Don't call it a comeback, I never even started

Didn't get accepted into EMP (still tentatively plan on attending), but the REAL War on Lindsay still needs to be fought somewhere, so I guess I better share my proposal with the world anyway. I might submit this to Bunnies and Traps, a budding intellectual haven based in California that I know will be sympathetic to my subject matter. Changed one word because it was a double.


The War on Lindsay

I don't know many people who feel sorry for Ashlee Simpson or Lindsay Lohan, but their sales have slipped and their popularity is waning. They maintain an awkward position as artists, classified musically as teenpop -- a fairly amorphous term encompassing music usually marketed to 'tween and teen audiences -- but socially as tabloid icons, certifiable phonies. Slowly, their primary audience has begun to dissipate, and even favorable critics draw a line between public persona and musical output, still indicting them in praise.

Thoughtful critical analysis or discussion of their music is rare because these artists are commonly considered part of an inherently deplorable production system or "machine" -- and, by association, so are their fans. In confronting and attempting to dispel myths of production and authorship in contemporary teenpop, I will explore how its audience has changed in the past five years, consider "teenpop," like "indie," as a social rather than aesthetic distinction, and investigate the widespread indifference to and contempt for provocative new teenpop artists and their music.

Finally, I will discuss how Disney has used its institutional clout and family-friendly reputation to create a parallel media universe in which it monopolizes teenpop's target audiences and selectively promotes its own artists. Disney's homegrown acts (Hannah Montana, Aly and AJ, the cast of High School Musical) are safe from harsh tabloid/anti-tabloid scrutiny and generally remain absent from the entertainment and tabloid press altogether, despite their popularity with a trusted audience. The artists outside of this niche audience zone, however, are fighting an uphill battle that the public delights in watching them lose.