By Ben Richardson
I don’t really kick it with many “tweens,” so I was pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to the whole “Hannah Montana” thing. In fact, I had to be informed of her existence by a colleague of mine here at the Guardian: Duncan Davidson.
“What!” he exclaimed one day, sending six-odd high-gauge earrings aquiver and clenching exclamatory muscles beneath his elaborately tattooed forearms. “You’ve never heard of Hannah Montana!?”
Davidson has a daughter situated at the hot-pink epicenter of Hannah Montana’s target demographic, which explains his familiarity with Disney’s newest pop princess. As her legend grows, however, it will be the people in my situation who will have the explaining to do. With the force of Disney’s PR and multimedia machine arrayed behind her, Hannah Montana is gradually turning into a kind of cultural juggernaut, proving once again that if you reach a certain threshold of 12-year-old approval, nothing can stand in your way.