( CNN ) -- `` Bikinis and big booties , y'all . That 's what life is about , '' professes Alien , the be-grilled , white Camaro-driving rapper played by James Franco in Harmony Korine 's `` Spring Breakers '' ( in theaters Friday ) . Add baby-pink ski masks and more than a little gunplay to the mix , and we 're off . The art-sleaze film about the decadent rites of American college kids stars former Disney sweethearts Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens alongside `` Pretty Little Liars ' `` Ashley Benson and Korine 's wife , Rachel , as broke coeds who stick up a chicken shack to fund the spring break of their dreams . When the partying goes too far and the girls find themselves in jail in St. Petersburg , Florida , it 's Alien who bails them out and introduces them to a life that 's both darker and more tender than they ever knew . The DayGlo- and dubstep-fueled assault on the senses was written by Korine ( `` Kids , '' `` Trash Humpers '' ) while doing some immersion research in a hotel room in Panama City , Florida , where , he told an audience at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin , `` people were blasting Taylor Swift music 24 hours a day , vomiting on my door and snorting donuts . It was crazy . '' `` It 's a very base culture , '' he continued , `` and I thought there was some kind of strange poetry in it as well . '' The scenes of spring break , raunchy displays of grinding bodies and guys spilling beer into topless girls ' mouths from crotch level , were taken from real-life festivities . `` Some of the scenes we were shooting , and you see we 're in the motel room , and all of us are just completely covering our mouths and shocked -- that was all real , '' Gomez said . `` We were witnessing things that were happening that were absolutely crazy and reacting in the realest way . '' `` The images were hypersexualized , hyperviolent , '' Korine said , `` and then the subject matter was all the details : The bikinis and the book bags and the flip-flops and the Hello Kitty bags and the nail polish and the neons and the stickers and the glasses were all real childlike , innocent . I thought it was interesting , both of those things working together . It 's a nice backdrop but also a metaphor for what happens later in the film once they meet Alien and what the movie becomes . '' Though Faith , Gomez 's comparatively pious character , scans as someone who might have grown out of the `` Wizards of Waverly Place '' and Justin Bieber trajectory , she explained that she chose the role because `` I wanted to see how far I could go . '' Benson said , `` People are used to seeing us in certain roles , and this was a movie where we were able to show people a different side of us , and it was more exciting than anything . '' Hudgens added that their characters are `` a little bit psychotic in their own right , but it 's such a liberating experience to be able to do a movie like this . '' But , Gomez cautioned , `` I do n't necessarily want to know what people are going to say or think '' about her choice . `` It 's just better that way . I ca n't really make anyone happy . I 'm an actor , and I love what I do , so if I want to do something I 'm super passionate about , I 'm just going to go for it . If people like it , awesome . If not , at least we made them feel something . '' CNN 's Topher Gauk-Roger contributed to this story .
Former Disney stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are among the film 's cast . Creator Harmony Korine said spring break in Florida is `` a very base culture '' Gomez said she took the role because she wanted to see how far she could go .