The latest "scandal" to come out of show biz central is the reported use of a body double during the Hannah Montana concerts. I'm already too weary to type out the whole story, so here's a cut and paste summary from AP...
A video posted on YouTube shows the 15-year-old entertainer as "Hannah" dancing onstage with a group of dancers and the Jonas Brothers, also on the tour. During the song, someone ushers her offstage via a trap door. Immediately, another girl dressed like the character "Hannah" in the same pink trench coat with blonde hair covering her faces dances around, runs up the stage set, and then quickly leaves.
While the double is holding a microphone for her less than a minute, the girl motions like she is singing. However, a rep for Miley said the switch was only for costume purposes.
"To help speed the transition from Hannah to Miley, there is a production element during the performance of 'We Got the Party' incorporating a body double for Miley," according to statement Friday from the public relations firm PMK.
"After Hannah has completed the featured verse on the duet with the Jonas Brothers, a body double appears approximately one to two minutes prior to the end of the song in order to allow Miley to remove the Hannah wig and costume and transform into Miley for her solo set. Other than during this very brief transitional moment in the show, Miley performs live during the entirety of both the Hannah and Miley segments of the concert."
While the double is holding a microphone for her less than a minute, the girl motions like she is singing. However, a rep for Miley said the switch was only for costume purposes.
"To help speed the transition from Hannah to Miley, there is a production element during the performance of 'We Got the Party' incorporating a body double for Miley," according to statement Friday from the public relations firm PMK.
"After Hannah has completed the featured verse on the duet with the Jonas Brothers, a body double appears approximately one to two minutes prior to the end of the song in order to allow Miley to remove the Hannah wig and costume and transform into Miley for her solo set. Other than during this very brief transitional moment in the show, Miley performs live during the entirety of both the Hannah and Miley segments of the concert."
I'm going to shoot right past the obvious and not belabor the point that we're talking about a stage production here, a stage production that, like any Broadway show, has every right to do whatever is necessary to move the show along (did we require The Phantom of The Opera to take off his mask every performance to guarantee that we weren't getting to the old bait and switch on whoever the hell was playing him?)
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the Hannah Montana stage production team. The fault lies with media....newspapers, TV, tabloids, whoever started this little campfire and, most assuredly, those who will keep fanning the flames until a total non story becomes a story, or worse, a non scandal becomes a scandal. Because no matter how idealistic young journalists entering the profession might like to think they are, the simple truth is that they will inevitably end up trying to create news as much or more as they will report news.
Why? Partly because of supply and demand. The reason that "news" was more often actually news, say, forty years ago is that the demand for product was limited to daily newspapers, weekly periodicals and television that consisted of, in most cases, three networks and PBS, who all were on the air only from sunrise to midnight.
Today? A media monster exists that must be fed 24/7. And there's only so many times you can repeat the same story before you have to move on to something else. Sooner or later, too, just by the laws of supply and demand, you start to run low on something elses. So, just like the camper who has run out of logs and branches for the fire, you start looking for any and every little twig you can find.
Add to that the human trait of wanting to make mountains out of molehills (we do loves our drama, don't we, Miss Scarlett?).... and you have a recipe for big deals that aren't really big.
Oh and don't forget that we have now raised an entire generation in the atmosphere of a media whose job is not just to inform and/or entertain....but also to protect and alert us to the corruption and shortcomings of those we trust, be they government leaders, authority figures...or 15 year old girls who are singing for us and cant be in two places at one time. The horror! The very idea!
Watergate and its outcome not only started us on the path of cynicism and distrust, it set the tone for everything we see and hear from our "news" gatherers to this day.
So, if you really think that you're being cheated because they're using a body double for thirty seconds to facillitate a costume change, then, by all means, ask for your money back.
But don't take it out on Hannah Montana.
Blame Richard Nixon.
No comments:
Post a Comment