Hannah Montana and the bad conscience of pop culture

Back when my daughters and I watched "Hannah Montana: The Movie", I noticed how the film depicts pop and folk culture in the US. LA schoolgirl Miley Stewart alias pop-star Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus) returns to her grandmother's house in small-town Tennessee, where she sings folk songs on the porch and learns about controversial plans to build a mall. While she loves malls, Miley still saves the land from the developer by giving a Hannah Montana concert. The film, then, itself an example of American pop culture, exposes pop culture's bad conscience about destroying traditional folk culture. But pop still thinks that only its commercial power can save tradition from commerce. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 19 October)