Austen Saunders sings the praises of High School Musical’s high drama
I must admit, High School Musical is not a very good film. High School Musical 2 is a little worse and I have absolutely no doubt that the final part of the trilogy will be even poorer. The acting is weak, the plot risible, and the songs far from masterpieces, to say the least.
And yet, Troy and Gabriella, and most especially Sharpay and Ryan, I do love thee.
William Blake was very much of the opinion that Milton, whether he knew it or not, was on the side of the Devil when he wrote ‘Paradise Lost.’ I think much the same must have been true of the Disney Corporation when they channelled their many talents towards creating High School Musical.
The satanic force in East High is Sharpay, and she is every bit as charismatic and compelling as Milton’s anti-hero. After the naïve Gabriella knocks her off the school pecking order’s heavenly summit, she is desperate to seduce Troy away from his new sweetheart. She is a mischievous temptress driven by jealousy. She is fantastic.
If you love Sharpay, you will love High School Musical. She is the all-singing, all-dancing, malevolent heart of darkness which gives High School Musical its soul. If you ask me, she also gives it a sex-appeal the other teenage stars could only dream of, (It’s okay, she’s actually 23, I can say these things).
The Devil always has all the best tunes, and Sharpay knows how to make the most of them. The audition scenes in which she performs with her brother Ryan are breathtaking. Troy and Gabriella’s routines are exceedingly insipid.
Ryan is almost certainly gay, but he and his sister are very chummy. Forming as they do the counterpart couple to Troy and Gabriella, there is the slightest suggestion that family affection has been carried a bit too far.
Such suspicions can only add to Sharpay’s Byronic grandeur. Sharpay is a sequined force of destiny and if High School Musical had given the world nothing else, its place in the memory of man would be assured.
That, by the way, is no overstatement.
Sean Faye thinks HSM is out of tune with teens and families alike.
I should love High School Musical. The initial premise, involving an Alpha-male basketball captain who struggles to publicly admit his love for musical theatre, is certainly not wasted on me. When my 11-year-old sister encouraged me to watch the first film she sold it to me as a modern version of Grease.
Oh how deceptive this description was. On watching High School Musical, I discovered that the students of East High were in fact deranged antecedents of their 70s counterparts. Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) are an emotionally and sexually-stunted pair in comparison with John and Olivia; they don’t even kiss until the end of the second film!
With virtually no allusion to the trials and tribulations of adolescence, their singing and dancing is vacuous and inexpressive. Ridiculously, Troy hides his desire to sing and dance with his sweetheart by singing and dancing with his ‘macho’ friends.
My criticisms are drowned out by the chorus of pre-teens who have aided High School Musical in its rise from made-for-TV film to big screen phenomenon. If nothing else, High School Musical is a ruthless marketing machine, selling its teen stars and their manic smiles as heroes for children everywhere. In reality, they are closely managed, sterilised stereotypes: the ‘zany’ African-American friend, the ridiculous Paris Hiltonesque bitch with a stupid name (Sharpay? God help us) and her brother Ryan.
Ryan is perhaps the oddest figure in this group: a camp, pink beret-wearing dancer who, rather creepily, sings love songs with his own sister. It’s not like the all-American Disney channel were going to include an actual homosexual. Yet, they inexplicably decided to feature a desexualised, comical effeminate who, in High School Musical 2 suddenly took an interest in girls, largely due to the comments of reviewers in the series’ first outing.
Behind the scenes, there have been brief glimpses of the dishonesty of the High School Musical brand. Vanessa Hudgens’ chaste incarnation on camera was counterbalanced by real-life nudity… on camera. This is all in the context of her supposed relationship with foundation-wearing Zac Efron who, let’s just say, is probably more of a Ryan than a Troy in HSM terms.
The way that this relationship slowly falls apart with every passing moment of the High School Musical extravaganza just underlines the failure of High School Musical. HSM tries to inhabit an odd space between ‘family-friendly’ and ‘teen comedy’, and ultimately fails at both.
