David’s Peers Series #2: Spotlight on Miley Cyrus

I meant to continue this series last Wednesday but got distracted with the news that David was in Chile! But, remember this performance with a certain someone?

Look at it this way, David fans: had David been a teen star phenomenon like Miley Cyrus (like we all used to hope), think how much more growing pains he’d have to deal with making his boy-to-man transition in the very public eye.

Zac Efron had to  deal with ridicule when his The Lucky One, which opened over the weekend, was universally panned (something tells me his rush to grow up from his innocent “High School Musical” days into hot sexy soldier boy just wasn’t working for some folks).  But at least he got his movie widely released (and came in at #2, beating out the unstoppable The Hunger Games, although it couldn’t topple black romance comedy, Think Like a Man).

Not so with Miley Cyrus’s latest film, LOL, whose trailer I accidentally came across online:

The film was supposed to have been released in January, then later pushed back to March, and is now going to be opening (in limited release no less!) this coming May. What gives?

This movie was supposed to represent Miley Cyrus’s breakout moment from her teen image of Hannah Montana to an all-grown-up on the cusp of womanhood persona.  Something like what Zac Efron attempted with The Lucky One. 

Alas, with the success of The Hunger Games, LOL is just not a priority at Lionsgate.  No worries, though, since Miley is set to be in another movie, So Undercover, about her investigation into a college sorority (another movie trying to “age her gracefully”?).

Obviously, I consider Miley Cyrus one of David’s peers, mostly because of 1)his guest appearance and song on Hannah Montana and 2)his appearance with Miley at the Teen Choice Awards (‘member that?).

Back when David was making his “Crush” debut, we used to have these fierce debates about whether or not Jive was trying to take David the “Disney” route, and I still wonder what Disney might have done with David had they gotten their hands on him.

I imagine he’d be much like Miley and Zac right now – trying to “outgrow” his Disney image. Granted, many of us think he has a different image to “outgrow”: the Idol one.

So, it will be interesting to see how and when David reappears on the pop scene two years from now.  I still think it was a blessing in disguise that he hadn’t blown up on the same scale as a Miley Cyrus, who is obviously trying to find her footing – after all, this was a gal who basically OWNED the tween market for quite some time.  (Then Taylor Swift and now Justin Bieber took them away from her.)

They’re all growing up too, these fans, but it’s how Miley connects to that growing-up fanbase that makes all the difference.

Somehow, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears made the transition, Lindsay Lohan not so much.

Watching such careers makes me feel a bit easier that David won’t have such a rough time at making whatever transition is necessary when he returns a bonafide 20-something man. By then, most folks would have to readjust to the “man” more than the “boy” some of us used to know on Idol or who once sung a song called “Crush.”

Maybe Miley should take a similar 2-year break before making her own comeback transition, IMO.  Think of how awed we would be at her transformation.