A Feminist Review of the Hannah Montana Theme Song

Mrs. O'Connell's lecture exposed me to a powerful academic weapon that can be used to expose and examine the values of a culture, a cutting flame that distills culture into its most overt forms: the theme song. 

A successful theme song must do several things: 

1. appeal to as massive an audience as possible. 

2. fully express the main themes of the show/movie/etc.

3. be brief (2-3 minutes at most)

In an uncommon instance of serendipity, the goals of television executives serve the needs of academics. Theme songs are the perfect specimens for cultural research, they reflect the values of a large percentage of the population, they describe those values as much as possible during a short clip, and, perhaps most importantly, they are easy to for the researcher to sift through. Armed with this knowledge, I have decided to turn the microscope around - towards myself - and examine the theme song to a show, nay, a phenomenon that has shaped my generation: Hannah Montana.

A Feminist Review of the Hannah Montana Theme Song

You get the limo out front; oo-aoo / Hottest styles, every shoe, every color. /

What is immediately evident from the earliest moments of the video is that Disney, with ardent desperation, does not want their title character to be sexualized. The outfits are comically demure - there is not one shot in which Hannah Montana wears a skirt, bathing suit or shorts, despite the fact that the show takes place in Malibu, California, where the weather is routinely above eighty degrees. However, the writers obviously desire that Montana's femininity remain intact, as indicated by her interest in fashion and possession of excessive clothing and accessories, both traditionally female characteristics, in the line hottest styles, every shoe, every color. 

And when you're famous it can be kind of fun. / It's really you, but no one ever discovers. 

These next two lines are the basis of the plot of Hannah Montana, and are laid over the reveal of two major male characters in the series. First, Hannah Montana's close male friend, as played by Mitchell Musso. Musso's posture and mannerisms during his reveal are decidedly feminine - he is looking down and away from the camera, and slowly stroking his exposed cheek with the back of his hand. I believe the producers choose to portray Musso's character with such exaggerated femininity to both establish him as a comic character, and to show that he is not a love interest for our titular character. 

Second, Hannah's older brother, as played by Jason Earles, is shown. He shows the most skin out of anyone in this opening sequence, but it is for comic effect. He has his shirt pulled up to just below his nipples, and has a face drawn on his protruding stomach so that his bellybutton can be manipulated as a second "mouth". I thought this joke was interesting, because I do not believe they would chose the same joke if Montana had an older sister - a woman hiking up their shirt, even in jest, seems more inappropriate than a man doing the same thing. 

Who would've thought that a girl like me / Could travel like a super star?

This line reveals something important about the industry of Hannah Montana that may be obvious, but that I believe still requires justification: it is pandering to women, and to a specific notion of femininity. By saying "girl like me" Montana invites her viewers to live vicariously through her, and to dream of living like her, for she is just a "girl" who no one "would've thought" could possibly "travel like a super star". 

 You get the best of both worlds: Start it out, take it slow, then you rock out the show

Montana does a lot of twirling in this video. In fact, in the fifty second theme song, she twirls five times in all. That's a twirl every ten seconds. I believe this twirling is indicative of an aspect of Hannah Montana that I personally find problematic. In attempting to desexualize their titular character, they infantilize her. The impractically modest clothing, the excessive girlish twirling, the bubblegum pop star smile - this is the only version of femininity that Disney is willing to present to their audience. In attempting to maintain "appropriateness" they have put their main character, who is in high school in the time period of the show, on a pedestal, as the paragon of child-like inocence

You get the best of both worlds! / Mix it all together, and you know you got the best of both worlds.

I believe the central conflict of Hannah Montana is simply a modern incarnation of a question central to second wave feminism, a problem that Betty Friedan spent her life trying to resolve: can women have it all? Hannah Montana is about a girl who is trying to have it all - both a "normal" domestic home life, and a successful career. This is reinforced by Montana's interactions with her father - in all scenes where she and her father are showing familial affection, Montana is dressed in her regular garb, as Miley, which may imply that domestic happiness is only possible for Miley/Hannah when she is not focusing on her career. The theme song's message, from this perspective, becomes more ambiguous. Is it hopeful, asserting that despite the challenges, Miley will be able to effectively balance her home life with her professional responsibilities? Or is it bitingly sarcastic, mocking the futility of Montana's quest to "have it all"? Scholars, historians, and sociologists have been debating questions such as these for years, and no easy answer seems to be on the horizon. Nevertheless, Hannah Montana strides forward confident, a modern Sisyphus, perservering with child-like naivety into the modern chaos of the female experience.