Music/image and the cusp-persona: the child/adult public persona of child celebrities

One of the prevailing tropes of the child stars in popular entertainment is their precociousness. This chapter develops the public/popular construction of coming of age. It looks at how popular culture constructs the movement from child to adult which begins with precocious public presentation of children with adult-like abilities to their adolescent public transformations. From studies of early child stars of the twentieth century, mid-century popular music adolescent stars, recent boy bands and the investigation of two generations of Disney child stars, the chapter explores the way that music has been critical in establishing a cusp-like personality, one that allows the expression of childhood but challenges that identity by sexualizing the performer’s identity so that it is simultaneously child and adult.