BACKGROUND
In January 2006, Disney Channel released the biggest hit within their Disney Channel Original Movie collection: High School Musical. Because of the success of High School Musical, Disney Channel had a revival of sorts.
Think of the DCOMs that came out before High School Musical. The majority of people are likely to remember the bigger franchises, like Zenon, Halloweentown, and The Cheetah Girls. But there were so many more between 1997, when the first official DCOM was released, and 2006 that have been forgotten or never reached mainstream fame.
After High School Musical, DCOMs suddenly became bigger budget projects, with a more professional image to them. The DCOMs that came after High School Musical have been mostly remembered, perhaps also thanks to their casting of actors from Disney Channel’s most beloved television series, but regardless, it seems that High School Musical catapulted not just itself and its cast into the mainstream, but the humble DCOM as well.
I’m not saying every DCOM that came out after High School Musical was successful or that all of them are loved in the same way, but this was the point when I started to watch the majority of Disney Channel Original Movie Premieres.
Luckily for Cow Belles, it was released a couple of months after High School Musical and had an actress from a Disney Channel series in it, so it has been remembered almost two decades later. I am one of the ones who first watched it at this time and still remember it.
It might not have aged particularly well, with its focus on two spoilt heiresses who are so rich they have no concept of what life is like for the majority of people not sitting well with the people of today who are very quick to point out when “someone’s privilege is showing”. A phrase I find particularly patronising, but it seems fitting to state for this specific movie.
The world has also been through a huge recession and economic crisis since 2006, and some countries are currently in the midst of other economic issues, so watching two girls frivolously spend all their father’s money may not be to everyone’s taste. But I’ve always enjoyed Cow Belles, even if, now I’m older, it involves a lot of eye-rolling and tutting at the spending and the actions of these two teenage girls. It’s not their fault they’ve grown up rich, I’ll accept that, but money certainly doesn’t buy common sense!
PLOT
Cow Belles is about the two teenage daughters of Reed Callum, owner of Callum Dairy, which seems to be a big employer for those living in the area.
As Taylor, the eldest Callum daughter, is taking her driving test, she finds herself distracted by a call from her sister, Courtney, telling her that she’s found the perfect dress for her Cotillion party. Taylor pulls over for this call, before passing the phone over to her examiner to finish up the conversation. Strangely enough, Taylor passes her driving test despite this call, by using emotional blackmail – Taylor says she’ll keep coming back, asking for the same examiner if he doesn’t pass her. Wow, I wish I’d known it could be that simple…
This shows how easy Taylor has had it all her life. Courtney also doesn’t bat an eye at paying $1,000 for this “perfect” dress. Their father seems to accept that this is just how they are, and gifts Taylor her mother’s red Mustang as a present for passing her test, but it’s a stick shift so she’ll be getting lessons from the son of one of the dairy’s milk suppliers. Jackson Meade is not a fan of this “spoilt princess” and Taylor doesn’t want to be spending time with this “farm boy” so as you’d expect, it doesn’t go well. Taylor learns the basics of the stick shift but at one point forgets to put the handbrake on, so Jackson’s truck, which they were practising on, rolls into a lake. Taylor says her father will pay $2,000+ for the damages.
Reed is shocked by Taylor’s carelessness – though I don’t know why; I don’t think any of us watching were – and tells the girls they need to cut back on their spending, especially as he is soon to be out of the country, on a trip abroad gifted to him by his business partner, Bob. The next day, it’s clear this warning fell on deaf ears. Although the girls attempt to make their own lunch, as it is their housekeeper, Corrine’s, day off, they get distracted by shopping and rush off to go to the mall, leaving the stove on. That may have been alright, but Courtney absent-mindedly threw a tea towel onto the stove, setting it and the kitchen on fire. They get home to find the fire department there. Their father is furious and tells them that they aren’t getting any more allowance, aren’t allowed to use their credit cards, and are getting summer jobs at the dairy. Their lives are ruined.
The next morning, nice and early, Reed sees his girls off on their first day at work, telling them not to get into trouble because he’s travelling today and to a remote area, so he is going to be without cell service. They tell him not to worry. I’m sure that set his mind at ease… At the dairy, they report to “Uncle” Bob who passes them over to Fran to give them a tour of the factory. Courtney and Taylor expect to be sitting in the office, making coffees and doing accounts or something, but Fran tells them their father specifically wanted them on the production line. Worst dad ever.
Once Taylor and Courtney are in their hairnets and coveralls, they are tasked with putting lids on yoghurt pots. Courtney starts messing about with her phone, trying to take a picture of Taylor “looking ugly”, but the phone flies into a pot of yoghurt. The line has to be halted, though Taylor calls Courtney’s phone and selects just the right pot so the whole run doesn’t need to be scrapped, thankfully. At lunch, everyone has heard about the production slow down and aren’t friendly to the girls. Only the father of their friend Heather is willing to talk to them, but even he finds it funny that the girls expected there to be a catered lunch, pointing them to a vending machine instead. It’s clear the girls don’t fit in here.
In the afternoon, Taylor and Courtney are given another task, of simply carrying tubs of blueberries over to the right area of the line, but because they stupidly wore high heels to the factory – why they weren’t given some other shoes, I don’t know – they slip and the blueberry pulp spills all over them. This does give the girls the opportunity to do their own laundry though – yay! Then, it’s the end of their first day of work and they head home.
With friend Heather in tow, Courtney comes up with a plan to get a date for her Cotillion. She has her eye on a guy called Phillipe, who happens to be a foreign exchange student and a dairy worker, so they go over to invite him to the party and ask Phillipe to be Courtney’s date. Meanwhile, Taylor is getting ready to see Jackson, with a cheque for his truck’s repairs, but she falls asleep after her tough day. Jackson thinks he’s been stood up.
The next morning, Taylor is horrified to find she slept through her “date” and what’s worse is they have to go to work again! On this day, the dairy employees are complaining because all their pay checks bounced. Bob tells everyone that it seems that Reed, Taylor and Courtney’s dad, took all the money before he went away. Taylor and Courtney don’t believe that so go to Bob’s office, where they see a smashed picture of Bob and their father and the office empty. They suspect Bob took the company’s money. They go to Fran’s house after work and tell her their suspicions. Her and her husband, also a dairy employee, believe that is most likely the case.
Later, Courtney is at Cotillion planning with three other super rich girls. She is trying to get them to stick to their budget by making sacrifices, but apparently $25,000 each just isn’t enough for a one-night party! Courtney asks them to pass her all the figures and she’ll talk it over with her sister, since Taylor is good with money, apparently. Taylor hasn’t got any money-saving ideas, but she’s worried about the dairy workers’ salaries. Taylor wants to use Courtney’s Cotillion money to pay them so the dairy doesn’t have to close. Courtney is furious that Taylor would even think to suggest that, believing that Taylor only doesn’t care about Courtney’s Cotillion because Taylor had her own fabulous one last year. They don’t discuss it any further, but Courtney believes her money is safe.
At a meeting the next morning, the dairy workers demand to know when they’ll be paid because they have bills and rent to keep up with. Taylor sends Courtney out to get her phone from her car, giving Taylor the opportunity to announce to everyone that she can get them the money for their pay checks to keep them working. They agree to keep working, but don’t believe Taylor has the money lying around. Taylor doesn’t but Courtney does, and Taylor’s father gave her the access to Courtney’s Cotillion money, so Taylor withdraws $20,000 of it – without telling Courtney. When it is announced to the workers that their pay has been secured, Courtney knows it was her party money Taylor used. The girls fight and Courtney refuses to talk to Taylor as she will now be kicked out of the Cotillion. Taylor goes to make amends with Jackson and gives him his cheque. Jackson forgives her and is impressed with Taylor as she makes a suggestion that helps one of their cows give birth. They both find they were wrong about each other.
But nothing is right with her and Courtney. Courtney doesn’t want to talk to Taylor and is so distracted by her party date that at work, when the yoghurt tubs need a new expiry date, she accidentally sets it to that day but doesn’t realise. She then promptly quits. Another crisis ensues when the dairy finds their milk refrigeration unit lost power so their milk has gone bad. To get the money for more milk, Taylor agrees to sell her car, the Mustang, to an employee at the dairy for only $9,000. Courtney learns this and is shocked to find that Taylor would do that, but she has also learnt that she’s been acting like a spoilt princess and wants to help. They still need $6,000 more for the milk so Courtney hands over the last of her party budget and returns her party dress. This secures more milk for the dairy.
Courtney then tells Phillipe that he doesn’t need to be her date anymore because there won’t be a party. He doesn’t care and invites her to the Country Club for dinner with his exchange family. But at the club, Courtney encounters her Cotillion “friends” who say they’ve managed to get everything they wanted even without her money and know their party will be amazing. Courtney doesn’t care and enjoys the evening with Phillipe. At the same time, Jackson has visited Taylor and they kiss while watching a movie together.
At work the next day, Courtney has returned and the girls are invited by Fran to a party at her house to celebrate the end of this awful work week. They gladly accept, but at the party, more disaster strikes when the news comes that their deliveries are being turned away because the wrong expiry date was stamped on their products, today’s date. Courtney realises it was all her fault and says they should all try to do a new run. As they’ll need more help, Courtney, Taylor, and Jackson go to the Cotillion to ask for help. They are flatly ignored.
Returning to the dairy, the run is about to be cancelled as they don’t have the workers they need, but then, the girls’ father arrives with people from the party. He had gone to surprise Courtney at her party when all these people rushed over to tell them there was a problem at the dairy and they wanted to help. The run is completed and the dairy is saved from closure once more. As a special gift of thanks, Courtney is given a “spotlight dance” with Phillipe, one that she should’ve had at her party, in front of a van’s headlights.
The next day, the girls are told by their father that they’ll survive but it’ll be hard. He is surprised to learn that the girls want to keep working at the dairy, feeling they belong there. It also means eight hours less at the mall so it’ll stop them spending money – that’s the spirit!
CHARACTERS & CAST
Taylor is the eldest of the Callum girls so naturally is the more mature one of the two, even though Taylor does still like to shop, wear expensive clothes, and generally feel like a princess! But she is more aware of the world around her, and catches on quite quickly that should the dairy workers not be paid, then they could lose their houses. She realises that it’s up to her to pay attention to this problem and figure out a way of fixing it, since Courtney is too caught up in her Cotillion planning to care about anyone else.
Courtney, on the other hand, takes a while to come out of her “rich girl bubble” and step into the real world. She just wants to get through her day-to-day job at the dairy factory like her father wanted, and any spare time she has after that will be going into her Cotillion party. She is younger than Taylor so it’s only natural that she wouldn’t want to take responsibility for anyone else’s life. When Taylor takes the money for the Cotillion without telling Courtney, it causes a huge rift between the two sisters, but ultimately, this rift needed to happen because it makes Courtney take a good long look at herself and her lifestyle. She realises that not everyone’s life is like a fairy tale, and, given her more privileged position, she should be helping the dairy workers instead of whining about trivial things, like parties.
Taylor and Courtney were played by Alyson Michalka and Amanda Michalka respectively, more commonly known as Aly and AJ. Individually, Aly has appeared in movies such as Bandslam (2009) as Charlotte; Easy A (2010), in the role of Rhiannon, alongside Emma Stone; and Grown Ups 2 (2013) as Savannah. In more recent years, Aly was also cast in iZombie (2015-2019) as Peyton Charles. On screen, AJ was cast as Lainey Lewis in the sitcom The Goldbergs (2013-23) and reprised her role in the spin-off Schooled (2019-20). AJ also provided the voice of Catra in the animated series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018-20). Together, Aly & AJ are a singing duo who released their debut album Into the Rush in 2005. They released their most recent album With Love From in 2023.
Taylor doesn’t seem to have any of her own friends in Cow Belles, which is fine and that’s probably why she feels more able to talk to the adults at the dairy factory. Courtney, however, seems to have much more of a social life away from her sister. She has her best friend Heather, whose father also happens to work at the dairy. Heather is nowhere near as rich as her friend Courtney, and feels like she has to hide that fact from Courtney, as we see when her mother is altering a dress for her, despite Heather telling Courtney she was going to buy a dress from some shop they’d been to. The moment when Heather tells Courtney that it’s not her fault she’s been able to have everything in life but that she should really think about how other people feel around her when she’s just going off spending money, it helps Courtney understand that she needs to help Taylor sort out the money situation at the dairy. Heather was played by Christian Serratos. Serratos actually began her acting career on that “other channel” that Disney don’t want you to know about – Nickelodeon – in the recurring role of Suzie in Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide (2004-07). After Cow Belles, Serratos went on to play the role of Angela, one of Bella’s fully human friends, in The Twilight Saga (2008-12). In more recent years, she was cast as Rosita Espinosa in The Walking Dead (2010-22) and portrayed singer Selena in Selena: The Series (2020-21).
As well as one good friend, Courtney also has “frenemies” with the worst of them being the stuck-up Sarah. She is one of the four girls planning the Cotillion, and is the only one not willing to compromise on anything to fit their budget; she wants what she wants and is going to get it regardless of how much it costs. Once Courtney’s money is taken to secure the payroll for the dairy, Sarah kicks Courtney out of the Cotillion and then brags to her later that they begged their fathers for more money and are going to get everything they wanted. Sarah is also the only one of the people at this party not to follow Taylor and Courtney’s father back to the dairy factory to help with their new product run, so that shows what kind of person she is. Maybe she was too busy trying to get all that chlorine out of her hair after falling into the Country Club fountain…Paula Brancati was cast as Sarah, and she went on to play the part of Gina, another “mean girl” if I remember rightly, in the DCOM Jump In! (2007). Brancati was also cast as Jane Vaughn in Seasons 7 to 9 of Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001-15).
Outside of that, along with the distraction of their father’s dairy factory going bankrupt, the teens are distracted by boys – typical. Taylor surprisingly starts to fall for “farm boy” Jackson Meade, son of one of the dairy’s milk providers. Jackson thinks Taylor is stuck-up and she thinks he’s common, but eventually, after spending time together, they realise that their first impressions of each other were wrong. Jackson was played by Michael Trevino who went on to be cast as Tyler Lockwood on The Vampire Diaries (2009-17) winning two Teen Choice Awards, in 2011 and 2012, for Choice TV: Male Scene Stealer. Recently, Trevino was cast as Kyle Valenti in Roswell, New Mexico (2019-22).
Meanwhile, Courtney becomes quite taken with a French foreign exchange student who has been given a summer job at the dairy, seemingly working alongside the delivery drivers. His name is Phillipe and despite not having a clue what a Cotillion is and only meeting her briefly, he is happy to be Courtney’s date for her party. Although they don’t actually get to go to the Cotillion together, they still get to have a literal “spotlight dance” in front of the headlights of one of the dairy vans. How romantic… Chris Gallinger played the role of Phillipe here, going on to be cast as Demitri in Twitches Too (2007).
For the adults in Cow Belles, the one we see the most is Fran. She shows the girls around the dairy factory on their first day. She is accepting of Courtney and Taylor for the way they are, despite the fact they are not used to this type of work. Everyone else in the factory seems dismissive of Taylor and Courtney, but not Fran. She listens to their theory about Bob being the one to steal the company money, not their father, which turns out to be correct, and is pleased to find Taylor wanting to help with some of the dairy’s financial struggles, listening to everyone’s comments and coming up with solutions that work out. Fran was played by Sheila McCarthy, who has performed both on stage and screen. On stage, McCarthy appeared in productions such as Little Shop of Horrors in Canada in 1985, playing the role of Audrey. On screen, McCarthy had supporting roles in the movies Die Hard 2 (1990), as Sam Coleman; The Day After Tomorrow (2004), as Judith; and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), as Mrs. Gerard. In more recent years, McCarthy was cast as Agnes in The Umbrella Academy (2019-24) and appeared as Angie in ZOMBIES 3 (2022).
Lastly, we have Reed Callum, Taylor and Courtney’s father and owner of Callum Dairies. Although Reed moans at his daughters for being careless and reckless with their spending, which I completely agree with, I actually have a bone to pick with him. Reed uses his employees to help his daughters on two different occasions: the first is when one of the drivers is asked to fix up the red Mustang for Taylor, and the other is Jackson being made to teach Taylor how to drive stick, after his father is asked to do this as a “favour” for Reed. It’s a bit rich to start talking about his daughters being too privileged when Reed uses his employees to do things for him. I’m sure they seemed like they were willing and happy to do these tasks for the Callum family, but Reed should know that when an employer asks an employee for a “favour”, the power imbalance means that the employee is obligated to do this, regardless of how they feel about it for fear of getting fired. So, Reed, you might want to deal with that hypocrisy first before talking to your daughters! Jack Coleman was cast as Reed Callum. After Cow Belles, Coleman appeared in the main role of Noah Bennet in Heroes (2006-10); and in the minor recurring roles of State Senator Lipton in The Office (2005-13) and William Bracken in Castle (2009-16).
MUSIC
Having Aly & AJ, a recognised singing duo, involved in this Disney Channel Movie, you’d think that plenty of their songs would be included here, wouldn’t you?
In actual fact, only one of their songs was used: “On the Ride”. Luckily, it’s a very good song, and probably the most recognisable one in the movie. It is used when Taylor is getting ready to see Jackson that evening she falls asleep. A music video was released containing clips from Cow Belles. This song comes from their debut album Into the Rush.
Outside of this, there are three songs that feature in the movie that are performed by the dairy factory employee band. The best of these is the song “All Good Now”, which is sung during Courtney’s “spotlight dance” after they’ve completed the new dairy product run and is in the End Credits. It’s a sweet song, signalling the end of that terrible, stressful week they had. The song was written by Jeannie Lurie, and performed by singer Blaire Reinhard.
Another is performed during Courtney and Taylor’s first lunch at the factory and seems to be called “Together at the Creamery”. The other is played at the workers’ party that Fran and her husband organise for everyone and is called “Beat of the Band”. It was written and performed by Blaire Reinhard. “Beat of the Band” is the only one of these two songs to be credited as part of the soundtrack in Cow Belles, but I wanted to mention them both because I like them, even though country music isn’t my favourite.
Another song that is not credited here is the song that is performed by the band at the Cotillion party. That song is “Don’t Wanna Grow Up” by the band Willknots. This number later appeared in the DCOM 16 Wishes (2010). It’s a good pop/rock song, even though it’s only heard for about twenty seconds before the song ends and Courtney takes the mic!
The score for Cow Belles was composed by Kenneth Burgomaster, who has composed the score for other Disney Channel projects, including the movies Halloweentown High (2004), Go Figure (2005) and Return to Halloweentown (2006), and Season 2 of the series Phil of the Future (2004-06).
PRODUCTION
Apparently, the story of Cow Belles was inspired by the reality series The Simple Life (2003-07), which centred around Paris Hilton and her best friend Nicole Richie having to do low paid jobs out in the real world. I’m not a big fan of reality shows – I only like a few – so I have never seen The Simple Life but I can see the premise of the show being the inspiration for Cow Belles. Except in this case, the girls are being made to work in the dairy by their father so that they can become better people and understand the “value of a dollar”, whereas I’m sure Paris and Nicole not only got paid big bucks to do The Simple Life, but then managed to get incredibly famous off the back of it and no doubt learnt pretty much nothing at all from the experience… Am I making it clear that I’m not a fan of these types of programmes?
Anyway, Cow Belles has also been linked to the movie Material Girls, which also came out in 2006, just a few months later; features two sisters in the lead roles, Hilary and Haylie Duff; and is about two wealthy teenagers who lose all their family wealth, but these two are cosmetics heiresses, not dairy heiresses. I have seen Material Girls, but it must have been so good that I’ve since forgotten almost all of the story, whereas I’ve watched Cow Belles plenty of times. Cow Belles, probably because it was a television movie, escaped some of the same criticism that plagued Material Girls with this movie only having a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Duff sisters received Razzie Award nominations for Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple for this movie too – ouch…I didn’t think it was that bad…
Cow Belles was filmed in Canada, as so many movies and series are. Cow Belles isn’t set in any specific, exotic location, so it makes sense to film it in Canada; as most of the movie takes place in a dairy factory, with some farmland and houses thrown in, it didn’t need to be filmed somewhere with particularly good weather or amazing views.
Although a movie set in a dairy factory might not sound like a lot of fun, apparently filming the production line scenes was. Aly and AJ also enjoyed doing their own “stunts” too, like spilling the blueberries all over themselves and being sprayed with milk. That doesn’t sound like my idea of fun but whatever! The only downside was having to wear those hairnets in these scenes, which the girls didn’t like so much. They did, however, like the cool outfits they got to wear outside of that, even though they weren’t suitable for the type of work their characters would be doing in a dairy factory[1]!
There are also a couple of other more interesting scenes within Cow Belles that aren’t just factory work or sitting in people’s houses. One of these is swing dancing. AJ and Chris Gallinger were taught the basics of swing dancing by a choreographer just for their one dancing moment in the Country Club. Another is the scene of Jackson teaching Taylor how to drive a stick shift. Aly had only just got her permit so that she could actually drive a car in Cow Belles like her character does. She was only taught how to drive stick just a few minutes before shooting the scene, and it was the first scene that was shot on the movie[2]. No pressure there then!
RECEPTION
Cow Belles premiered on Disney Channel on 24th March 2006, where it was watched by 5.8 million viewers, which is pretty good for a DCOM. High School Musical had been released just two months earlier, on 20th January, and reached 7.7. million viewers. Whether Cow Belles benefitted from an increase in DCOM viewers after the release of High School Musical is difficult to judge, but I’m thinking the popularity of High School Musical as a television movie probably helped Disney Channel and therefore any of its subsequent Disney Channel movies, to some extent.
Or perhaps Cow Belles was popular because it was elevated by the casting of Aly & AJ, an already known singing duo amongst teens and tweens after their debut album was released just a year earlier, as well as Aly being a cast member on Phil of the Future (2004-06), where she played Keely Teslow, also helping Cow Belles reach a wider audience, potentially. Not that that made a difference to me; I didn’t like Phil of the Future, so I guess I liked it for the sister comedy angle.
Many did enjoy Cow Belles for its relatable characters, who I’m guessing were anyone other than the Callum girls, and its message about money not being everything, or being enough to make you happy. Cow Belles seems to be considered to be a bit better than the “average” Disney Channel movie, and is still remembered to this day whereas many others are not. That’s probably because Aly and AJ are still working actors and still perform regularly together, making albums and touring.
But not everybody viewed Cow Belles positively. Some say the movie is cringey and don’t like the overused trope of rich girls going broke; I have seen that idea a few times. I suppose. London Tipton going broke in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005-08) is one Disney example, or there’s Princess Protection Program (2009), which is a similar idea, although not exactly the same. There’s also the movie From Prada to Nada (2011), which is a similar concept to Material Girls, with these two movies stating that their basis for their stories comes from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, or even Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) to some extent. There are also plenty of real-life examples, and if you already don’t enjoy seeing materialistic people on screen or in real-life, I can see how this story idea can get old, tired, and boring really quickly. Unless schadenfreude is your thing.
LEGACY
Not too many Disney Channel Original Movies have managed to generate enough popularity and acclaim to warrant a sequel. Many non-musical DCOMs do not achieve this feat, with Cow Belles being just one of those.
However, in the 2020s, and even late 2010s, we saw a boom in reboots and remakes coming to our cinema or television screens – whether they were asked for or not. Aly and AJ Michalka discussed the idea of making a sequel to Cow Belles back in 2019, believing that the up-and-coming streaming space may be the place for this type of content but did stress that discussions were still in very early stages[3]. Later interviews in 2021 stated that the storyline could be based around one of the girls having been recently divorced and coming back to keep the family business going, making “Cow Belles 2” more of a typical romantic comedy that is geared towards the adults who grew up around the time of Cow Belles’ release. This doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but Aly and AJ were unsure if Disney would allow this “more adult” version of one of their own television movies[4].
With all that being said, discussions around this sequel have not been reported on since 2021, and in 2022, Aly and AJ said during an interview that they thought the writing in Cow Belles wasn’t great and that their acting was cringey. Aly also said that her first boyfriend broke up with her whilst she was filming Cow Belles so it wasn’t a great experience overall[5]. That’s fair enough to say, but these – slightly critical – comments may mean that a sequel to Cow Belles is not going to happen and that perhaps Aly and AJ are not interested in the idea anymore.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Although Cow Belles might be cringey in places, feel outdated, and focus on two quite unlikeable, at least initially, main characters, I’ve always liked Cow Belles and it’s one of the DCOMs that I like to rewatch when I have time. Granted, there are quite a few of those, but still, Cow Belles is a DCOM that I just like.
In today’s world, with the advent of social media, many of us are inundated daily with pictures of beautiful places that are expensive to travel to, high-fashion items that are expensive to buy, and stunning houses that are expensive to own. This “Instagram lifestyle” is one that many wish for, or even actively strive for. I’ve heard stories about people getting themselves into debt trying to keep up with this way of life, and although those may be in the minority, I think it’s safe to say that social media has made others feel less worthy as a person for not being able to achieve that specific lifestyle, even though it’s not likely or sustainable for the majority of us to live like that.
I wish more people would turn away from this idea of “get rich quick” just so you can have more stuff, but it is ingrained in our society now, and it is troubling. Money cannot buy happiness, and I know lots of people like to say “that might be true, but I’d rather cry in a Ferrari” or whatever, but that’s not a healthy mindset to have. As we see from the Callum girls in Cow Belles, having lots of money can do more harm than good, by messing with your psyche or your self-worth, not to mention what happens when suddenly that stream of wealth comes to a halt, or seizes to exist entirely; then what do you do when you’ve built your whole world around it?
It would be better if everyone accepted that being comfortable and secure financially is the aim in life, not being rich. It might make you feel inadequate in the short-term, but you’ll be much happier in the long run – even without that Ferrari.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Disney Channel, ‘Cow Belles 2006 DVD Overview – The Making of Cow Belles’, Diamond Boy’s Disney DVD Overviews YouTube Channel, 26th January 2024.
[2] Credit: Disney Channel, ‘Cow Belles – Behind the Scenes with Michael Trevino and Aly and AJ Michalka (2006)’’, Michael Trevino Source YouTube Channel, 2nd March 2016.
[3] Credit: Avery Thompson and Lanae Brody, ‘Aly & AJ Michalka Are Totally Down For A ‘Cow Belles’ Reboot: ‘We’ve Talked About It’’, HollywoodLife.com, 5th July 2019.
[4] Credit: JJ Staff, ‘Aly Michalka Opens Up About Doing An R-Rated ‘Cow Belles’ Movie Reboot’’, JustJared.com, 27th June 2021.
[5] Credit: Morgan Murrell, ‘‘Aly & AJ Got Real Honest About Their Disney Channel Movie “Cow Belles”, And I Really Hope Disney Isn’t Listening’, BuzzFeed.com, 1st June 2022.
The Disney Purist 