Bratz, BFFs, Princesses and Popstars: Femininity and Celebrity in Tween Popular Culture Melanie Kennedy Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) School of Film, Television and Media Studies University of East Anglia December 2012 ©This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. 2 ABSTRACT The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in media output aimed at “tweens” (preadolescent girls), and the expansion more broadly of tween popular culture. This exclusively female preadolescent consumer demographic is seen to emerge alongside a heightened visibility of girls within popular culture since the mid-1990s, and continuing anxieties about girlhood in this intensely mediated environment. However, this burgeoning field has yet to be matched in academic attention. This thesis offers a timely examination of mainstream tween films, television programmes, celebrities and extra-texts from 2004 onwards, including “princess” narratives The Prince & Me (2004, 2006, 2008, 2010) and A Cinderella Story (2004, 2008, 2011), and Disney Channel programming and Original Movies, Hannah Montana (2006-2011) and Camp Rock (2008, 2010). It forges a dialogue between postfeminism, film and television, celebrity, and the figure of the tween, in order to examine how the tween is both constructed and addressed by the films and television programmes that make up tween popular culture. Tweenhood is a discursive construction emerging in the mid-1990s and coming to cultural prominence in the early twenty-first century. The tween is understood to be defined by her transitional status, her “becoming”-woman; as such, the texts that make up tween popular culture can be seen to guide the tween in her development of an “appropriately” feminine and (post)feminist identity through a rhetoric of “choice”. Such identities are predicated on revealing and maintaining an “authentic” self. The need to develop an “appropriately” feminine and (post)feminist identity whilst remaining “authentic” requires the tween to be the ideal self- surveilling, transforming subject of neoliberalism. Celebrity plays a central role in tween popular culture, articulating the parallels between “becoming”-woman and “becoming”-celebrity. Through a combination of textual analysis, and broader discursive and contextual analysis, this thesis highlights the centrality of femininity and celebrity to the tween as a figure constructed by the texts that make up tween popular culture. It analyses the ideal tween consumer as projected by the texts. This thesis draws attention to the culturally and academically devalued subject of the construction of tweenhood within a gendered, age-specific popular culture. 3 LIST OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 List of Contents 3 List of Illustrations 4 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 Section One: The Tween Subject Chapter 1: The Multiple Femininities of Tween Popular Culture 35 Chapter 2: The Multiple Feminisms of Tween Popular Culture 67 Section Two: The Tween Generation Chapter 3: Narratives of Celebrity 98 Chapter 4: Narratives of Father-Daughter Transformation 129 Section Three: Tween Culture Chapter 5: Growing Up Female with Miley Cyrus, Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana 156 Chapter 6: Falling in Love with the Jonas Brothers 187 Conclusion 220 Bibliography 227 Filmography 249 Teleography 252 Library of Music 253 Total Words: 95,610 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Sasha, Jade, Yasmin and Cloe, screen grab from bratz. 35 Figure 2: Lilly and Miley, screen grab from Hannah Montana. 40 Figure 3: Poppy before her makeover, screen grab from Wild Child. 51 Figure 4: Poppy after her makeover, screen grab from Wild Child. 52 Figure 5: Poster for Ice Princess. 71 Figure 6: Joan, screen grab from Ice Princess. 83 Figure 7: Fiona, screen grab from A Cinderella Story. 86 Figure 8: Fiona’s previous feminine style, screen grab from A Cinderella Story. 87 Figure 9: Poster for Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. 113 Figure 10: Mitchie, screen grab from Camp Rock. 120 Figure 11: Tess, screen grab from Camp Rock. 121 Figure 12: Sonny with a Chance’s Tween Weekly magazine, screen grab from Sonny with a Chance website. 123 Figure 13: Opening montage, screen grab from The Game Plan. 131 Figure 14: Opening montage, screen grab from College Road Trip. 145 Figure 15: Mandy, screen grab from Picture This. 148 Figure 16: Tom, screen grab from Picture This. 148 Figure 17: Isis and Hannah Montana, screen grab from Hannah Montana. 163 Figure 18: Hannah Montana Forever magazine and free gifts, personal photograph. 164 Figure 19: Miley Stewart, screen grab from Hannah Montana: The Movie. 168 Figure 20: Miley and Robby Ray Stewart, screen grab from Hannah Montana. 173 Figure 21: Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus, photograph from Vanity Fair. 177 Figure 22: Billy Ray, “Miley” and Tish Cyrus, screen grab Hannah Montana Forever series finale alternate ending. 183 Figure 23: The Jonas Brothers, screen grab from Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience. 191 Figure 24: Jonas Brothers fans, screen grab from Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience. 192 Figure 25: The Jonas Brothers’ first cover appearance for Rolling Stone. 195 Figure 26: The Jonas Brothers’ second cover appearance for Rolling Stone. 195 Figure 27: Official Jonas Brothers necklace, image from www.jonasbrothersmerch.com. 205 Figure 28: Official “Future Mrs Jonas” t-shirt, image from www.jonasbrothersmerch.com. 212 5 Figure 29: Official “Property of Jonas Brother” t-shirt, image from www.jonasbrothersmerch.com 213 Figure 30: Kevin Jonas and Danielle Deleasa, cover image of People. 214 Figure 31: Lindsay Lohan, photo montage from www.faceook.com/eonline. 226 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the Studentship Award which made this PhD possible. Thank you to Dr Su Holmes and Professor Yvonne Tasker for your guidance and support throughout the PhD: I could not have asked for a better supervisory team. I wish to thank Nick Crisp and Sue Harper for your help with style corrections; Graham Kennedy and Lisa Stebbings for tidying up my references; and Amanda Kennedy and Elizabeth Kennedy for your proofreading: you all made my life much easier in the final weeks and days of the project, and I am very grateful for the time you all took from your busy schedules to do so. Additionally, thank you all for your encouragement and support. I’d also like to thank my “work colleagues” for your photoshopping, Balderdash and bad ‘80s dancing: you made these past three years incredibly enjoyable and kept me sane. And last but not least, thank you to Peggy Sue for keeping me company and distracting me when I needed a break. 7 INTRODUCTION What is a Tween? To someone who is unfamiliar with the term “tween”, it is useful to refer to the Urban Dictionary, an online dictionary featuring largely slang and colloquial terms, the definitions of which are submitted by users and regulated by volunteer editors. Once a definition is published, visitors of the site may then vote for or against it, allowing users to view entries in order of popularity. The most popular definition offered for “tween” is: a girl ages [sic] about 9-14...too old for toys, but too young for boys. Very easy to market to, will usually follow any fashion trend set for them, will most likely go through the phase of “finding themselves” as they “grow up”. 1. Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen’s main fanbase are all tweens. 2. tween 1: LyK oMg, I aM jUsT gOiNg ThRu TeH hArDeSt TiMe Of My LyF...i RaN oUt Of EyEsHaDoW!!!! tween 2: OMG!!!! DO YOU NEED ME TO COME OVER FOR SUPPORT?!?!?!?!?!1 This definition highlights a number of points central to the contemporary cultural construction of the tween: the tween is understood to be in a transitional stage in their lifetime; tweenhood is seen to be a consumer demographic; the tween is assumed to be in the process of developing a sense of self; consumption of celebrity is claimed to be an essential part of tween culture; and most significantly, tweenhood is recognised as female. The Urban Dictionary user’s claim that tweens will passively follow marketers’ trends, and their sarcastic example conversation between two tweens centring on the “frivolous” subject of make-up, in which correct written English is not used, emphasises tweenhood’s inherently gendered construction and its culturally derided status. Media output aimed at tweens has increased dramatically over the past decade, within an expansion more broadly of tween popular culture; however, such expansion has yet to be matched in academic attention. This thesis offers a timely examination of mainstream tween films and television programmes from 2004 onwards, examining 1 Laurelz! w/ no help from JENCO, “tween”, Urban Dictionary, 13 March 2005, <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tween> [accessed 10 November 2012] 8 multi-media constructions of tweenhood within a gendered, age-specific popular culture. It understands the tween as a discursive construction emerging in the mid- 1990s and coming to cultural prominence in the early twenty-first century. Through analysis of a number of films, television programmes, celebrities and extra-texts aimed at the tween, this thesis forges a dialogue between postfeminism, film and television, celebrity, and the figure of the tween, in order to examine how the tween is both constructed and addressed by the films and television programmes that make up tween popular culture. The contemporary understanding of the tween takes its meaning from a range of fields, including the popular press, marketing discourses, childhood advocacy, academic childhood studies, consumer studies and girlhood studies. Tweenhood, then, is a discursively constructed category; as such what follows is a discursive exploration of the tween’s emergence in particular examples of contemporary culture.