thinks she’ll be one at 15, and the more ambitious Nina thinks 12 seems A lot of times it has been High School Musical, and they tend to try to mimic a reasonable age. what they are seeing. They’ll hear somebody who has quite a powerful voice, In Rosa Macdonald’s bedroom is a Hannah Montana paper plate and cup that so they will push to try and be the same and will actually learn some bad habits. she brought home from a friend’s birthday party recently – neither was used I need to reverse that, and then once you get her to take all that bravado off, because she didn’t want to ruin them. The seven-year-old also shows me her you actually find there is a sweet little voice in there. And then you can start collection of Barbie dolls, Bratz dolls and her doll from High to build that voice up properly.” School Musical, which fires up when you place a microphone in front of its face. Rosa wants to be either a zookeeper or a singer – she’ll decide when Seven-year-old Emma Gadsby sings me an entire Miley Cyrus song, complete images

she’s about 13. In the meantime she and her friends will continue to listen with American accent and angsty twang. She’s very good, actually. She says getty

: to the Ashley Tisdale CD and have rock concerts on her bed. when she watches Hannah Montana on television it makes her “want to be When the first High School Musical came out, Stephen Dallow, director of the very famous”. So last year she formed a band with five of her friends. Naturally, nation-wide performing arts school Kids-4-Drama, says he witnessed an influx of she was the lead singer. “I wanted people to know that I like to sing and that

photograph students signing up for classes. “It gave people who might not go and see live I am good at singing.” She designated places for her friends and “made up >>

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different dances for them”. Their repertoire comprised just the one song, ‘Barbie she has now finished. Rights were bought for a reported seven figures and Girl’ by Dano-Norwegian dance-pop group Aqua, before the band went their an initial run of one million copies is planned. Cyrus was also named in Time separate ways, but Emma has new plans afoot. “Our next band, if we do make magazine’s list of ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’. But the powerful one, is probably going to be called ‘The Superstars’.” arm of Disney can’t control everything. Last year there was a scandal when racy photographs of Cyrus were posted on the internet, and this year there So what will happen to this loyal fan base when Hannah Montana graduates were more pictures after her cell phone was allegedly hacked into. A similar from high school, not long from now? Disney’s got it covered. In a clever and thing happened to High School Musical’s Vanessa Hudgens, thereby attracting calculated move, while the family-friendly Hannah Montana is cleaning up at the interest of a whole new legion of fans – teenage boys. the toy stores and packing out the concert floors, Disney marketers have been simultaneously establishing the Miley Cyrus brand. Last year, Cyrus launched “Go on make some noise, her solo music career with the release of her debut , Meet Miley Cyrus. Every girl has the choice, A second album, Breakout, soon followed. To lead their own parade, In April, she announced plans to write a book about her life and career, which I do it my way, (oww).”

WHO ARE THEY?

High School Musical The Jonas Brothers before marriage. Nick Jonas and Miley Cyrus dated for High School Musical (HSM) was a Disney Channel, A band of three handsome New Jersey brothers: two years but broke up at the end of 2007. It is said she Emmy Award-winning, made-for-TV film that Kevin, 21, Joe, 19, and Nick, 16. They have released co-wrote a song about him, rumored to be ‘Seven screened in 2006, inaugurating the HSM film franchise. three , with the most recent, A Little Bit Longer, Things I Hate About You’. It spawned a hit soundtrack (the best-selling album in receiving four stars from Rolling Stone magazine, Camp Rock the for 2006), a worldwide concert tour, on the cover of which they appeared in July. Camp Rock is a 2008 Disney TV movie starring the Jonas and a book series (the first novel topped the New York The brothers made their acting debut on Hannah Brothers and introducing singer . It tells the Times best-selling list for 16 weeks). Montana, where they guest starred in one episode, story of a teen girl who desperately wants to spend her The plot has been described as a modern adaptation and their film debut in Camp Rock, where they play summer at a prestigious rock camp, but can only attend of Romeo and Juliet. It is about two high-school kids three guys who are in a band. Currently, they are if she works in the kitchen, alongside her mother, as from rival cliques – a jock (Zac Efron) and a nerd filming a new Disney series J.O.N.A.S. which is about one of the cooks – a fact she tries to hide. When she’s (Vanessa Hudgens). Together, they try out for the lead a band of three brothers who have to cope with being overheard singing by a teen pop star at the camp, he parts in their high school musical, and as a result, divide rock stars while trying to live an ordinary life. Disney becomes besotted with her and sets out to find the girl the school. But they successfully resist peer pressure and has also signed the brothers to a 3D concert movie, a behind the beautiful voice. Eventually she confronts her rivalry, inspiring others not to “”. behind-the-scenes book and the Camp Rock sequel. Last fears, and steps out of the kitchen and into the spotlight. The television sequel, HSM 2: Sing It All Or Nothing! year they earned around US$12 million. They are also The film had 8.9 million viewers on the night of its was released last year. The feature film HSM 3: Senior set to star in the film version of Walter the Farting Dog. premiere. A sequel is planned. Year was released overseas in October and holds The boys are known for their wholesome, family- The Camp Rock soundtrack, released in June, the record for the highest-grossing movie musical friendly image. It is reported that they are all committed features both Lovato and the Jonas Brothers. Lovato in an opening weekend, with more than US$80 million evangelical Christians, their father is a former pastor, recently released her solo debut album, Don’t Forget, worldwide. (It opens in New Zealand this week.) and they were homeschooled by their mother. They and also performed as the Jonas Brothers’ opening A fourth instalment has been announced. wear purity rings and have vowed not to have sex act on their ‘Burning Up’ tour. PHOTOGRAPHS: PHOTOGRAPHS: GETTY IMAGES, MORE IMAGES, HEADPRESS

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