Star Analysis

Miley Cyrus

The artist I have chosen to analyse is Miley Cyrus(Destiny Hope Cyrus) as she has shown a significant change over her singing career since she first started in 2006. Miley Cyrus’ first big breakthrough was through a show she did for Disney channel called Hannah Montana, in which she played a teenage girl with two identity’s one being a normal teenage girl and the other being a huge successful pop star. The target audience for the show was about 6-14 year olds, as it was played on the Disney channel which their target audience is also around 6-14 year olds. Her first single as ‘Hannah Montana’ is called ‘the best of both worlds’ it was also the theme song of the show. She then released her first studio album in 2008 called 'breakout' which self explains itself as she is breaking out from her young, innocently portrayed character as Hannah Montana and into a teenage pop artist. Later in 2008 Miley Cyrus' representatives wanted to introduce her to an older audience so they negotiated a deal with Nicholas Sparks to write the screenplay on the novel 'the last song' which Miley then stared in, edging more away from her young child-like image.After doing this slightly more serious film she gained an older audience which then lead on to her changing her image even more.

In 2012 the fourth and final season of hannah montana was televised and her third studio album called 'cant be tamed' was released. In the cover of the album and the music video for cant be tamed we can see a big change in her image and also the genre of the song is more rock-pop. This is the biggest change in her career. One clear change is shown between the video '7 things' the mise en scene is white, which portrays innocence  youth, newness and 'cant be tamed' which uses low key lighting and very dull colours and her outfit is all black whereas her outfit in '7 things' is very colourful with sequins.

 

 

Dyers theory "Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings" applies to Miley Cyrus as she started on a childrens programme, in the media she is conveyed in the light her manager wants to ensure she appeals to her target audience. As she grew into her music career we can tell she is a product of her record company, because of all the various changes in her music.

In the beginning of her career she has the persona of an innocent teenager singing pop songs to an audience aged around 6-13 year olds, then when she breaks into her singing career as Miley Cyrus her outfit choices have changed to convey her as a 14-16 year old teenager, for example in her '7 things' she is wearing a sequined dress with converse, this style appeals to her young teenage audience.

Stars represent different cultural values and attitudes and promote a certain ideology. The audience percieve these qualities as 'star quality'. When Miley Cyrus released her album 'Can't Be Tamed' in 2010 Miley joined a social networking site called 'twitter' in which she can interact with her fans on and share her beliefs about anything on there aswell as sharing her music. Pop stars usually establish their character and personality through songs and performance and strive immediatly for star identity with their first album, in Miley Cyrus' case her first album 'Meet Miley Cyrus' identified her as a typical young teenager as her album is about friendship and love. Her second album 'Breakout' shows a different persona to Miley as she is more grown up and has come completely out of her 'Hannah Montana' identity. Miley's thrid studio album 'Can't Be Tamed' shows a totally different persona as she conveys herself more as a young adult as her clothes are more revealing, she wears a lot more make up and darker make up to make her look more gothic. So Mileys star persona is changed due to terms of her chracter and personality and is a fragiled thing that needs continuous developing
A pop star's persona, therefore, as depicted in terms of character and personality, is a fragile thing which needs constant nurturing, and is the product of constant discourse between the star and his or her audience.

 

Best of both worlds – Hannah Montana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVjRe8QXFHY

This video is one of Miley Cyrus first performances and is in the pop genre. She is wearing  jeans, cowboy boots, a sparkly pink top with cream sleeves and a blonde wig. The blonde wig is used as a prop which helps disguise her as Miley Stewart in the programme. She is performing as 'Hannah Montana' and singing about her double life as a popstar and a regular teenage girl "when your famous it can be kinda fun, it's really you but no one ever discovers".  Her clothes convey the pop genre, she is fully covered and looks very youthful and fun with the bright pink top, also the cowboy boots convey her heritage as she is from Tennessee. During this video there isn't much notion of looking, although she does point towards the crowd whilst singing. I think this video is performance and narrative based, as she is performing on stage but through her lyrics she is telling the story of her life as a teenage girl/popstar. This video uses a lot of medium paced straight cuts, which go with the beat of the song and there are some tilted camera shots which make the video more playful. All of the audience members are predominantly young girls which show the target audience she aims to attract and the whole video portrays her as as perfect role model which Disney want her to be. She relates to her target audience as she is wearing similar clothing as they might and because she has a double life the audience can connect with her as a regular person. 
Many of the pop genre conventions Miley Cyrus portrays in this music video are that it's aimed at young girls and we can tell because all of the audience are girls between 9-13, her dancing is innocent and young, the song was written for a childrens show, so it's quite cheesy.
An example of Ruichard Dyers star theory shown through 'Hannah Montana' is that this persona has been created by a a television show so it is a fiction character, but as she has become so popular she has done a tour as 'hannah montana'. Throughout Miley Cyrus' 'Hannah Montana' fase she was produced as a teen pop sensation to appeal and appear as a role model to her target demographic who are children, that is why she was dressed in jeans, sparkle tops and jackets with cowboy boots, to convey her country lifestyle mixed with fashionable girly clothing. Mixing laid back jeans with glamorous sparkly clothing also allows Miley to relate to her fans as she is not dressed innapropraitly and her target audience would be able to copy her clothing. Miley has been dependant on her television series to be able to do a tour as 'Hannah Montana' and this will help her in the future to come out as a singer under her own name.

7 Things – Miley Cyrus   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr0Wv5DJhuk

This video came out in June 2008 and was

Miley Cyrus’ first Debut hit as herself not Hannah Montana. She is 15 years old in this video, whereas in the best of both worlds video she was 13. So 2 years on she has shown a lot of changes between both music videos and '7 things' has a more mature approach as its about her relationship and being in love in reality rather than singing about having a double life in a tv series. In the 7 things music video she is stepping out of being Hannah Montana and by doing so she has widened her target demographic and reached a slightly older audience up to around 16 year olds. Although at this point episodes of Hannah Montana were still airing on television so her fan base from 2006 were still supporting her at this point. Her music genre has gone from cheesy pop to rock-pop and to appeal to her new larger audience her hair and make-up are both made to look very natural and lightly done, although she has slightly more eye make up on than the best of both worlds video, she is wearing eye liner and fake eyelashes, which not only give her a rock/pop look but also make her appear older. She is wearing a sparkly sequinned dress with converse and leg warmers, portraying a young, playful, edgy style, showing off a lot more skin than the ‘best of both worlds’ music video but still keeping it at a respectful level. Similar to the best of both worlds she is still trying to connect and relate to her target audience so she is wearing similar clothes they would wear and showing off a different fashion, also she is singing about puppy love which her audience may be able to relate to. During the video she looks straight into the camera which enables her to connect with the audience on a more personal level. Another big way she is connecting to her target audience is that she has girls around the same age as her performing in the music videos miming the lyrics to her song. I think this is a way she is showing what she has in common with other teenage girls/her fans and shows they're the same and how they can relate to each other.Similar to the best of both worlds video, this video is performance and narrative based but with a slightly more serious side to it but still sticks within the pop genre codes and conventions.  

The lyrics and visuals match, there are close ups to show her aggressive facial expressions which conveys her hate for the person that broke her heart. She is showing that she is being dominant as the lead singer in the video because at the very beginning of the video there is a close up of her counting down to being the song. The dynamics of the music go well with the visuals, at the beginning its all fairly quiet and it shows close ups and mid shots of Miley Cyrus and the other girls, but when it hits the chorus it gets much louder and there are long shots of Miley Cyrus dancing and her body language suggests anger and hatred. In this video there are more pop/rock genre conventions as most rock music videos are fully performance based and so is this as there are shots of her and her band playing guitars and drums. There are also more close ups and mid shots of the band which shows more importance for the whole group rather than all of the attention being on Miley Cyrus. The mise en scene is a plain white room, conveying innocence and because of the high key lighting you can see the bands silhouettes which looks quite cool.

This video represents youthfulness and talent, as Miley is dressed in a casual sequened dress with leg warmers and converse, also she wrote the song herself and as the video is all performanced based it shows the talent of her band. In this video Miley has been constructed to appeal to a slightly older target audience than she already has, this was her first single as herself not 'Hannah Monatana', so in her video you can see she is appropraitly dressed to suite her target audience and the pop genre. In this video she demonstartes one of Dyers first key paradox, which is that she is a normal role model in her day to day life, but she has a talent which is singing and song writing.

Can’t Be Tamed-Miley Cyrus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjSG6z_13-Q

This video came out in May 2010 and was a big change from her previous video and a big change in the image she portrayed before. This was the biggest change in her career so far, she changed her pop genre and image into a pop-rock genre and this is shown throughout the video. Unlike the other two videos this one is definitely more concept and performance based, I think the main message she is trying to convey is that no man or boyfriend can change the way she is and she is her own person and a very dominant woman so what she says goes, and these are all portrayed in her body language, her lyrics and her music. In this video Miley Cyrus plays a rare species of a bird. To convey the pop-rock genre the video has mainly low key lighting, Miley has a lot of heavy eye make up on, she is in dressed in metallic colours like the black leather leotard and the shiny silver leotard. The performance and outfit is a lot more provocative than before, which got a lot of criticism from media because although she now appeals to an even older audience up to about 17 her perfect innocent Disney star image has been ruined.
Her dancing in this video is a lot more provocative than her dancing in her previous videos, showing she wants to be seen as a sexy womanly figure now. As well as minimal clothing near the beginning of the music video she puts her leg up on the bird nest in a provocative way and this shows her new target audience may also be males rather than just females. The minimal use of close ups, dark scenes showing different parts of her and a man and the  fast pace editing convey the fierce, sexy, rebellious character she is playing. The editing matches the music, it is full of fast pace straight cuts which compliments the song nicely as it is up beat, fast tempo, and she is singing in a angry emotion. The lyrics also match the visuals, she says 'if your gonna be my man understand I cant be tamed, I cant be changed' and clearly in the video she is breaking out of the cage and everyone is outraged and scared, she begins the walk through the halls with other people dressed as weird exotic birds and some of the lyrics are 'Tell you to go to hell' 'im crazy if you holf me back i might explode' which not only are conveyed by the actions she makes in the video but also convey the rock genre she is trying to establish. There is an example of voyeurism half way through the video when Miley Cyrus is lying in a silver leotard in a bed of peacock feathers and her body language is very flirty.
I think her record label may have asked her to have a big breakout of change as her show was coming to an end and she needed a new target audience who she could make music for not act in Hannah Montana and as she was growing up to the bigger the change the more the media would talk about and the more her song would be heard and talked about.
In this video Miley Cyrus shows a lot of common representations of a star from Dyers theory such as rebellion, sexual magnetism, creativity and aggression  This is her first video which shows all of these aspects and I think she has been constructed to portray this new rebellious image to get rid of her youthful, innocent image. This new image will benefit her as she will gain a new target audience, I think this particular music video definitely attracted a older audience around 14-17 year olds. But as she started off her career with fans younger than her and around the same age I believe that a lot of them stuck with her even till now and as she grew up her fan base grew up with her, as well as attracting a new slightly older audience. Since the beginning on Miley Cyrus' career her fan base has increased but when she released this song 'Can't be tamed' I think some fans didn't like it but I definitely think Miley gained a new target audience, therefore she didn't lose out by changing her image and music genre completely. There are many examples throughout her video, for example the clothing she wears looks very expensive and is much more revealing than her previous videos. The close ups of her face generally show her agressive, angry side. Also Miley Cyrus has been in various magazines but by totally changing her image in this video will get all of the tabloids talking about her so this is a way she can receive more press about her new single and album. Relating to Dyers theory, this video is based on one of two of his key paradox, which is to be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer, so there was 10 months inbetween Mileys single 'party in the USA' and 'Can't be Tamed'.