Nov 07 2008
Disney pulls Hannah Montana Diabetes Episode
Here’s a subject I thought I’d never connect to diabetes: Hannah Montana.
It appears that Disney has chosen to pull an episode of Miley Cyrus’ hit show over parental complaints. The episode, entitled “No Sugar, Sugar”, features a diabetic character with some inspiration possibly coming from fellow tween idol Nick Jonas. Disney insists that the show was well researched for medical accuracy and that the overall message was intended to be an upbeat statement that diabetes can be controlled.
What I find interesting about this story is that Disney has not said what the actual complaints were. There is a clip floating around and in it there is a suggestion that the diabetic character has a crush on a school nurse. I could see where that might spark contraversy given the once a week news stories of inappropriate student/teacher relations I’ve read this past year. What I saw was about as provocative as choir practice.
The clip gives no other hint as to what parents might find objectionable, but don’t take my word for it:
I found a second clip that was in Hungarian. The wacky hijinks were easily understandable even if the dialogue was not, but I still didn’t see the issue. I’m not saying I have an intuitive understanding of Hannah Montana or anything, but one would think that in a show that is cribbing plot lines from Saved by the Bell and Dobbie Gillis the basic gist of anything radically scandalizing would breach the language barrier.
At best Disney didn’t check all their facts, got called on it and did the responsible thing. At worst, the House of the Mouse got its doors rattled by sponsors who would rather kids were mainlining corn syrup. The former is more likely than the latter, but I’d hate to think that the show had a chance to open a few kids’ eyes to the disease and failed to because of something petty.
Disney said in their press release that they were going to “reconsider” the episode, so it may return with a different script or it may become a strange collectible and make some Hungarian subtle technician rich on the black market. Either way, it’s a bizarre footnote in the pop princesses bio and a curiosity peaking this diabetic’s interest.
Copied and pasted from one of the parents’ explanations.
The parents objected to the following:
1) Misinformation about Type 1 Diabetes. The entire show focused on Miley stopping Oliver from eating sugar. Children and adults with type 1 diabetes CAN eat candy — they simply take insulin to match what they eat. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, MS. Children with type 1 have done nothing to cause this — their bodies have simply attacked themselves.
2) Eating a lot of sugar does not cause type 1 diabetes. Oliver, the character with diabetes, was portrayed as a sugar loving fiend — at one point falling into a garbage barrel to get a half eaten and discarded candy bar.
3) Miley called Oliver “sugar boy.”Imagine a character in a wheelchair being called “wheelie boy” or ‘cripple boy”. It just isn’t funny, is it?
4) The show never mentioned Oliver checking blood sugar (children with type 1 typically check blood sugar by finger stick up to 10 times per day) or injecting insulin (children usually need 4 or more shots a day — every time they eat — or wear insulin pumps which continuously give them insulin throughout the day).
Type 1 diabetes is a serious medical condition [as you know]. The parents who objected to this episode applauded Disney for their attempt to bring Diabetes education to the forefront but completely rejected the message that they served up. Considering that Hannah Montana is seen by many school children every day, we felt that this message was a dangerous one to promote. I certainly would not be happy if a fellow classmate of my young child called him “sugar boy”.
We thank Disney for pulling this episode. We also were in touch with the medical expert who consulted on this episode and his feeling was that his “consultation” was not reflected accurately in the script.
I’m sure my statements do not mean much to most people, but to the millions of children who have Type 1 diabetes it means the world that this hateful and damaging misinformation will not be aired.
Thanks!