The Popstar as Rebel: Miley Cyrus and the Performance of Freedom

the Disney machine, the good-girl myth, and why rebellion still needs better PR

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Do you remember where you were the evening of March 24, 2006?

I do.

I’d finished my homework. I’d eaten dinner. I was bathed and in fresh jammies. I hit 4 and then 2 on my remote control.

A new show called Hannah Montana was about to premiere on Disney Channel.

After that night? Oh, honey. My life was forever changed.

Some might be confused — Miley Cyrus, a “pop icon”? To that I say: you must be very young.

There was a time when you couldn’t flip to Disney Channel without seeing Miley Cyrus in some form. Whether she was dancing in the background of High School Musical 2, grinning between commercials, or staring back at you from a Walmart aisle — she was everywhere.

But to understand Miley’s rise, you have to rewind the script a bit. Britney and Miley both graduated from the same school: Disney Channel High. And Disney’s biggest regret after canceling The Mickey Mouse Club was realizing they’d let future megastars — Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, even Jessica Simpson — walk straight into someone else’s hands.

Think exclusive branding deals, record contracts with Disney-owned labels (hello, Hollywood Records), and every possible form of synergy.

As far as Disney was concerned, they weren’t going to make that mistake twice.

In the early days, Disney Channel itself suffered from an identity crisis. Outside of animation and theme parks, nobody really cared about Disney’s television arm.

But by the late 1990s, everything changed. The network rebranded itself into a family-entertainment juggernaut built on carefully engineered relatability. They did market research. They consulted child psychologists. They studied how to make content that would keep an entire family glued to the same screen.

It’s said that Disney ran a tight ship. The goal was relatability and respectability — do not rock the boat of the average Christian American family in Middle America.

Meanwhile, Nickelodeon was taking risks — weird, loud, sometimes gross risks. The Amanda Show, All That, Drake & Josh, even Zoey 101 had an edge. Nick wanted kids to feel rebellious. Disney wanted them to feel safe.

Disney sold aspiration: shiny hair, squeaky voices, cross necklaces, and chastity rings. Their stars didn’t just act — they modeled virtue.

And yet, beneath all that moral packaging, the network was quietly perfecting its most lucrative export: the teenage-pop-star pipeline.

By the mid-2000s, the “Disney Girl” was the ultimate hybrid: talented, wholesome, and marketable across film, TV, and music. She could make you laugh, sell you a lunchbox, and drop a single — all under one corporate umbrella.

But what happens when the character grows up and the girl beneath wants out?

When a star acted up — or when a producer on set got too handsy — they were swiftly removed. Demi Lovato was kicked to the curb in the late 2000s. Vanessa Hudgens was nearly manhandled into a PR apology.

As Vanity Fair and author Ashley Spencer put it, no one could be bigger than the brand.

Until we meet Hannah Montana.

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“You get the best of both worlds”

“Best of Both Worlds” is the infamous title track of Hannah Montana. The irony is palpable: a young girl caught between the allure of fame and the desire to live a normal life. I remember watching Hannah Montana as a kid and wondering how no one noticed Miley Stewart had an uncanny resemblance to Hannah.

Despite this, Miley Cyrus looks back on Hannah Montana fondly. She traveled around the world on musical tours as Hannah Montana. The smile and blonde wig were plastered on every single item imaginable — folders, pencils, blankets, lunchboxes. If you could carry it in your hand, it had her face dead center.

Disney also supported Miley as a solo act — she released two albums under Hollywood Records, one being a double-disc CD featuring Hannah as the first and Miley the second act. Disney’s messaging was clear: without Hannah, there was no Miley Cyrus.

With Disney branding heavily pushing this Best of Both Worlds ideal, how does a young girl separate herself — her identity — from this larger-than-life brand?

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I Can’t Be Tamed

America was pissed when this music video dropped. Parents screamed that it was too inappropriate for a young woman. And yet, music critics seemed to disagree.

Despite an obvious attempt at rebellion, many described it as generic and lackluster. A writer for Billboard even described a lack of emotion in Cyrus’s vocals. Sadly, they were right. Tonally, sonically, Miley was playing it safe. Sure, she wore a leotard and gyrated against the bars of her caged enclosure. Yes, she had cleavage and wiggled her hips as she proudly exclaimed, “I can’t be tamed!”

But you could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

Deep down, Miley Cyrus knew this. Three years later, America said hello to the worst public-relations nightmare of a modern female celebrity.

Welcome to Bangerz.

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VMAs and Cultural Appropriation

If you were active online from 2013–2021, my heart goes out to you.

It was the golden age of discourse — BuzzFeed think pieces, Tumblr callouts, and Twitter threads that lasted for days.

In the middle of it all stood Miley Cyrus: tongue out, latex bikini on, twerking against a Black woman twice her size.

The internet lost its mind. Some called it liberation; others called it theft. And both were kind of right.

But Miley Cyrus isn’t the first white woman trying to leave the good-girl myth behind and having zero idea how to do it constructively. Maybe music executives think the branding has to scream, “Yeah, that’s right. I fuck now.” Maybe it should say, “I’m an artist learning the complexity of human relationships, my sexuality, and my desire to be seen.” But what do I, the average consumer, know?

Every millennial teen remembers where they were the first time they heard Dirrty by Christina Aguilera. In her own words, “The label [RCA Records] wanted to push the cookie-cutter, [...] almost virginal kind of imagery that wasn’t me. I really wanted to squirm away from that, because I thought it was fake and superficial and untrue to what I was about.”

Aguilera was a part of the 1990s teen-pop trend — music made specifically for teens about liking boys and wondering if you were pretty enough.

Britney was also a part of this brand and the Disney machine. You could be cute, cookie-cutter, just sexy enough, or you could be sexy, filthy, and sweaty with a beat produced by Danja bumping in the background.

Gwen Stefani loved the Harajuku girls and Chicana culture. She wanted to be Japanese and then pivoted back to the Latino culture of South Central L.A.

And why is Blackness synonymous with hypersexuality?

That was rhetorical. We know why.

The answerable question is: why do we still allow this in 2025?

White women can peacock and show their breasts, and everyone exclaims, Wow, she’s so daring.

In 2014, Nicki Minaj was heavily critiqued over Anaconda. Critics of The National Review, an American conservative magazine, called it degrading and claimed that it promoted prostitution, drug abuse, and immorality to young girls.

Sexyy Redd is a slut, a hoe, a thot. Black conspiracy theorists claim she’s a government plant to destroy the Black community.

Miley’s imitation of Black womanhood was disrespectful. It was openly mocking a culture she clearly had limited knowledge of. It just further promoted the idea that Black women are promiscuous and hypersexual by design.

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Used to Be Young

Miley knows she used to be crazy; she used to be fun.

We say she used to be wild. She says she used to be young.

Like everyone else, I love this song. However, as a cultural critic, what space was this song written from? A white woman musing on her “antics” and ignoring the social weight of her actions?

Her 2013 VMAs performance was seemingly scrubbed from the internet. It takes a few minutes longer than it should to find it on YouTube. The one video that’s watchable is degraded in quality with a copyright warning in the description.

Once Robin Thicke appears, whatever resembled a performance went downhill fast. You can’t help but wonder if she chose him due to his own controversy that year.

Was “Blurred Lines” catchy? Well, yes — thank you, Pharrell.

Was it rape-y? Absolutely.

And this ignited feminist debate about sexism, misogyny, rape culture, and the like. Sentences were being formed that had never been spoken before. Twitter was experiencing conversations it was not equipped to handle.

So imagine the shock of the general public when Robin Thicke saunters onstage to perform this song with a twenty-year-old Miley Cyrus. As she shouts the lyrics into the microphone, she’s humping a foam finger and rubbing her ass on Robin Thicke.

It’s these Easter eggs that really make you wonder.

What has Miley Cyrus been trying to say all of these years?

Culturally, what does coming of age look like for women? There’s never been a passing of the torch from mother to daughter. Your sexuality is your own. You should own it, respect it, and find a healthy, comfortable way to express your desire.

Part of it is America’s attitude toward sex. We’re still rather conservative. Parents don’t even want to discuss sexuality with their own children in school settings because it is “inappropriate.” If we took the European approach to love and life, perhaps more women would learn what it means to experience desire as being in her body — and not just being grateful for the experience of being lusted after.

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Midnight Sky

Miley’s career has morphed into this pop-rock icon of sorts. She’s positioned herself among the likes of Stevie Nicks and Brandi Carlile. This lane seems to be where she’ll thrive the most.

However, it’s what makes the rest of her career look insincere. As a pop star, she lacks a cohesive brand identity. It’s likely why no one knew she released a visual album this year.

Nowadays, her transgressions have been forgiven. People generally love Bangerz for what it was. And I choose to believe her heart was in the right place at the time.

Culturally, we must invent new ways for white women to age out of girlhood.

This is what I call the Britney Spears Effect. In a way, America itself exists within the Madonna-Whore Complex. How can women sell sex, have it, and prove they’re worthy of protection? As I previously stated, Britney was worthy of protection when she made teen-pop music and wore a schoolgirl costume as a wink-wink nudge, but when she openly stated her sex drive was outrageous, she became a target for the media.

It’s okay to want to feel sexy. It’s okay to want to have sex. You just shouldn’t need to sacrifice dignity — or a sliver of autonomy — to sell a record and express that.

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I’m curious to see where Miley’s career goes. Many female artists struggle to exist as women in their mid-30s (cough,Taylor Swift). The consumer finds it difficult to find the middle-aged woman interesting. You’re well past the age to discuss how “life-changing” firsts are; you’ve been famous for a long time, so you’re used to that. What’s left to add? Marriage? Kids? Sure, but everyone does that — so what makes you unique? By design, America cares a little bit less as the years go by.

I suspect Miley will likely pivot back into acting or end up as this generation’s Jessica Simpson: forgettable singer, impeccable businesswoman.

Maybe that’s just the cycle. We build them up, tear them down, and then grow up alongside them, pretending we didn’t. I still remember that girl in her pajamas on March 24, 2006 — the one who thought fame looked fun. Now I know it was just another script someone else wrote.

Miley read hers out loud. The rest of us lived ours quietly.

And if she’s lucky, she’ll keep doing what she’s always done: shapeshift, survive, and sing about it later.

That’s the real best of both worlds — knowing when to play the part, and when to walk offstage.