An Open Letter to the Writers of Disney Channel (from my high school newspaper in 2013)
When I was 15 I was insecure about not being precocious enough, that I wasn’t already a Tavi Gevinson type of success. It’s not because I wanted to be Tavi Gevinson, but more because I wished I had an “in” at an Ivy League that wasn’t winning the Intel Science Competition. It wasn’t fame, but institutional credibility I sought and to freedom to be a creative on my own terms. I blamed part of that insecurity on Disney Channel, where all the girl protagonists were so casually precocious and successful compared to their exceptionally stupid brothers who were just farting and eating fried chicken. Dog With a Blog, a show my sister would occasionally watch, was the last straw for me. I hated that snarky little girl and her overachiever binder and her talking dog. I also resented that she, a child actor my age, would probably have a better shot of getting into an elite college than myself, a girl-careerist doomed to be from the suburbs. I published an extended version of this on Metiza, a now-shuttered website for girls and young women, in 2017.
This line about “she laces her Keds” was another big inspiration for this writing.
Dear Disney Channel writers,
You know what? I get it. I really do; you were like me at one point--young, idealistic, an ardent Broad City admirer, dreaming of becoming a comedy auteur. So you get into UCLA or Yale, deliriously happy after having been accepted into its dramatic writing program, (congrats!) and you soon realize that you’re good, but maybe not a department superstar. Still, you hustle after graduation after landing a job as a production assistant at Suite Life on Deck, watching child stars getting a head start on their dream job. You spend your entire twenties and early thirties trying to become a staff writer somewhere, and you’re grateful when Disney Channel, whose writers get health insurance(!), finally offers you a job.
I know it might not be what you wanted; I bet after you grab an avocado toast with that friend of yours who writes for Fresh off the Boat, you go home and read a bunch of Dear Sugars about how the industry is fickle and that professional success is not the endgame. Maybe guests keep flaking out on your podcast and McSweeney’s keeps rejecting your topical humor pieces. But don’t you see what an extraordinary opportunity you have? The role you play in raising the latchkey kids of modern America?
Perhaps you’re embittered; you’re trying to network with the eleven-year-olds you’re writing for. Who can blame you for losing morale? And you start to think if only I had started on the pre-professional track earlier... So you’re now you’re projecting, writing about the kind of quippy prodigy you realize you should have been aspiring to be as a child: an adorable white child who casually decides between MIT AND Juilliard.
But seriously? It’s not that those scenarios never happen, but who has the time as a wealthy twelve-year-old to juggle an on-and-off boyfriend, musical theatre, and robotics competitions, all while being able to sass the heck out of your plebe babysitter? Maybe a lot of kids are okay with television being merely an escapist experience, but in the same way out-of-touch adults fear their daughters are being influenced by the “unrealistic beauty standards” of Barbie, I was influenced by Disney’s unrealistic intelligence/wit/special snowflake expectations of tweens. I was mostly able to escape the “prodigy child fantasy” stage of Disney, but I still had to live through Hannah Montana, Kim Possible, and High School Musical, which all featured absurdly smart fictional teenagers.
When something is on television, the characters’ experiences are normalized. That’s why it’s so important to see diverse characters on television. On the flip side, it also means that tweenage undercover spies, secret pop singers who get into Stanford, and art genius kids who already know that they’re going to law school and running for president in 2040 become the norm, at least in the minds of impressionable kids. It’s hacky writing, creating Mary Sues. I’m disappointed in you. Are network executives so clueless as to explicitly tell you something like, “Let’s make this absurdly-beautiful 14-year-old girl with no apparent personality flaws just a little more perfect. Can you do that for us?” Or do you get notes like “the older brother is too smart. Make sure he is functionally illiterate and obsessed with his hair.”
Shameless copying of iCarly and Victorious aside, I’m seeing some improvement, much of which correlates with both capitalizing on the nostalgia of past shows and relying on the creative input of successful creators from the Golden Age of Disney Channel. Girl Meets World brought us the indomitable Rowan Blanchard, yet falls privy to a sort of treacliness Boy Meets World refreshingly lacked. I was pleased to see Jenna Ortega, the excellent actress who plays a young Jane Villanueva on Jane the Virgin, star in Stuck in the Middle. The recently-released Andi Mack looks promising, as it was created by the creator of Lizzie McGuire, whose protagonist is the patron saint of straight-B kind-hearted average girls everywhere.
I’m not asking for hyper-realistic mumblecore or the gritty male antiheroes of AMC. And I understand that Cartoon Network has essentially cornered the market on weird yet meaningful animated series with popularity among both children and progressive adults. (Gravity Falls was really good, though! RIP.) I just want you to be a little more discerning in the way you portray children when television shows are made for children and remember that you’re better than sneaking in cheap innuendo. At best, you’re creating aspirational role models whom children will never be able to live up to, but at worst, you’re aggravating the ambitious, competitive kids and becoming part of the cause for their burgeoning inferiority complex. You know something isn’t quite right when Ally’s (of Austin and Ally) seemingly effortless Harvard acceptance embittered high-achieving 17-year-old babysitters everywhere.
Please...Won’t someone think of the children?