Sunday, June 22, 2008

High School Musical on Review

This weekend my daughter and I are visiting my grandmother who lives in Virginia. Basically since she is 90 years old we have just decided that the best way to get in a good visit is to bring one kiddo at a time and try to just have a low key weekend. So in that vein, Nana thought it would be fun to rent a movie and eat ice cream. Now, we don't really watch TV and Bean has certainly not watched a lot of movies, but she did think she might want to see High School Muscial 2.

With mixed emotions and trepidation I allowed her to rent the movie, this probably occuring not out of the generosity of my heart but b/c everything else that looked remotely watchable seemed to have already been checked out.

First of all, I have to join every pubescent girl in saying, well, that Zac Efron is a mighty attractive fellow. Second of all, I now have several High School musical tunes seriously stuck in my head, and I do feel a bit like dancing. Pretty catchy stuff really. But I still have mixed feelings on the approprietness of a 7 year old watching the film.

Starting with the good stuff, beyond Efron's blue eyes of course:
*no bad language, one use of the word stupid though which is considered off limits at our house
*pretty good morals taught, ie be true to your friends, be kind to others, keep your word
*teens are seen as going to their parents for advice
*while the clothes worn are not as modest as I would prefer, the girls for the most part are not dressed like hoochie mamas
*three super short kisses and no sexual allusions in the slightest
*fun dancing without sexualization

The bad stuff:
*romance theme is not necessary for 7 year olds (actually I should write this about 50 times b/c it is my biggy, why would a 1st grader need to be watching anything about high schoolers and romance?)
*overally made up females dressed in a very trendy way which I don't want wish my daughter to asprire to
*my own slightly bizarre distrust of anything too mainstream (if I had a smiley icon I would enter it here as I am making fun of myself)

It seems as I type this out that I should probably not add letting my daugher watch High School Musical to my bad parenting list. We ate some ice cream, hung out with Nana, and will probably be singing together the next few days. Thankfully it is just me at the moment that has a small crush on Efron, but all the same, I will not be rushing out to get High School Musical 3 should that movie get made.