Miley Cyrus has treated fans to a nostalgia-filled special for Hannah Montana's 20th anniversary. Hannah Montana: The 20th Anniversary Special premiered on March 24 on Disney+.
The popular Disney sitcom starred Cyrus as the titular character and ran for 4 seasons on Disney Channel. The show was revolutionary and launched Miley into super stardom.
The special centered around looking back at the show, with Miley revealing behind-the-scenes tea and secrets for fans who watched when it aired. Miley, who was just 13 when the show came out, shaped a generation of children's lives and drove the popularity of Disney Channel's musical film and TV format.
Since leaving Disney, Cyrus has had mixed opinions on the show. It's no secret that she was overworked as a teenager, working to keep the Hannah Montana brand alive while maintaining the wholesome pop star image.
Still, the legacy lives in pop culture, with iconic songs, hilarious scenes, and a lasting impact on a generation of people. But what matters now is why the special was exactly what we needed.
The nostalgia for Hannah Montana is real
The special taps into the 2000s nostalgia, but not in a forced way like many new shows do. If anything, it feels like the right time to celebrate Hannah and everything she gave Miley and us. The special was a perfect mix of reminiscing and reflecting. Seeing Miley in full Hannah glam performing "This is the Life" and "Best of Both Worlds" is healing because we know once upon a time, she resented Hannah.
The reunion felt like more than a look down memory lane; it felt like Miley reconnecting with her alter ego and seeing Hannah from a new perspective, rather than just as someone she had played. She put it well when she said, "It's really for the fans that grew up with me".
The special felt like a chance for her and us to connect with our formative years.
Miley's reclaimation of Hannah and the show
In an interview with Variety, Cyrus said, "I wasn’t trying to kill Hannah off. I was just progressing,"
The singer acknowledged how while she may have changed, she didn't want to "do this modern approach to Hannah".
Even though she wasn't head-to-toe in Hannah gear, she essentially was carrying pieces of Hannah with her. The long blonde hair, the bangs, and the sparkles are her way of reclaiming Hannah, which we as an audience needed.
Back when Cyrus said Hannah was "dead" on a 2013 episode of Saturday Night Live, fans were shocked. Now with enough distance between her and Hannah, the special helps to frame the show in a new light. We can see it from its cultural impact, rather than something Miley wanted or needed to distance herself from. The special helps the audience understand how she viewed and played Hannah at the time versus 20 years later, singing the songs with more sass and life experience.
As an adult, it's easy to understand why she needed to break away from that teen pop star image and, artistically, why she changed her appearance and sound so drastically. Hannah was a character, and was just a character, compared to Miley Cyrus, who was an actress and singer who wanted to grow and explore. Some fans needed to hear that from the horse's mouth to view Miley with more empathy and understanding.
No current Disney shows are hitting like this one
The sad reality is that no Disney Channel shows from the last 10 years hit anything like Hannah Montana. Personally, I'd say the last good sitcom on the channel was Good Luck Charlie, which ended in 2014. But hey, maybe I just aged out of Disney.
However, even with this generation of tweens and teens, I don't see any hype online for Disney's current lineup of shows. For us, Hannah Montana remains culturally relevant 20 years later, and many of us from that generation share a cultural memory with the show. Hannah isn't just a character, she's one of our favorite pop stars whose songs still stand the test of time. There's something magical about having the show's star look back on their experience with fond memories and realize how much of an impact it had on a generation of children.
We needed a look back to see what Disney Channel used to be, and a reminder of how iconic the House Of Mouses' work was in the early 2000s.
Hannah Montana is a comfort show for many people
Another reason we needed the special is that HM is a comfort show. The show's theme song, music, storylines, and catchphrases are familiar and comforting to us. Many iconic Disney shows had revivals and spin-offs: Wizards of Waverly Place, That's So Raven, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Despite being one of the network's most popular shows, Hannah Montana never had that. You may argue about the movie, but the movie coincided with the show airing.
Longtime fans of the show deserved some payoff, a place where they can come back to the simple format of TV, where we don't have to wait two years for seasons to be released. That's exactly what this special was. It was like jumping back into the past of the Stewarts' Mailbu house and hearing new tidbits of information we didn't know before, blending the old with the new in a comforting way.
The music still slaps so hard
I'd love to say there are a multitude of deep reasons why we needed Hannah back in some capacity, and there is, but the music is the biggest. Hannah Montana's four seasons each had a legendary soundtrack filled with pop songs that some of us still play unironically today. Miley's last live performance as Hannah was reportedly back in 2008 on the Best of Both Worlds Tour.
Whether you like pop music, you can't deny that the music written for Hannah Montana captured the essence of what a wholesome 2000s teen popstar should be. The music from the show proves that legacy specials and performances can be done right if the intention is good. While some fans were upset Miley didn't include many of the show's main cast (me included), her performances of Hannah's songs let us remember Hannah as she was, not how she is or would be now.