Hannah Montana Is a Ghost and Good Riddance

Somewhere in Helsinki there’s a Polaroid of Miley Cyrus mid-laugh, the image washed out by bad light and a shaky hand, and it tells you more about who she is than any magazine profile or late-night interview ever has. Her best friend Cheyne Thomas traveled with her for years—Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, everywhere the Bangerz Tour dragged them—and whenever the moment felt right, he’d pull out a film camera and shoot. The resulting series, titled "With a little help from my fwends," ran in V Magazine and it’s exactly as loose and alive as that title suggests.

You can argue about Miley Cyrus all you want. The Disney years, the appropriation discourse, the foam finger, whatever. But the thing I keep returning to is that she operates outside the approval economy in a way that feels genuine rather than performed. Most people who claim not to care are quietly screaming inside. She actually seems to mean it. The Polaroids carry that same energy—analog, grainy, shot in whatever light was available, no retouching logic—just her in various time zones looking exactly like herself.

Hannah Montana is dead. Has been for years. And the person who replaced her is more interesting in every possible way. If the amount of skin on display bothers you, you’re probably in the wrong decade.