To escape the purgatory of background work on “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, I spent my free time yesterday reading Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye. It’s this crazy scandalous story from the 1920s about a couple of French teenagers who start fooling around and discover the joys of sex. Their curiosity ultimately leads them on an unscrupulous sex-starved rampage involving all kinds of gleeful debauchery, from water sports to egg-adled masturbation to non-consensual erotic asphyxiation. It’s delightfully filthy, and perhaps the perfect remedy for anyone hoping to briefly escape the the subtle whitewashing of Disney Channel hegemony.

The episode I was in yesterday was buried in layers of Disney Channel self-reference: Zack and Cody’s high school decides to put on a theatrical production of High School Musical, the Disney Channel musical TV-movie (and unfortunate cultural sensation) about a high school putting on a musical, which stars Ashley Tisdale, who also stars in “The Suite Life”. However, Ashley Tisdale’s character on “The Suite Life” is unable to land the role of Sharpay Evans (played by Tisdale in the TV movie), because no one seems to think she looks like Ashley Tisdale. So meta!

Added to that, Mark Indelicato, the little gay boy from “Ugly Betty”, plays a musical theater-obsessed drama queen who lands the role of Ryan Evans, the musical theater-obsessed drama queen in High School Musical. Of course, because this is Disney— just as in the real High School Musical— any reference to homosexuality is relegated to the realm of not-so-subtle implications, where flamboyant hats and exaggerated dances stand in for character development.

Not that I expect a serious gay storyline during a guest spot on one brief episode of “The Suite Life”, but the single-dimensional writing of his character recalled an incident which I experienced on the “Suite Life” set last summer: An obviously uninterested Dylan Sprouse was rehearsing a scene for the third or fourth time, when an A.D. became exasperated at his cardboard delivery. “Alright, let’s do this again. Why don’t we try acting this time?” he said. Dylan flipped around and shouted, “Why don’t you try not being so gay, Jeff.” The A.D. had no answer to that.