I finally saw the naked picture of Vanessa Hudgens. If all the fuss is legitimate, I’d say the gains made by women’s lib are losing traction in America. For the few of you who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, Vanessa Hudgens, beloved star of The Disney Channel’s “High School Musical,” did exactly what you’d expect an 18-year-old girl to do – something stupid. Hudgens took naked pictures of herself, presumably to keep her celebrity boyfriend interested. Hudgens doesn’t understand being a hot celebrity might be just enough to keep him around, pictures or not. The pictures leaked, of course. I’m sure part of it is because Hudgens is legitimately hot in a fetishized-and-vaguely-ethnic-yet-culturally-white-chick kind of way. I’m sure part of it is because she’s 18 and looks it. The fact that The Disney Channel has a history of launching the careers of numerous good girls gone bad – or, in the case of Christina Aguilera, good girls gone “dirrty” – hasn’t hurt, either. I wanted to write about this sooner. Really. But we at The Daily Reveille possess a little something called class, as well as peerless professionalism. So, when I went to my editor he gave me a cuff on the chin, an invitation to play hide the salami and orders to go on assignment. The goal: first-hand knowledge of every nook and cranny of Vanessa Hudgens’ taut, young body, come hell or high water. Journalistic integrity demands nothing less. The fact that it took me two weeks to get ahold of the real deal should show how inept I am with the Internet. Everywhere I searched, Hudgens’ legal team had been there first, removing the offending pictures. It seems Hudgens decided she might as well be paid for nude pictures given the apparent demand. I was undaunted. I am the closest thing this newspaper has to Hercules and, just as I slew the Nemean Lion of construction worker-induced sexual harrassment, I found the damn pictures. They were kind of hot but ultimately depressing. All they’ve done is broadcast society’s double standard about female sexuality from one Motorola RAZR to the Internet, and the consequence isn’t pretty. Before the naked pictures, Hudgens was pretty, famous, beloved by tweens and largely irrelevant. All it took was a mirror and a camera phone to make her “important.” Suddenly, not only is she newsworthy, she’s the kind of celebrity who has to apologize for being sexual. And apologize she did: In a statement from her publicist, Hudgens noted, “I want to apologize to my fans, whose support and trust means the world to me.” What’s ridiculous is that Hudgens is far from the only 18-year-old girl to take off her clothes. Throughout my weeks of carpal-tunnel inducing research, I learned there are a lot of 18-year-olds willing to get buck naked for a Web cam and the assurance that they’re pretty enough to merit attention. Some of them, if MySpace.com is to be believed, live in Baton Rouge and are looking for a guy just like me. Apparently, I look just like their ex-boyfriend who tragically died. Strangely, none of them have to apologize to their fans. I’m not saying every woman who takes off her clothes is making a statement about female sexuality. That’s stupid. What I’m saying is, if we truly live in a world where equal opportunities are afforded to women, women shouldn’t be held to a standard that demands they be desirable to men while remaining sexually tame. The Disney Channel had a spokesperson go on the record shortly after Hudgens’ apology: “Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment. We hope she’s learned a valuable lesson.” They have the right to hold their media creations to “Disney Standards,” but for a company that markets Hudgens as a girl on the verge of womanhood, it seems odd to imply that her steps toward sexual autonomy require apology. But Disney isn’t the problem here. Last time I checked, Cosmo and every one of its sister-mags preach the rules of femininity: that sex be good, that Cosmo readers be pretty and that they do what it takes to keep their men interested. I peeked at the Cosmo Web site. Ladies: The key is humming while giving “the world’s best blowjay.” In a world where Cosmo women define what being a woman means, Vanessa Hudgens is paying the price for the sins of her mothers, “the fairer sex” who have apparently conceded defeat and surrendered to the world according to Cosmo. This manufactured controversy is just another symptom of America’s insecurity regarding a legitimately unconstrained female sexuality. The tragedy is that the only trace left behind by this stain on the collective unconscious is a sticky keyboard and unrealistic body image expectations defining how a girl is supposed to be sexy. You’ve come a long way, baby.
—-Contact Neal Hebert at nhebert@lsureveille.com