Miley Cyrus

Girls have always been a formidable niche, the force that made a superstar of Barbie and propelled generations of cute boy bands to fame far beyond their talents. But on Jan. 20, 2006, their coup began in earnest. That’s the night “High School Musical” premiered on the Disney Channel. More than 7.5 million viewers tuned in to watch it, a ratings record for the network. So Disney aired it again, and again, and again — to escalating ratings. The soundtrack became the top-selling album of 2006. The revolution was televised, and the little girls won it.

In the ensuing two years, the tween machine has only grown bigger. Last summer’s “HSM” sequel became the highest-rated cable broadcast in history, begetting a tour, an ice show, another forthcoming sequel and an unholy amount of Zac Efron-festooned merchandise. In the wake of its success, kid-centric music acts like the Jonas Brothers, the Cheetah Girls, and Aly & AJ have enjoyed massive album sales. The American Girl and Bratz dolls have spawned movies. But out of the smoldering, grape lip gloss-scented crater that “High School Musical” created, something even bigger emerged.

The 15-year-old daughter of mullet-prone, achy-breaky one-hit-wonder Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus is the star of the Disney’s Channel’s juggernaut original series “Hannah Montana.” The premise of the show, which debuted just two months after “High School Musical,” is as old and as brilliant as the Superman myth itself: Semi-dorky high schooler Miley Stewart leads a double life as the eponymous platinum-tressed, platinum-selling pop idol. Her secret identity known to a sitcom-stock few (including her dad, played by her dad), young Miley has, as she sings in the show’s earwormy theme song and tour of the same name, the best of both worlds. If only it were that easy for the rest of us.

My household is, by virtue of choice and economy, not particularly indulgent. We don’t have cable. We don’t have the space or inclination for a panoply of stuff. My two daughters hear the word “no” on a near constant basis. It’s my job to protect them from turning into pint-size shills, to raise them to be thoughtful consumers. I am as skeptical and scared of the marketing deluge aimed at my children as the next parent.

I am also as susceptible to it, subscribing to the homeopathic attitude that a little bit of everything, in small doses, is probably healthy. So when, last summer, Lucy started coming home from day camp bellowing selections from the “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana” songbooks, I checked them out via DVD. It wasn’t long before the whole family had fallen for their respective charms, and both my firstborn and her preschooler sister were squealing for any Miley-centric thing they could get their hands on. I just wish Disney could put Hannah Montana’s face on vegetables.

So while I wasn’t ready to blow my kids’ college funds on concert tickets this year, it was inevitable that I find myself with Lucy in the opening weekend throng for the Hannah Montana movie.

The film is in many ways a Disney princess tale in reverse — glammed-up Hannah rules the stage for the first half of the show, then morphs into the far earthier, more approachable real girl Miley for the remainder. The jaded part of me knows it’s because the Miley Cyrus brand has a longer potential shelf life than her teenybop alter ego. Another part, however, is OK with a stadium of girls getting their first inkling that there’s more to life than being blond and shiny. And if a collective worship of Hannah is what makes my children and their friends feel unique, I’m glad the irony doesn’t reach them yet. At least they have role models. Boys their age have their comic book heroes and their games and gear, but precious little in the way of human inspiration.

In Hannah Montana, Disney has created a girl-next-door icon and a heroine of moxie and talent. The shticky writing on the show may never rise to “30 Rock”-level cleverness, nor will the music ever make me forget Sleater-Kinney, but I’m not the audience. I can nevertheless recognize that the star herself has undeniable chops. Cyrus has a natural charisma, effortless comic timing, and the pipes to carry off her girl-power lyrics. She is, as Lucy attests, awesome, which is more than I can say for a whole lot of what the entertainment industry is dropping on adults lately.

Say what you will about the overcalculated, quasi-creepy way the Disney machine burrows into our kids’ psyches, it’s effective. Kids, to the delight of advertisers, are both tremendously receptive to persuasion and astonishingly persistent at nagging. And every day, inundated parents have to pick the hills they’re going to die on. The tweens have taken over on an invasion financed by their moms and dads. If a half-hour of Miley karaoke buys some peace in which to cook dinner, or a Hannah purse is the go-to gift for a birthday party, I can begin to understand how Disney saw our collective exposed throat and leapt for it.

It’s more than simple wearing down, though. We’re often just so eager to make our kids happy, so grateful for entertainment that’s innocent and encouraging and age appropriate. If merchandising is often excessive and usually downright cynical, parents’ occasional optimistic trust in the things our children love is not. The appeal of Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus rides largely on its dualism — the conceit of having a normal family life while successfully pursuing career passion. Though it’s a notion that could make any overextended working mother laugh mirthlessly into her merlot, it’s one my daughters are only just beginning to grasp. It’s one I want them aspiring to as they grow up. I like to think we aging riot grrrls see a little of ourselves in the spirited, boundaries- and decibels-shattering Hannah/Miley, and, we hope, in our daughters. Talent and attitude and ambition can’t be bought; they can’t be absorbed from an image slapped on a pillowcase. They can, however, be cultivated.

Remember junior high and high school, when the unself-conscious weirdness of childhood gave way to all that adolescent awkwardness and self-doubt? Most adults I know sure do, because lingering inside all of us is a permanent vestige of that person we were typecast as then: the geek, the jock, the angry art chick. We cast a bittersweet glance at our tween girls, and know all that awaits just a few years from now for them. So if they’re learning, through parental-patience-testing repeated plays of “Who Said,” that “every girl has a choice,” if they hear “Nobody’s Perfect” enough to consider that it’s OK to cut themselves a little slack, perhaps they’ll have just a little more ammunition for the esteem-battering days to come. God knows I need to hear that message too. It’s not the best of any world. But it’s close enough.

As anyone who’s followed Cyrus’ career over the years — and as the mother of two girls, believe me, I qualify — could tell you, Cyrus has had a bumpy road to adulthood. The girl who became a star at age 13 has seen her rump shaking and salvia smoking horrify parents. Her vocal support of gay rights shocked conservative Christians. And as her fan base hit middle school, she was instantly rendered uncool to an entire generation.

And while growing up is awkward for everybody, it can be downright brutal when you’re one of the most famous entertainers in the world. Cyrus’ every move is scrutinized, every mistake is front-page news. “Every 18-year-old explores sexuality and experiments and tries things,” she says. “For me there’s no reason to change that,” a notion that fans who still think of her as a face on lunchboxes will just have to get used to.

Cyrus may become one of the lucky ones like Drew Barrymore and Justin Timberlake, performers who transitioned from youthful idols into respected adult performers while also making it OK to be sexy. But along the way, she may well make some terrible movies or bust some awkward dance moves or make some truly dubious sartorial choices. That’s what being famous and 18 tends to involve. And as a trade-off, she’ll have to deal with the fact that “People see me as this perfect Disney star, and the moment I put out a record that says ‘I’m not 11 years old anymore,’ people look down on me.”

Little girls, as Maurice Chevalier once lasciviously pointed out, get bigger every day. And the smiling Hannah of just a few years ago is now Miley in a revealing halter top and sultry bob on Prestige’s cover. Deal with it, America. As she says she’s told her 11-year-old sister, “Don’t put yourself in a situation where people are going to think of you as only one thing. You’re going to change a lot. It interferes with your growing up if you’re not strong enough and you’re not sure who you want to be.”

Now, Cyrus has expressed her feelings a little more permanently, flaunting an equality tattoo on her ring finger and tweeting this weekend that “All LOVE is equal.” And when a Christian fan took offense, she promptly snapped, “where does it say in the bible to judge others? Oh right. It doesn’t. GOD is the only judge honey. GOD is love.”

Cyrus has been getting inked almost as long as she’s been singing. She has several other tattoos, including a “Just breathe” motto under her ribcage in honor of a friend who died of cystic fibrosis. And adorned on her fingers like little rings, she has a heart, a peace sign, the word “karma,” and more. Now this. A tattoo is not exactly the world’s most articulate statement of support for a cause, nor is it always the wisest long-term way to express your feelings. You’ve got to wonder if she had to do it all over again, if Kat Von D would get Jesse James’ face plastered on her ribcage. Yet there’s something undeniably, sweetly sincere — and unmistakably youthful — about hopeful solidarity nonetheless.

To superficial observers, Cyrus has long appeared just another prefab teen pop star, an artificial creation designed to sell lunch boxes. But Cyrus has long bucked that image, sometimes with truly terrible music videos and sometimes by taking genuine creative and personal risks. Her outspokenness about LGBT rights and in particular, same-sex marriage, set her apart from the usual pack of bland young celebs too afraid of alienating their fan base to take a stand on anything.

It’s easy for those of us who are older and who inhabit the Godless Sodoms of America to take for granted something as seemingly innocuous — and frankly crudely done — as two little lines on a ring finger. But for Cyrus, it’s something else. She’s not Gaga, with a more adult and sophisticated image and audience. And though the sexy dancing at the Teen Choice Awards might be vaguely scandalous, it can be a real career game-changer for a girl to risk alienating a mighty Christian and conservative fan base. Cyrus is aware of this — in 2009 she took a Twitter sabbatical, in part, she says, because of the anti-gay hostility she found aimed at her there. And sure enough, she has bashers criticizing her today for “supporting a perverse life style.”

Yet bless her young heart, she’s still at it. Her gestures may still seem clumsy, but here’s a reminder — it’s impossible to have it all figured out neatly at 18. And maybe those two lines on the finger of one teenage girl don’t seem like a whole lot toward the cause of equality, but it’s a gesture of support nonetheless. More important, it’s a challenge — not to the hipsters and the already liberal, but to the little girls who like to Party in the U.S.A. To fans who consider themselves Cyrus’ fellow Christians. If it plants a notion in those heads, if it makes fans who hadn’t considered LGBT rights before have a conversation about it and open their minds, then it’s a little tattoo that makes a big statement.

But Cyrus had more to say. Taking aim at hipster douchebag retailer Urban Outfitters, which made headlines recently for yet another in their long line of controversies over allegedly ripping off designs, Cyrus tweeted, “Love that everybody is hating on Urban Outfitters…. Not only do they steal from artists but every time you give them money you help finance a campaign against gay equality. #SHADYASHELL” and “‘IF WE ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE NEXT THING U KNOW PEOPLE WILL BE MARRYING GOLD FISH’ – Rick Santorum UO contributed $13,000 to this mans campaign.” [sic]

Cyrus, bless her teenage heart, is correct about Urban Outfitters. The Philadelphia-based company’s founder Richard Hayne has contributed a fortune to the hyperbolicSantorum’s political action committee over the years. And three years ago, the company did a hasty 180, pulling an “I Support Same Sex Marriage” shirt off its shelves after just one week because it was causing “too much bad press.”

If she’s looking for an inexpensive T-shirt chain that’s more politically evolved this summer, Cyrus may prefer to throw her love behind Old Navy. This week the retailer debuted a line of four pride-themed shirts, with 10 percent of the proceeds from sales going to the brilliant “It Gets Better” project. The shirts, unfortunately, are only available in a mere 26 of Old Navy’s more than 1,000 stores, and not for sale online, suggesting a very timid first foray into the equal rights biz. But in a world where kids can still be suspended from school for wearing a shirt that expresses support for something as controversial as love and equality, and celebrities can be chastised for their “moral values” of tolerance, it’s encouraging to see such mainstream, middle-of-the-road American icons as Old Navy and Miley Cyrus speaking out. It offers the hope that, one T-shirt, one tweet at time, it really is getting better.