Ethnography Topic

The Disney Channel has had great success in recent years, for several reasons. Once a HBO-esque special cable network, the Disney channel decided to offer itself with the normal cable package in the late 90s. Because they lost the revenues they received from being a private network, they needed to find other ways to make the big bucks. Soon they began creating original television shows and movies that captured audiences around the nation. Great success came with shows like "Lizzie Mcguire" and "Even Stevens," and quickly Disney decided to capitalize on this success by double-marketing some of their stars. Hilary Duff, star of Lizzie Mcguire was the first to make it in the music business, as a nouveau Britney Spears singing pre-packaged bubblegum pop that made its way into the hearts of, well, everyone. After the Hilary Duff craze started to die down several years later, Disney tried again with a movie about a girl pop group trying to make it: The Cheetah Girls. Although they achieved success among a smaller group of kids and preteens, they were hardly noticeable in adult America.

Then January 2006 rolled around and everything changed. Disney had done its normal promotion for its newest original movie. This was nothing special. Disney offers an original movie once a month. Avid Disney Channel fans tune in and no one else. But this was no typical Disney Channel original. This was High School Musical (clips). Infectious, innocent, and full of adorable new stars, everyone who saw it opening weekend immediately became obsessed. Those who hadn't seen it were told they should. It became the most downloaded album on iTunes within a week. Within six months, twenty million Americans had viewed it. Soon three of the stars, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, and Corbin Bleu had released their own albums and had developed loyal fanbases.

Then a new musical TV show, Hannah Montana, premiered. It starred the bright-eyed and inexperienced Miley Cyrus as a girl living a double life as a regular middle schooler and an international pop star. The love for Hannah Montana spread almost as rapidly as the High School Musical phenomenon, and soon there was another tiny star to add to the mix.

As the months progressed, new musical artists continued popping up, on soundtracks to new Disney Channel movies, as guest stars on the TV shows, and in music videos on commercial breaks. And the fan base just kept getting bigger and bigger. These stars began permeating the mainstream, and getting attention from older girls as well as curious adults.

A year and a half later, High School Musical 2 made its debut. LA Times estimates that one in 10 Americans saw the movie 2 opening weekend. That's insane. And that doesn't even take into account the obsession that has developed in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

There is a distinct youth culture that surrounds this Disney channel pop phenomenon, and this is what I want to study. What makes this simple pop music so successful? How long will it last? And does the sugary sweetness and the innocence of this new music tell us something about the progression of our culture as a whole?