Hannah Montana

When I was a teenager all the little girls were crazy for boy bands. Prepubescent girls would line up for miles to scream wildly and passionately at a bunch of boys whose biggest talents were moving their lips to look like they were singing.
Today Hollywood and the music industry and Disney have given little girls a different thing to scream about. While I still have to shake my head, as a dad I can say "at least it's not a bunch of boys."
Her music is bubble gum, but really, watching the 15-year-old Miley Ray Cyrus perform absolutely blows my mind.
The beautiful wife and I took big sister to the Rave movie theater earlier this week to see the 3-D movie of the concert. I'm not really sure why it was 3-D, other than maybe to charge a little more for tickets. Overall, though, it was much better than I expected.
I have a low tolerance for bubble gum music, and most of what you hear on Disney tends to lean that way. And while most of the Hannah Montana is bubble gum, her songs are at least upbeat, pop dance songs -- and it's not a bunch of boys.
Not to mention Big sister is crazy for it.
We made sure to sit over to the side away from other people. We did this knowing that our daughter is a like a jack-in-the-box. She absolutely can't sit still.
She spent the two hours dancing back and forth in front of us and singing at the top of her lungs.
Between watching Big sister dance and trying to keep her from falling down the steps, I couldn't take my eyes off of Miley Ray Cyrus, also known as Hannah Montana.
How does a girl that young have that kind of a stage presence and have that much confidence?
I consider myself a pretty confident person, and have in fact spoken in front of 200 to 300 people without any problem. But this girl is singing in front of sold-out 60,000 seat arenas.
I can't imagine doing that and I really have a hard time thinking about a 15-year-old girl doing it.
But there she is on the screen. And Big sister is enjoying it thoroughly.
I guess she could have worse role models -- Britney Spears is still out there somewhere.