Morality by Disney

One of the hottest properties on television at the moment is the Disney spectacular High School Musical (and it's sequel.)

A musical based around a musical (yes, I know, it's contrived even for Disney) High School Musical has attractive stars, catchy tunes and a twee 'Disneyfied' version of the American school experience. It's won fans amongst the teen audience and their parents.

I haven't seen either of the movies, but I did hear the songs and darned if I didn't start tapping my toes. So I can understand the appeal - although I have a bit of a problem with the ridiculously gorgeous starlets in the lead roles and the somewhat stereotypical characters they play.

This is one of those myriad recent movies (of which The Devil Wears Prada is the worst offender) that seem to give people the impression that inner beauty doesn't matter - what you look like really is more important.

In any regards, stars Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens have become hugely popular ambassadors for the Disney brand based on their roles in the movie.

The two have even started dating, in what can only be assumed to be a publicity stunt. (It's funny how the on-screen lovers started a 'real life' relationship at roughly the same time the debate about Zac Efron's sexuality increased.)

As far as Disney's champions go, these kids are great. They're good looking, they smile and kids adore them. And parents like them too, because they fit neatly into the strict Disney morality mode. Remember, in the world of Disney, it's the storks who bring the babies and nothing more than a chaste peck on the lips is permitted at the movie's climax.

Or so you'd think. Just recently, Vanessa Hudgens committed a terrible Disney faux-pas. Private pictures she'd apparently taken for boyfriend Zac (or a real boyfriend) managed to find their way onto the Internet and suddenly the Ever-So-Clean-Teen-Queen is getting Internet search hits for all the wrong reasons.

Obviously, I can't post the offending picture on the web (although I'll post the picture which pre-empted it), but I'll tell you one thing. It's no worse than billboards and magazine adverts you'd find in Cosmo back home in Europe. It certainly doesn't come close to Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan's perennial knicker(less) flashing or the home sex video of Paris Hilton.

However inoffensive the image is, though, the Disney corporation are up in arms. Vanessa broke the cardinal rule. She revealed that Disney stars don't actually look like featureless Barbie dolls when they take their clothes off.

What will happen to her career? Who knows. Disney claim she'll still make the next movie.

This whole debacle does reveal one sharply polarised difference between America and Europe.

In France, 'spectacle' shows in the mid afternoon feature beautiful topless dancers - but the violence in movies is strictly edited. In America, on the other hand, the merest hint of a nipple can rock a nation (check out Janet Jackson's 'costume malfunction' at the Superbowl) yet horror movies like Hannibal, Friday the 13th and Final Destination are shown with the violence unedited at 10am.

Check out Final Destination, by the way. It's a slasher movie so tightly scripted that they've edited out the bad guy entirely. The plucky teen heroes are merely trying to escape 'death' in it's many ingenious and unlikely forms.

My point is: Violence is worse than Sex.

Violence is always worse than sex. Certainly, I think the teen pregnancy rates in Great Britain suggest we ought to take a more responsible approach to how our children learn about (and engage in) sex, but SURELY it's less damaging for an impressionable brat to catch sight of a nipple than a gory decapitation.

Violence in American TV and movies is so prevalent and so casual that's it's scary. Horror movie scary.

I'm not a fan of censorship at all, but desensitising an entire young generation to blood, guts and gore can't be a good idea. Along with video games, it seems to teach kids about a consequence free environment in which you can blow your friend's head off with your dad's 'home defence' handgun and then press the 'reset' button afterwards.

This is what upsets me so much about the powerful 'bible belt' of America. They're so worked up on stupid issues, like gay marriage and nudity on television, that they completely ignore what they, as followers of The Lamb of God, should be worrying about: Violence!

All the violent stuff on TV - the gory slasher movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and violent torture films like Hostel - have basically replaced smut on television. That's why movies like The Devil's Rejects - in which the 'bad guys' are the heroes - delight in torture, violence, blood and guts in almost pornographic detail.

It's totally the wrong way around. It's about time somebody stood up and said: More nipples, less nastiness, please. I, for one, would certainly enjoy watching a pretty young woman frolicking naked on the television MUCH more than 'the bit where his fingers get hacked off' in Hostel.

If we had more sex and less violence on television, maybe we'd have more sex and less violence in society. After all, sex is enjoyable for both parties where violence is fun for neither.

Sermon over. Back to Vanessa.

As it stands at the moment, sex and sexuality are still demons in the eyes of Disney, so pure and perky Vanessa might find her career with The House of Mouse taking a blow. But as Paris Hilton has shown us, those naughty pictures or illicit videos are no longer the career killer they once were. In fact, America's favourite socialite has pretty much based her career off her inadvertent stab at porn.

So Vanessa Hudgens? Beautiful, bright and talented? Even if the Disney corporation do kick her to the kerb, I'm pretty sure she'll do just fine.