# The Teleology of Hannah Montana **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 23, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177 "2010-08-23T17:01:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/21 "2010-08-24T15:03:39Z")
The manifestation is an illustration not just of a double life or consciousness common in literature (The Importance of Being Ernest, The Souls of Black Folk, Spider-Man) but of a triple identity (Miley Stewart, Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana). This takes the representation to a relatively unexplored level, and is a caustic commentary on identity issues among adolescent girls. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/22 "2010-08-24T15:44:16Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > He had to buy pencils or something and the most appealing option at the 99 cents store was Hannah Montana. And now he knows what she looks like. Interesting that you subconsciously went for the phallic imagery of the pencil. Certainly, it’s hard not to conclude that the OP is sublimating feelings of attraction. He speaks of the “fullness” of “acquiring her” and her “embodiment” (for a dollar). He even feels a generative impulse – note the telling hyphenation in his reference to “pre-conception.” ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/23 "2010-08-24T20:59:09Z")
How many other people opened the thread just to find out what “teleology” meant? And still have no clue? ---
**Author:** ![GHO57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df788c/32.png) [@GHO57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GHO57)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/24 "2010-08-24T21:10:09Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > How many other people opened the thread just to find out what “teleology” meant? > > And still have no clue? Don’t worry, only complete [kants](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/#3) really give a damn about teleological arguments. 😃 You’re missing nothing of import. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/25 "2010-08-24T21:25:26Z")
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable… ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/26 "2010-08-24T21:29:46Z")
Was she just being Miley? Or does that phrase mean something deeper than I originally thought? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/27 "2010-08-24T21:34:39Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > > [@Zebra](#): > > > > in vino veritas > > Psychic veracity–or, as you will have it, _veritas_–has been replaced by the imagination of the _secret pop star_ (an _inverted_ imagination), and as such becomes personification of exchange–we [exchange](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4921660871/#/photos/49289187@N02/4921660871/lightbox/) the utility of the [narrative](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4921660843/#/photos/49289187@N02/4921660843/lightbox/). This level of heuristic exchange is best expressed in parent-child modalities and should not be considered by peoples who are pre-conceptioned, as their existing relations will undergo a paradigm shift that cannot be merely explained away by prurient desires. In other words, if you’re caught playing HM on the guitar you’d better be able to blame it on the kids or your friends will (rightfully) give you shit until the End of Time, no matter how much you proclaim Miley Cyrus’s hawtness. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/28 "2010-08-24T21:38:13Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > How many other people opened the thread just to find out what “teleology” meant? > > And still have no clue? Oh, I did. I assumed it would be something that made note of how people in HH’s town, much like the citizens of Metropolis, are so easily and willfully deceived by the slightest changes in appearance. But it turns out to either be an argument of form v function, or that whole ancient Greek agrument that the idea of a chair is more real than a real chair crap they taught us about in crit lit. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/29 "2010-08-25T01:22:01Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > …At least…as much sense as anything in my marriage ever did. The sphere of matrimonial domain simultaneously expels and absorbs incumbency, such that she cannot—or truly would not—revert to its innate [intersubjectivity](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4925276952/#/photos/49289187@N02/4925276952/lightbox/) of play (Piaget), much less its zone of [proximal understanding](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4925276940/in/photostream/#/photos/49289187@N02/4925276940/in/photostream/lightbox/) (Vygotsky). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/30 "2010-08-25T19:34:13Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > > [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > > > OP, could you make it plain? > > Above and beyond the end of plainness, or simplicity, there is the question of reducibility: “How can one—bound within the aisle of [multi-functional](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4922134546/#/photos/49289187@N02/4922134546/lightbox/) [reality](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4921539067/in/photostream/#/photos/49289187@N02/4921539067/in/photostream/lightbox/)—empirically know the sub-textual episteme that infuses Hannah, as bracelet, as notepad, as scrunchie? So, if I may surmise, you’re talking about the nature, the essence, the spark, or the defining element of a particular trend? Trends are weird. There used to be a trend of adults carrying around pacifiers when I was a kid, during the stoneage. In Hannah Montana’s case the subtext is marketing. She’s making a lot of people a lot of money by appealing to teenagers, and driving everyone else insane with the constant promotion of her shit-static music, in many ways it runs in the family. I recken. The subtext is people, mainly teenagers and pedos, want to be associated with her, like her, because as they mistakenly perceive her to be cool, so they buy her crap thinking they can take in some of that perceived coolness. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/31 "2010-08-26T02:09:18Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > … they mistakenly perceive her to be cool, so they buy her crap thinking they can take in some of that perceived coolness. And yet, all perception is ultimately predicated on the interpolated self, or _Selbstheit_, for which reified coolness can linger no longer than the instant before which it is perceived. It has yet to be [etched](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4927746421/#/photos/49289187@N02/4927746421/lightbox/) or [shaped](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49289187@N02/4927746421/#/photos/49289187@N02/4927746421/lightbox/). It remains forever sublimated by its very circumstantial essence. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/32 "2010-08-26T03:15:53Z")
I love Vygotsky. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177/33 "2010-08-26T13:05:17Z")
It’s better philosophy than the last two Matrix movies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-teleology-of-hannah-montana/551177.md?page=1)