Girlhood on Disney Channel Branding, Celebrity, and Femininity

Since the early 2000s, Disney Channel has been dominated by original live-action programming popular among tween girls. The shows’ successes rely not only on their popularity among girl audiences, but also on the development of star personae by girl performers, such as Raven-Symoné, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez. In addition, these programs and their performers have spawned lucrative media and merchandising franchises for the Walt Disney Company. This book includes analyses of this Disney Channel programming, as well as Disney corporate reports and executive statements, together with Disney Channel stars’ performances, promotional appearances, media production, philanthropic efforts, and entrepreneurism. Analyzing these texts, performances, activities, and personae, it considers the ways in which they reproduce celebrity, visibility, and feminine performativity as central to successful twenty-first century girlhood.

Introduction: Disney Girls, Producing Girlhood Discourse 1. Tweening Disney Channel via the Franchisable Girl 2. Luminous Girlhood: Visibility, Femininity, and Performance 3. "True Colors": Race, Ethnicity, and Class in That’s So Raven, Hannah Montana, and Wizards of Waverly Place 4. D-Signed for Diversification: Disney Channel and Lifestyle Branding 5. Citizen Girl: "Do-Good" Disney TV and Girls’ Citizenship 6. The Girl Mogul: Entrepreneurism and the New Girl Subject 7. Outgrowing Disney Channel: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Girlhood Conclusion: Performing Girl / Performing Luminosity

Morgan Genevieve Blue is an independent scholar researching girls’ media culture in the United States. Her work appears in Feminist Media Studies and Film, Fashion and Consumption, among other venues. She is co-editor, with Mary Celeste Kearney, of Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Culture, Volume 2 (2016).