QUICK -- BEHOLD HANNAH MONTANA

Quick, behold Hannah Montana....! Before it's too late....! For soon now the perky Disney kiddie-concoction insists she will become herself "and live my life as Miley Cyrus the way I've always wanted to."

Actually, young Miley doesn't quite have a life. Not apart from her creators at the Disney Studios, where they are perpetually creating other kiddie-concoctions like the Jonas Brothers. At one dark time, celebrities were the results of hustling Colonels (Elvis) and muscling mobsters (Sinatra). Today they are the elaborate sausage-factory results of well- tested and well-marketed film corporations who know their young audience's every taste and tick.

Nothing new here, for P.T. Barnum was concocting make-believe headliners as far back as the circus days of the 19th C, and Cecil B. Demille in the Tinseltown of the 20th C. But what may be new in the 21st C is the more informed opportunity for audiences (and the celebrities) to take stock of what's happening here.

Given that today everything comes down to show business -- from presidential appearances to Alaskan governors to Hollywood premiers -- there is a lesson here for the rich-and-powerful: Don't take yourself too seriously, because as a public commodity, you better know when to leave the stage and count your take...!

Author Norman Mailer put it oracularly when he said of his world of celebrities: "The only things truly worth writing about here are sex and death." When and if you think about it. Miley, he pretty much got that right...