ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Disney company as a site that produces, manages, and contains the growing capital – including sexual capital – of its young female stars. Starting with the phenomenon of the “girl star,” the author discusses how Disney exploits and contains the femininity of these young girls, as exemplified in the early aughts. This exploitation is then related to broader moral panics about girls, media and, increasingly, new media. The author then compares and contrasts the discursive construction of and response to two photo “scandals” that surrounded young female Disney stars across 2007–2008: High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens’s stolen, private photo and the then 15-year-old Miley Cyrus’ controversial – but consensual – partially nude photo for Vanity Fair in 2008, situating these young women’s transgressions within broader media panics about young women’s sexuality, new media technology and their growing symbolic power within a corporate media system.
