Hannah from Heaven

In addition to playing off the Cinderella myth, this dual role has the added benefit of (perhaps) extending her career beyond her core audience's tween years. Billy Ray may look dumb and his breakout hit certainly was, but he's always been more savvy than people think. One of these days, and it won't be long, Cyrus will shelve Hannah and go "solo" as Miley Cyrus, which just might keep her selling platinum an extra four or five years.

In the meantime, Cyrus/Montana goes to great lengths to include her young fans in her own living-out of the Cinderella myth. In "Just Like You," a song on her first album, Cyrus sings "I'm a lucky girl whose dreams came true, but underneath it all I'm just like you."

In an interview last month, Cyrus hammered the point home for those few who still did not get it. "I'm blessed. What more can I say...I'm like Cinderella going to the ball. And I get to sing and entertain my fans, and have fun with my friends. But like Cinderella, I do have a curfew. I can't stay out late and party. Oh no, not in my family."

See? She's always in by midnight, just like Cinderella, and just like you.

And quotes like that send a dual message. She's not just expressing solidarity with all those would-be Cinderellas out there, but also telling their parents that she's no threat, no age-­inappropriate, gyrating sexpot Pussycat Doll. She's not trying to appeal to the girls who just put down their tarted-up Bratz dolls and picked up their first ill-gotten wine coolers and Virginia Slims.

Second, she's politely distancing herself from those damaged damsels closer to her age, the fallen Cinderellas whose every coke-addled car crash, leaked Internet sex tape, bout with anorexia and crotch-flash have been feeding the equally rapacious and salacious media for lo, this entire decade.

Unlike them, Cyrus's life has boundaries. She has lines you don't cross, not lines you snort, consequences that don't involve utter public humiliation and millions of people demanding to know what sort of monsters raised this hellcat.

And the drooling maw of the American public never seems to tire of dark epilogues to Cinderella stories. No, apparently there's little we love more than when these strumpets linger too long at the ball, the clock tolls 12 doom-laden bells and these would-be Marie Antoinettes see their fairy-cake carriages turn to rotten, pungent pumpkins. Who did that little bitch think she was? asks the little demon on our shoulder.

Were it not so, many a cubicle at the offices of Star, Entertainment Tonight, VH-1 and E! would empty; there would be many an awkward pause on The View; and Perez Hilton would melt away shrieking in a turgid vat of acrid goo.

Hannah's a world away from all that sleaze, so who can blame parents for encouraging their daughters to be her fans?

Certainly not me, up to a point — say, face value of the ticket price times two. But come on, people. You are actually shelling out four figures for your little dears to sit on the front row at these shows?

Have they been sick? Have they lost a loved one recently? Did they spend the last year making straight A's and spending all their free time selling hand-squeezed lemonade and handing over the proceeds to Darfur relief? Do they really, really deserve to be lavished with a gift that costs more than the average American makes in a month?

Or is it that we as parents have simply chosen to insulate our children from any and all disappointment?

Or worse still, is some of this even about our children at all?

I have a sneaking suspicion that a number of those who have bid up prices to these astronomical levels are people who just can't wait to get at the other moms in the play group with a little comment like this: "My gosh, it sure was hard getting those Hannah Montana tickets for Grace. I called and called and called but I never got through, and I had Maria go down and wait in line for us, but she couldn't get a ticket either. So I went on eBay and they had some front-row seats there, and well..."

Of course, you wouldn't be so gauche as to let slip how much you paid for them — unless, of course they pried it out of you via Chardonnay-boarding — but you would have the satisfaction of knowing that they know.

And as for those girls who cannot go because the likes of you have raised the price through the roof, there's your true Cinderellas right there, staying at home crying their eyes out.

john.lomax@houstonpress.com