Miley Cyrus: embodying and challenging the 'all-American girl’

This thesis will aim to explore how Miley Cyrus has embodied and challenged the 'all-American girl’ archetype. At the young age of thirty-one, Miley Cyrus has had a long career spanning over the last two decades. Cyrus is a unique star in that her audience has grown up alongside her. Cyrus first appeared on our screens in Hannah Montana when she was only 13 years old. This thesis will aim to establish what it means to be an all-American girl and the values that are associated with it, the effect the all-American girl image had on the expression of Cyrus’s sexuality and deconstruct how Cyrus has redefined what it means to be an all-American girl. This thesis aims understand how Cyrus has challenged critics and stayed true herself. Miley Cyrus has made the term ‘all-American girl’ to be more representative of women in the 21st Century.