Much has been written about the Walt Disney Company's productions, but the focus has largely been on animation and feature film created by Disney. In this essay collection, the attention is turned to The Disney Channel and the programs it presents for a largely tween audience. Since its emergence as a market category in the 1980s, the tween demographic has commanded purchasing power and cultural influence, and the impressionability and social development of the age group makes it an important range of people to study. Presenting both a groundbreaking view of The Disney Channel's programming by the numbers and a deep focus on many of the best-known programs and characters of the 2000s--shows like The Wizards of Waverly Place, That's So Raven and Hannah Montana--this collection asks the simple questions, "What does The Disney Channel Universe look and sound like? Who are the stories about? Who matters on The Disney Channel?"
Introduction: A Road Map to the Disney Channel Universe (Christopher E. Bell, Marissa Lammon, Angela M. Guido and Julie Estlick )
What Dreams Are Made Of: Hilary Duff and the Illusion
of Girl Power (Cary Elza)
That’s So Afrofuturist: That’s So Raven, Black Radical
Imagination and Afrofuturist Tweens (Terah J. Stewart)
Hannah Montana: The Best of Both Worlds During the Rise
of Facebook (Claudia Lisa Moeller)
Family, Hard Work and Magic: The Skewed Working-Class
Sensibilities of Wizards of Waverly Place (Colin Ackerman)
“Disney is ruining my kid!” A Case for Cultivation and Social
Learning in Tween TV (Rachel Guldin, Janelle Applequist and Travis R. Bell )
“There’s no way I can make it without you?” Austin & Ally’s
Vision of Gender/Race Equality (Allison Schottenstein)
Adopting Diversity and Ignoring Race: Representations of Race in Jessie’s and K.C. Undercover’s Families of Color (Rebecca Rowe)
Girl Meets “Woke”: Rowan Blanchard, Intersectionality
and Fan Engagement (Christopher E. Bell, Marissa Lammon
and Hanne Murray)
Girlhood Voice in the Disney Family: Liv and Maddie and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (J. Richard Stevens)
Stuck in the Middle of a Flattened Culture (Sloan Gonzales)
De-Bunk’d and De-Natured: Tweenage TV Comedy in the Artificial Outdoors (Daniel F. Yezbick)
Diversity at Face Value: Bizaardvark’s “Diversity” Problem (Jayne M. Simpson)
Are You My Mother? Narrative Frames in Andi Mack’s Grandfamilies and Teenage Pregnancy (Andrea B. Baker)
That’s So Raven’s Home and Boy Meets Girl Meets World:
Recursion, Revival and Multi-Generational Dialogues (Michelle Anya Anjirbag)
Children of Queer Bodies: Disney Channel Original Movies as Social Justice Narratives in Descendants 2 (Sara Austin)
About the Contributors
Index