HANNAH MONTANA, Bad for Women, Bad for the Economy, Bad for the Environment
by Brooke Palmer
In our society, women are taught from a very young age to be mindless consumers; girls grow up believing that a love of shopping is a matter of biology rather than socialization, that needing lots of shoes is an innate part of being a woman. This belief is harmful to our brains because rampant consumerism distracts women from what we COULD be doing if we were using our minds and our money on more important matters. But in our current economic state, it’s also bad for our daily lives, and for our daughters, if we continue to so blindly live as though we have to spend our money on vanity. Not only do women throw money away on unnecessary stuff when they could and should be saving that money for future needs, but such waste is harmful to the environment. So why do so many women follow the Hannah Montana trend and allow this Disney mega-corporate icon to teach their daughters that wearing a lot of make-up and shopping are what’s important in life? When I go to the drug store, I see Hannah Montana activity books lining the racks. Inside, her perfectly polished, smiling face asks girls what their “shopping style” is. Then she provides pictures of multiple different wardrobes that represent the different shopping styles a girl might have. Next to her “women as consumers” guidebooks are the Hannah Montana Chap Stick tubes, HM purses, and multiple other throwaway plastic HM thingies that will only end up in landfills in a few years. Mothers: Don’t give in to this crap! Turn on some actual music and teach your daughters that they don’t have to put on a bunch of make-up and fancy shoes in order to enjoy themselves. Explain to your daughters that following HM really just makes HM rich and the rest of the women in our society stuck in that habit of spending that is leading to problems in money management. A prime example of this is the ultra bad taste she displayed by celebrating her recent Sweet 16 by taking over Disney World and charging guests $250 to attend her birthday party there. Right now people are losing their houses and their retirements savings and their jobs on a daily basis and she’s celebrating these hard times by being so vain as to close down Disney in order to take over and perform to guests shelling out a half a month’s rent. Boooooo, Hannah! Have some modesty! And the rest of us? Boycott the HM Empire and put $250 into a college savings account for our daughters instead (or simply teach them how to have better taste in music and entertainment)!
