The Pink Side of Disney

I used to love Disney movies. And why not? The characters were always adorable, the settings were always colorful and the plot was always interesting. Then I came face-to-television screen with High School Musical. Here, the good characters were always so depressingly good and the bad ones seemingly evil and jealous until, of course, the last half an hour of the film where they too became good and everyone lived happily ever after.

I have nothing against happy endings but the fairytale in real life’s clothing irritated me. What made it worse was that everyone liked it despite the fact that the main female character could never even hit the high notes. I categorized it into “typical chick flick meant for younger audiences.� And tried to forget about it. Then along came the sequel. No critic worth his salt would ever give High School Musical Two a good review. The plot was bad, the acting was worse and the lyrics to the songs were nothing short of terrible. Tweens lapped it up. They loved it.

Which brings me to an interesting point. Older Disney movies always offered something interesting. Take Mulan, for instance; A girl who doesn’t fit into Chinese society disguises herself as a boy and joins the army. There is, of course, a happy ending but the movie also makes you laugh, cry and even question yourself. I can watch Mulan today and actually enjoy myself as much as when I first watched it around seven years ago. High School Musical offers nothing of the sort. A popular jock and a brainiac girl both find that they love to sing. Can the whole school change their way of thinking just because two people go against the high school clique ‘system’? Yes. Do the two fall madly in love? Yes. Is the blonde, popular girl really evil? Of course. Does she take the fall and learn her lesson? Well, duh. Because High School Musical is not a cartoon movie but has real actors and a more adult setting, kids are more likely to take it’s superficial message seriously.

This blatant way of telling the tweens of the age that life is perfect and that if it is not, everything always works out perfectly is not just High School Musical’s message. It is also Disney TV show, Hannah Montana’s message. And Zoey 101. And iCarly. In fact, the latest Disney programs meant for the nine to twelve year old audiences are all exactly the same.

To say that hit TV series, Hannah Montana has done well this past year would not be accurate. To say it has done extremely well would be more precise. Every girl under the age of thirteen adores the show. Why? Because the main character is a singing sensation who has concerts at night but poses as an ordinary teenager by day. She is thin, pretty (somehow both blonde and brown hair manage to suit her), has a dad who understands every issue she goes through, a best friend she never fights with and of course, the compulsory perfect boyfriend. Oh, and her secret identity is never revealed. Every single show ends happily with Miley Cyrus (who plays Hannah) flashing us her perfect smile and I can never restrain myself from rolling my eyes. It’s just far too plastically perfect to be true.

Ten years ago the latest fad was not a person but an attractive, blonde doll named Barbie. Like Hannah, Barbie too had an ideal life. Except Barbie was a mere toy and that meant the endings to her stories were left to the imagination of the youthful owner. Therefore, Barbie could get married one day and could hurl herself off the cruel edge of the stairs on the next. Hannah Montana is a more realistic doll and has far more influence over her fans than Barbie ever did because her fans do not get to decide what she is going to do next.

Apart from telling the younger half of the younger generation that life should always be perfect otherwise there is something wrong, these TV shows pose another problem. They are much like the Indian dramas everyone watches on Star Plus. Addictive. Everyone who watches Zoey 101 or Hannah Montana wants to know what the next thing will be that will bring excitement (and even more blissful perfection) to their favorite characters’ lives. They want to know more and more about these perfect yet non existent people.

Disney tween shows are popular for another reason. They talk about things that girls start to become aware of by the age of around eleven such as boys, clothes and music. Therefore, they bridge the gap between babyish cartoons and most of the other channels on the television which they still think of as too serious.

So why then do parents approve of these shows? Simple. They are completely clean. Hannah Montana is a teen star who never drinks and rarely disobeys her father. Zoey from Zoey 101 can date a million guys and never get pregnant. There is never any abusive language used onscreen and the clothes they wear are almost never too revealing. Teenage life without the bits that all parents generally disapprove of. The fact that Disney makes the shows also helps reassure parents that their children aren’t watching anything explicit.

But then there is the daunting part. The fact that those who worship Hannah or Zoey are all children but Miley and Jamie Lynn who play Hannah and Zoey are fifteen and sixteen years old and well on their way to adulthood in the fast paced world of teen actors. Jamie Lynn Spears announced her pregnancy in December 2007. Parents of course were shocked and angry. Yet how did those who idolized and probably still do idolize her react? Perhaps even more controversial was the infamous picture of Miley Cyrus wearing nothing but a towel. She had posed for this picture with the approval of her father and defended it later on calling it “artsy.� After all, it may seem artsy to any fifteen year old. But then again, its not fifteen year old girls who adore her, its twelve year olds who are often nowhere near as mature. Did the parents of those twelve year old girls find it artsy? I think not. By letting children worship seemingly perfect characters, we forget that their masks are growing up in today’s world where things can and often do happen too fast. We should not let our children put certain people or their character’s on a pedestal just because their lives seem faultless. Neither Hannah Montana nor Miley Cyrus should ever be a role model for any twelve year old girl.

What with all the pinkness floating around who knows when girls will finally find out what channel National Geographic is on or even sit through a whole news documentary.

Sadly enough perhaps they never will. Rumor has it that High School Musical Three is coming to town…