It is truly a tale as old as time; when young Disney Channel child stars ditch their wide eyes and bright, toothy smiles to embrace the maturities and authenticities which adulthood offers. Nowhere is this more discussed than in the media, especially regarding the trajectory of young women’s careers. Countless news outlets judge former female child stars based on a hypocritical moral code, degrading and critiquing these celebrities for their self-expression and sexual maturity. It is a seemingly inescapable trend which haunts every female child star who has been orbited into a new found adult fame, even in the current era of the MeToo movement and third-wave feminism. So, why does this stigma continue to prevail?

Miley Cyrus is perhaps the first child star of this generation to have sparked controversy within the media, with a major career transformation; Cyrus ditched the Hannah Montana wig for a pixie cut, an intense red lip, and a white two-piece in her music video for the hit single, ‘Wrecking Ball’. The response to this video was immediately negative and misogynistic with writer Tony Hooley snidely describing it as “part of a grand scheme to be seen as legitimate artist”. Yet Cyrus was more appalled by the lack of female togetherness, stating that she could not have predicted “other women to put me down or turn on me, especially women that had been in my position before”. This is a worrying aspect of media cynicism, in that it bleeds into and poisons women’s attitudes and beliefs about each other.

However, Cyrus ultimately paved the way and gave confidence to many other young female stars to break the mould; Jojo Siwa has credited the Wrecking Ball singer for inspiring her own move to the adult celebrity scene. Following an incredibly successful career as a children’s media celebrity, her transition mimicked Cyrus in both intensity, and in the backlash received from the mainstream media. Though Siwa has always proven to be a controversial figure in the Internet space, the current narrative she faces is perhaps the most volatile and harsh. Both Cyrus and Siwa were pillars of children’s TV, cemented by the media as their innocent, sweet personas; therefore, the only way to truly enter the adult sphere was to separate themselves completely from their past. Whether you agree with how the two decided to evolve as artists, it can be argued that the mass media’s refusal to abandon their past forced them to go the extreme; the media has actualised the reality that they sought to criticise.

Media criticism, however, does not solely focus on child stars ‘gone wild’, so to speak; even young female artists with conventional career paths are still vulnerable to intense scrutiny. Sabrina Carpenter, for example – the poster girl of a ‘slow rise’ celebrity – has recently faced disapproval due to her promiscuous nature and audacious wit. A Rolling Stone article compared this to the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, who were similarly shamed for their “unabashed embrace of [their] sexuality”. For Carpenter, the media storm is arguably more so a consequence of the immovable ‘Disney Channel star’ label attached to her name. Though all these women have grown into independent and successful celebrities, the media cannot seem to accept their natural progression into more adult themes and thus choose to vilify them rather than embrace them.

It is evident that media criticism targeted at young women is rooted in patriarchal stereotypes, as the standard they are held to is entirely different to that of their male peers. However, what is most worrying is that this trend is not going out of style – if anything it is growing in strength and volume. Therefore, it is more important than ever to bring these issues to the forefront, to counterbalance male chauvinism and internalised misogyny within the mainstream media.

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