Miley Cyrus comes to the Allstate Arena straddling two identities

Fittingly, I'm of two minds on "Hannah Montana." If I can't agree that it consists of "The Best of Both Worlds," I do have to admit that - in the age of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and other pop-culture "Bad Girls" - it says something admirable for young ladies in the audience. Yet there's no denying it uses a fairly remedial sitcom to transmit that message.

For those who haven't seen it, who don't have a preteen daughter in the house and who therefore aren't exposed to it on a daily basis - the way I am, usually in the background while cooking dinner, when it runs at 6 p.m. weekdays on the Disney Channel - "Hannah Montana" is about a teenager who is both a pop star and a "normal" girl. It stars Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart, who tries to keep her identity as the stylish blond chanteuse Hannah Montana enough of a secret to allow herself a normal life.

It's a situation of life meets art for Cyrus, who only just turned 15, and to make it doubly complicated her real-life father, Billy Ray Cyrus, also plays her sitcom father, Robbie Stewart.

I could mention "Achy Breaky Heart" here, but there's no need to hold the sins of the father against the child.

Besides, while "Hannah Montana" was originally conceived as just another Disney sitcom, it's the casting of the Cyruses that has made a difference. Not only does Billy Ray play a music-industry insider with self-deprecating charm ("Oh my achy breaky back," Robbie once moaned), but it's given him both a say and a stake in his daughter's career, as he'll reportedly produce the upcoming "Hannah Montana" feature film.

Take the Cyruses out, and it would be just another Disney-ABC rehash of a well-meaning but ultimately retarded '70s family sitcom. (See "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," or better yet don't.) Jason Earles provides slapstick comic relief as Miley's brother, Jackson, usually in tandem with Moises Arias' Rico. (Miley Cyrus has brothers and sisters in real life, but Earles ain't one of them.) Much of the "humor" is scatological, referring to bodily functions and barnyard excrement.

Put it this way: "Petticoat Junction" was more sophisticated - by a country mile.

For all that, however, "Hannah Montana" does succeed as a showbiz satire, as a commentary on a young woman dealing with celebrity. It doesn't take much imagination to see Hannah Montana's low-slung jeans and blond wig as a direct commentary on Britney Spears' teen-idol days back on "The Mickey Mouse Club." And for that reason I think it's valuable in an era when Spears and fellow Disney product Lohan create such a sensation routinely succumbing to the pitfalls of stardom.

"Hannah Montana" might not have gotten to plots concerning the dangers of drunken driving or going commando with paparazzi all about, or even the scurrilous pregnancy rumors that circled around Miley Cyrus herself until she squelched them this fall, but behind its yokel hokum it does give Cyrus a way to play out the complications of celebrity, to the benefit of her adoring young fans.

And, no doubt with her father's guidance, Miley Cyrus has proved herself capable of handling the contradictions in her own career. The "Hannah Montana" soundtrack shot to the top of the charts on its release a year ago, but when the follow-up, "Hannah Montana 2," came out this year, it was subtitled "Meet Miley Cyrus," and it found her taking a songwriting credit on eight of the 10 songs under her birth-certificate name, Destiny Hope Cyrus. It too went to No. 1.

When the Best of Both Worlds Tour stops at the Allstate Arena at 4 p.m. Saturday, it will find her set divided into two parts: a glitzy Hannah Montana element, and a more folksy Miley Cyrus segment.

If the rotating identities are enough to make a fan's head spin, imagine what it must be like for a freshly 15-year-old girl, whether or not she grew up in the spotlight of her father's celebrity. She's not only playing a character, she's playing her real-life self as a character. Where does the phony reality end and the real reality begin?

Give Cyrus credit for potentially finding her own way out of the dilemma, casting herself as a Lee Ann Rimes type even as she's cast as "Hannah Montana." That could produce a career after her Disney Channel days are over, which is only a matter of time. (Anybody seen former "Lizzie McGuire" Hillary Duff lately?)

And the Best of Both Worlds Tour has deliberately been kept short, to keep her from being out on the road too long. After all, a 15-year-old girl is not a grizzled road vet like the Rolling Stones.

Disney has embraced that, in part because the limited supply only drives up demand. Hannah Montana could probably fill the Allstate for a week of shows, but the one-shot stop has instead produced a scalper's market ranging from $200 to $4,500 a ticket for Saturday's show (according to a quick stop at StubHub.com).

That's just the thing. The Disney marketing machine chews up young talent and spits it out, leaving stars like Spears and Lohan to fend for themselves, with sometimes regrettable results. A young star has to deal with it on her own. That's the story "Hannah Montana" so often plays out, and it's what concertgoers will see at the Allstate Saturday - a young singer dealing with the complications of stardom and trying to make something uniquely her own out of it.