ZANESSA.Some call them 'publicity whores'.
Others call them adorable.
You know what I call them?
REAL.Yes, people. In the highly plastic and sometimes very shiny world of Hollywood; around 99.99% of the people/places are fake!
If you look around the Internet these days, you don't have to look very far to find 19 year old Vanessa Hudgens and her co-star/boyfriend Zac Efron. But this was not always the case.
Come with me on a trip down Memory Lane... it was the year 2006, Justin Timberlake was suddenly 'hip', Michael Jackson was in court for fiddling around with kids... and Disney executives were rushing around, sweating in their expensive Armani suits as they waved around the ratings for the phenomenal 'High School Musical'. Yes, my friends. It was the year of HSM, it was the year when you could prance down the hallways and sing 'I Feel So Pretty' and not get beaten up because even the bullies were swept away by the breath-taking moral that Disney's latest money machine had indoctrinated in them: Sing and the problems will just go away!
As with any successful DCOM; the Disney peeps were milking the success like HSM was a cow and it's milk would turn to gold! Those udders must have been sore cos I was seeing UNDERWEAR. Yes, children, UNDERWEAR with HSM logos. Cringe-worthy, no? Then there was the infamous world premiere of the movie and a cast of five previously unknowns were sky-rocketed into the high-flyer lifestyle. London. Sydney. LA. These kids were going places!
And to the parents out there... do you know what YOUR kids were doing? They were whipping out their magnifying glasses and scrutinising over every single picture of this wholesome group of teenagers. And lo and behold, the HSM-Discussion-Board Mania began! Here's a little example of how observant your kids are:
Exhibit A: 'Photoshoots'
zacashleyfan1: omgzzz lol look how close they are!!! omg. they muist be like togetherrr.
zacvanessafan1: hmm. maybe.
zacashleyfan92: OMGZ i KNEW IT.
Exhibit B: 'Promotional Trips Abroad'
zacvanessafan1: look at vanessa hudgen's face. *sigh* the look of lurve!
zacvanessafan2: BOO YAH BIATCH. uh huh uh huh uh huh i knew it i knew it. who's bad? who's bad? uh huh uh huh. zac and vanessa be making babies. uh huh i knew it knew it.
zacashleyfan1: whatever. zac looks so cute.
Exhibit C: 'The Candid Shots'
zacvanessafan1: ooo why is he out with vanessa? why not ashley? hmm. i wonder why! hmm.
zacvanessafan2: lol. omg. they were on a date obviosuly!! haha. wow they're so cute.
zacvanessafan1: why so quite zacashleyfan?
zacashleyfan1: MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA how the tables have tuuurrned!
zacashleyfan101: aww they were out together. zac+ashley=real.
OK, so reading all of that probably made your brains melt. And you parents thought TV was killing your kids. HA!
As you can clearly see however, the personal lives of these once unknown teenagers were being scrutinised way before Zac Efron pulled of an Elvis on the set of Hairspray. It pre-dates Vanessa Hudgen's 'OMG-My-Clothes-Disappeared' moment. No, this was in a time when Ashley Tisdale's nose was real. It was a time when the paparazzi and bloggers (like me!) didn't give a damn about these kids because we were too busy posting pictures of Lindsay Lohan drunk out of her mind and falling out of limos (I know, we're assholes. I have no idea how I sleep at night. I'm a horrible, horrible human being and yada yada).
Yes, before the Zanessa craze hit the magazines and the Internet, it was already on the lips of avid viewers of HSM who obsessively followed the moments of the couple. Many young fans knew about the existence of Zanessa months before the infamous Hawaii pictures hit the web. Of course, these brave, loyal Zanessa fans had a hard and long journey to get to the point where Zac and Vanessa were pictured feeling each other up on a beach in Hawaii. They engaged in long and endless battles with The Non-Believers. Many of these Non-Believers were Zashley fans. And Zashley translated as wrong, evil and just plain wrong. See, it almost sounds like a religious cult, doesn't it? Ah, kids today are crazy!
Yet, what about Zac? What about Vanessa? What about their relationship?
To date, some poor misguided fools think the two live in a blissful little relationship where neither one makes the other angry, where everything is perfect, where it's all love and songbirds... HA! Then there's the others who think it's a publicity stunt. (Ya'all know Perez jumped on that controversial bandwagon, right? The little....!)
Well, I'm not siding with either of them. I'm not a 'Zanessa fan'. I'm not a 'Zanessa hater'. I'm someone who has actually been in a relationship with a boy and seen firsthand what kind of a commitment it takes to make something like that work.
Look over everything I've written. They travelled the world together as virtual unknowns and entered the world of fame together. What was High School Musical for them? Zac says it was his 'goodbye' to the industry as he was getting ready to quit. Vanessa was also despairing about her career and her next step was American Idol. They were two Californian kids that met on set and thought 'Hey, this movie might be a load of shit, but I picked up a hot guy/girl'.
Then all of a sudden, everything changed over night. They're big movie stars. It's an exciting but scary world that's waiting out there for them. And guess what? They're there to hold each other's hand and experience each new step that the ups and downs of fame present them. Paparazzi attention, hectic schedules, nude photos, accusations of Zac being a little too metrosexual when it comes to the make-up, dressing for the red carpet, interviews... They went through it together. They changed together. Let's face it, fame does change people. Your family won't understand it, your best friend won't even understand unless they're there living that life with you. Zac and Vanessa were living that life with each other.
Maybe their relationship started out as getting into the pants of a hottie on set but you can't deny it must have developed on some deep emotional level for them to stand by each other even when Zac's tongue is shoved down Hairspray co-star Nikki Blonksy's mouth and even when Vanessa's butt-naked on Google images.
Those crazy little obsessive fans who have been speculating over the relationships of Zanessa and their co-stars having been doing so way before anyone in the entertainment industry figured out that Zanessa was a money-making machine. That just the word Zanessa on your celeb-gossip-page would get you countless hits (see why I keep saying ZANESSA now?).
That's why I find it DOWNRIGHT hypocritical for the likes of JJ's Dirt and Perez to call Zanessa a sham! They don't know this relationship from beginning to end. They've just jumped onto the 'OMG Disney Star Naked!' bandwagon and are utterly clueless. To hell with you, Perez. TO HELL WITH YOU! (Yes, I guess I do have a vendetta against Perez, but who doesn't? Seriously. If he got shot, the police would have to bring in 99% of the population of the planet Earth because they all have motive. Oh wait, make that 99% od the population of the universe, I'm sure there's some aliens out there he's managed to insult...)
Overall, as much as I think Zac Efron would look mighty fine if I was hanging off of his arm, I think Vanessa does a pretty good job too.
Which leads me back to my first point. Zanessa are REAL in the sense that they probably have made up and broken up countless times. Real couples fight, bicker and then have crazy make-up sex! It's fun, kids! So while the media is speculating Vanessa's frown this week as a break-up, who knows, it might be? But then next week they'll see a secret smile on Zac's face and we'll all be like 'Oh yeah, crazy make-up sex. There it is!'
Zanessa isn't about publicity, it isn't about money. It's two Californian kids who couldn't leave one another even if they tried because they've been together for too long and come a long way together.
