Deflowered in the tower?!
On Tuesday, Disney darling Miley Cyrus will doff the Hannah Montana tag and release Breakout, what the 15-year-old calls her first "grown-up" album. If hit single 7 Things is any indication, America’s Sweetheart is trading in puppy like for first-base love.
A week later, Nickelodeon star Josh Peck, goofball hero of the wildly popular Drake & Josh, will show up on local movie screens as a pot-dealing, virginity-eschewing slacker in R-rated flick The Wackness. Remember when Josh was cute ’n’ chubby? Yeah, now he’s moving weed.
A few weeks after that, Peck’s TV partner, Drake Bell, will star in R-rated raunchfest College, about a bunch of randy dudes trying to wrap their lips around beer bongs and babes.
Finally, on Oct. 24, High School Musical 3: Senior Year will be released in theaters, celebrating the Mouse House juggernaut’s ascent into adulthood...even though beloved HSM stars Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale have already traded their mouse ears for pushup bras.
The other night, my 4-year-old and I sat down to watch a new Tisdale movie, Picture This, on ABC Family. I just about launched a mouthful of Jiffy Pop when some young thing started gossiping about getting “deflowered in the tower.” Good lord, where’s the clicker?!
The next morning, my kid was dancing around to Hudgens' grindy hit Sneakernight, a hip-shaking, club-sweating booty jam. "Oh, let’s go all night long," coos Hudgens. In the liner notes of her new album, V-girl throws lusty looks that would get you tossed out of the Magic Kingdom.
Listen, I’m not pulling the prude card here. I’m a music critic who dutifully rewards rebellion and the chaos theory. I’m also a father of two girls who knows his life is about to become a hellish battle of hormonal wills.
Cyrus and friends are entitled to move on with their careers, to court an older fan base. Tisdale is 23. Peck is 21. Bell is 22. Young actors routinely go overboard when trying to break from the family-friendly model. The Cosby Show’s Lisa Bonet stripped butterball naked for that nasty Angel Heart sex scene. Family Ties star Michael J. Fox hoovered drugs in Bright Lights, Big City. Alyssa Milano ditched Tony Danza and courted a lesbian lover in Embrace of the Vampire.
But this latest crop of young stars is different, both sociologically and economically. First of all, they all come from shows made exclusively for children. This decade, pop culture has been largely defined by the 12- to 14-year-old set. The Hannah Montana franchise conquered cable, album charts, cineplexes and the concert industry. The billion-dollar High School Musical brigade (yes, billions) has moved CDs, DVDs and clothing in tsunamic bunches. In many respects, the rules of commerce have been changed to accommodate the whims of people too young to grow body hair.
More than that, this latest crop of world-turning teen stars is breaking free of its G-rated rep at the same time. Good lord, it’s like an epidemic of after-school urges! Kids are losing their guiding lights en masse. Part of the problem is that Tisdale & Co. were always much older than their onscreen “selves,” so when they stopped playing young, they immediately started acting their age — leaving a large fan base in the lurch.
Disney and Nickelodeon are run by smart, savvy showbiz folks, so they naturally saw this mass maturation coming long before I did. Thus, the Jonas Brothers have already been positioned as Disney saviors, and Miranda Cosgrove’s iCarly is the It Show on Nickelodeon.
But no matter how well those acts do, things are about to change, from parents explaining why their kids can’t see Josh in The Wackness to the music industry struggling to find replacements for HSM. Such was the rare allure and world-turning power of this glut of teen stars. They won’t be easy to replace.
As a chronicler of popular culture, I’m curious to see if Cyrus can succeed without Hannah’s bad wig. I’m curious to see if Drake and Josh can still find work without a laugh track. As a parent of two, however, I have no idea how I’m going to explain “deflowered in the tower.”
Sean Daly is the pop music critic for the St. Petersburg Times. His CD collection -- from Journey to Dylan, Prince to U2, Public Enemy to Stan Getz -- is much bigger and better than yours.
I think I grew up lucky in the context of my celebrity crushes growing up, because they did so around the same time as I did. Alyssa Milano and Nicole Eggert, for two examples, didn't so much rebel (at 15) as they did mature (at 18 or so).
Even when their movies reflected more adult tones, their audience was -- for a large part -- people who'd grown up in the same era. It wasn't such a jolt to accept them as adults.
Posted by: DG | July 18, 2008 at 03:02 PM
As I write this, this story is the lead on our homepage. The comments are starting to come -- and apparently, most people are not impressed with my parenting. Anyway, if you want to read those, go here:
http://www.tampabay.com/features/music/article704597.ece
Posted by: Sean Daly | July 18, 2008 at 03:11 PM
SD,
Daisy in Cuba was also pulled away from the tube about 20 minutes in to "Picture This". Sadly, she's old enough to know exactly why. To her credit, she didn't put up a fight.
This cross-generational dynamic has been around forever. (I remember the outrage when Kristy McNichol did "Little Darlings".) The difference is that today's multimedia juggernauts reach farther (and younger) than ever before, leaving that much more "coming of age" damage in its wake.
It's only a matter of time until Dora goes full frontal.
Posted by: Jeff in Cuba | July 18, 2008 at 03:11 PM
Another reason I am happy I only have boys.
Having a daughter would push me over the edge; I would be the Dad meeting my daughter's super boyfriend while sharpening my machete or cleaning one of my several firearms.
Posted by: DoctorDrew | July 18, 2008 at 03:14 PM
Just say PBS!
Posted by: MaiSitter | July 18, 2008 at 03:15 PM
PBS, ShmeeBS.
Posted by: Sean Daly | July 18, 2008 at 03:24 PM
Do the kids still enjoy Lawrence Welk Saturday nights?
Posted by: DG | July 18, 2008 at 03:26 PM
It's a little like what happened when Britney, Christina, Justin Timberlake et al went from Mouseketeering to teen popping to showing off and/or singing about various naughty bits.
When they got too old/scandalous for the younger set, the cycle started again with like Lindsay Lohan and Shia LeBeouf, who are themselves now too old/(im)mature for the kiddies. The HSM and Drake/Josh stars are in the same generation as LiLoLeBeouf, they've just waited a little longer before leaving the kiddies behind.
I guess the difference now is that the Disney Channel/Nickelodeon juggernauts weren't nearly as well-orchestrated and powerful in the Britney and Christina days. It was always just kind of trivia that they had been on the Disney Channel -- it wasn't like they had huge followings, like the more recent kids shows have built.
In any event, those are going to be some fun talks with Lulu and Mai-Mai!
Posted by: Josh Korr | July 18, 2008 at 03:28 PM
Yikes, it was bad enough explaining to my 11 year old son why he couldn't see "Superhero Movie" with Drake Bell, I know we'll be having the same discussion over both "College" and "Wackness". (I think I'd like to see Wackness myself, but I definately won't be bringing along my son.) I'll admit that I'm crazy overprotective and my son is WAY sheltered, but I have to echo DoctorDrew's sentiment that it's so much worse with girls. Still, parenting is rough stuff, no matter what the gender of your offspring.
Posted by: Sherrie | July 18, 2008 at 05:37 PM
My son was an occasional watcher of "Zoey 101" starring the little sister to Britney Spears. When my 13 year old son learned that she was pregnant in real life, it gave him a wake up call that "all is not as it appears on TV."
This truly bothered him and boycotted the program without my insistance or influence.
Posted by: Marissa | July 18, 2008 at 06:05 PM
Fortunately, my daughters (7 & 8), are not into any of the 'House Of Mouse' stars. BUT, Drake & Josh is one of their favorites, and it will hard explaining why the boys are doing 'dirty' stuff now.
Posted by: Bassnote | July 18, 2008 at 06:30 PM
When I was a kid, PBS actually had good kid stuff on, like "Shining Time Station" (before George Carlin ruined the show) "Square One", and "Ghostwriter" and of course Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers.
If I had children, I seriously wouldn't let them watch this silliness. They can do what I did: read and play outside.
Posted by: Al | July 18, 2008 at 07:50 PM
Whew- thanks for the heads up about Picture This.. we have it on TiVo and haven't watched it yet. Think I'll be deleting that.
My daughter's 8 and we've had numerous discussions about how sultry Miley Cyrus is trying to become. And I'm not a prude, but her dance moves have gotten a little Stripper-esque when she's been on various specials.
Seems to me that Disney has grown increasingly lax about how their young starlets present themselves. The girls in HSM show waaay more boobage than we were ever allowed to display in high school. Yikes. I sound like an old lady. It wouldn't bother me so much if they weren't marketing all of this to pre-school and elementary age girls.
And Marissa, very cool that your son imposed the boycott!
Posted by: SM | July 18, 2008 at 10:04 PM
Thanks, SM.
Posted by: Marissa | July 18, 2008 at 11:31 PM
Sean, I loved this article, and it really is about commerce over care. Pushing the envelope isn't something I want strangers doing for my little girl and boy.
It's completely understandable that Josh Peck and Drake Bell, Tisdale, etc., who are much older than I would have guessed, want to grow up and get on with their lives. But business people choose to lure those TV stars' preteen fan base into adult movies because who else even knows who these "stars" are! That is utterly irresponsible.
And ABC Family? Talk about a misnomer. Anyone read the cliff notes on "The Secret Life of American Teens"? It's basically "Zoey 101" meets JUNO: The heroine is a "good girl" pregnant teen who lies to her parents to cover over her condition. Oh, and she's actually cheating on her friend with the friend's "Christian" boyfriend, and father of her in utero baby is her buddy from band camp who now pines for her though he has a girlfriend... "A Different Kind of Family" indeed.
Great stuff. Very family friendly.
Posted by: Rick | July 19, 2008 at 04:03 AM
More than that, this latest crop of world-turning teen stars is breaking free of its G-rated rep at the same time. Good lord, it’s like an epidemic of after-school urges! Kids are losing their guiding lights en masse. Part of the problem is that Tisdale & Co.
Posted by: Ron Rivera | July 31, 2008 at 09:26 AM