{"id":1648,"date":"2008-07-25T01:22:23","date_gmt":"2008-07-25T01:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/?p=1648"},"modified":"2017-08-18T01:47:32","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T01:47:32","slug":"deconstructing-montana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/deconstructing-montana\/","title":{"rendered":"Deconstructing Montana"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cHannah Montana\u00a0is thinking of leaving the show<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I scratched my head, playing the devil\u2019s advocate of absurdity: \u201cWait.\u00a0\u00a0But you said her real name is Destiny Hope Cyrus, but\u00a0she changed it legally to Miley<\/a>, the name of the character on the show.\u00a0\u00a0Now she wants to change her name to Hannah Montana.\u00a0\u00a0But she plays Miley on the show. . . and Hannah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, she is making her fictional character, in a way, factual.\u00a0\u00a0BUT . . . she\u2019s killing the fictional character by leaving the show.\u00a0\u00a0She became the fiction and is now leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she said. \u201cQuit making this more than it is.\u00a0She just wanted to change her name and then she wants to quit the show and do other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . but as Miley or as Hannah?\u00a0\u00a0Which fiction will she choose?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I felt I was learning a great deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s worried that\u00a0no one will care who she is<\/a>\u00a0if she\u2019s not the blond Hannah Montana.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0She took a sip of her tea.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo to make people care she becomes the fiction,\u201d I repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know, it\u2019s dumb,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s no big deal, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right, I thought and later said, mixing up fact and fiction is no big deal.<\/p>\n

After all, what is the line between fact and fiction?\u00a0A future student of mine posted an idea similar to this\u00a0<\/a>on my AP discussion boards, asking if a fictional novel\u2019s purpose is the same as a persuasive essay\u2019s purpose.\u00a0\u00a0Essays argue through use of fictional allegories and themes; novels are thematic and often allegorical.\u00a0\u00a0Texts persuade, and they all do it through symbols and language.<\/p>\n

So at what point does Billy Ray Cyrus\u2019\u2014apparently really his true birth name, but he changed the name of \u201cAchy Breaky Heart\u201d from its original \u201cDon\u2019t Tell My Heart, so he is hardly guiltless\u2014daughter lose her true identity to the Disney persona created for her?\u00a0\u00a0(\u2026though I empathize with a desire to abandon a name like \u201cDestiny Hope.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Imagine:\u00a0\u00a0Disney makes a show about you, using your name, with the premise that you have an alter ego.\u00a0\u00a0Then you grow to love the character and change yourself into it.\u00a0\u00a0At this point, we have to wonder: is she fact or fiction? How do we know about the status of anything? News stories, novels, people, blogs?<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry\u2014some women\u00a0redesign themselves into Barbie dolls<\/a>; and\u00a0Barbie redesigns herself<\/a>\u00a0to be more real.\u00a0\u00a0Even so,Barbie will sue any doll<\/a> which is more real and thus more popular than she is.\u00a0We\u2019re just keepin\u2019 this real.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it doesn\u2019t make any difference,\u201d I said at last. \u201cWe all just live our own fictions, anyway, so all the-person-named-Miley is doing is putting hers out front.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly,\u201d she said dubiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t front; she represents,\u201d I added. \u201c. . . unlike the \u2018Artist-formerly-known-as-Prince\u2019 or the \u2018Symbol.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Of course, by this time, I was laughing so hard at the story that she was becoming irate and dismissive.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOh, just stop it.\u00a0\u00a0Why do I try to talk with you about anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

We all live lives of symbols, each a fiction designed to please or harass us.\u00a0\u00a0If we\u2019re lucky, we have some choice over how we arrange them.\u00a0\u00a0If we\u2019re not, we become victims of the realities thrown at us:<\/p>\n

miley iam so sad becase u are quiting hannah montana i hate it no one could be the best hannah montana but u ok i mean it if u quit go a head i might be the next HANNAH MONTANA ok please talk to me again<\/em> (Houston Forum<\/a>)<\/p>\n

My AP student is right to ask: it\u2019s not that an essay or novel is fiction or fact but that the themes, the arrangements of symbols into meanings we desire, are all we have in any event\u2014and everything we have.\u00a0\u00a0In this sense, Hannah Montana and Jay Gatsby and Barack Obama all deliver the same lessons:<\/p>\n

But what hurts the most
\nIs you can’t tell me
\nSomething
\nWithout telling a lie<\/p>\n

Oh quit telling lies
\nYou’re making me
\nMaking me cry<\/p>\n

(Hannah or Miley<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Destiny.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cHannah Montana\u00a0is thinking of leaving the show.\u201d I scratched my head, playing the devil\u2019s advocate of absurdity: \u201cWait.\u00a0\u00a0But you said her real name is Destiny Hope Cyrus, but\u00a0she changed it legally to Miley, the name of the character on the show.\u00a0\u00a0Now she wants to change her name to Hannah Montana.\u00a0\u00a0But she plays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,248],"tags":[549,548,545,353,551,552,547,546,550],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chizblog","category-culture-criticism","tag-barbie","tag-cyrus","tag-hannah","tag-identity","tag-image","tag-marketing","tag-miley","tag-montana","tag-toys"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/08\/mouse-hannah.jpg?fit=420%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1848,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/bambi-in-boyland-3-the-american-forest\/","url_meta":{"origin":1648,"position":0},"title":"Bambi in Boyland 3: The American Forest","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2014 Apr 24","format":false,"excerpt":"This a 3-part series as a model for student work. 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