In my opinion, you can't call something stupid or awful unless you've actually seen it. With that thought in mind, I sat down with a friend of mine a few years back and watched High School Musical one and two. Sure, they're not exactly Hollywood's finest, but they're perfectly enjoyable when in the company of good friends and if you're able to find the humour in each of Zac and Vanessa's silly little adventures.
After Sharpay did her whole Hawaiian-themed song and the two lovebirds found each other again, all had ended well for East High's students. Yet the story wasn't finished: there was still Senior Year.
So, a couple of years later and with the same friend, we watched High School Musical 3. Admittedly, I am envious of the talents displayed in that movie. It could be that all the actors use stand-ins for the really difficult dance moves, but if that really is all them, then I say: "Congratulations!" I know I wish I could perform such moves, but alas, those talents are reserved for others, to which I humbly relinquish said talents.
High School Musical isn't all that bad, really. If you can look past the façade of queer-looking, happy-go-lucky, always-breaking-out-into-song teenagers, you can find that there is something there that's real. What it is that you choose to see in the movie is completely up to you. I personally, found myself walking away with a strong sense of recognition in Zac's character. It was the song "Scream" especially that left a profound impact on me.
Not only is this scene perfectly choreographed, it's also very stylishly depicted. Note the part where Zac is in the rotating hallway. I mean, you don't see that one coming in a movie that's so close to Mamma Mia they're practically bloodrelated. And maybe Christopher Nolan borrowed a few ideas from the HMS franchise as well, seeing as how the grativy-defying hallway scene also makes an appearance in his movie Inception?
My point to all this is certainly not the glorification of HMS, I'm not that big a fan. What I wanted to share with you is the dilemma that Zac has to deal with in the movies. He has always been known for being the basketball god of East High. His team worships the ground he dribbles on and the girls stand in line to be swooned by him. But when he meets Vanessa's character, it awakens something in him he didn't think he had: a choice to be somebody else, not the next Hall-of-Famer his dad wants him to be, but rather his own person.
Throughout the movie series we see Zac being torn between his predestined career in basketball and his personal dream of theatre and by extension, acting. Like all teenage movies, daddies don't take to fondly to their boys having their own opinions, so Zac has to deal with a lot of setbacks on his way to his first musical. The point is, however, that he does get there. He makes it on stage and chooses to do what he really wants to do.
So few people in life can find the strength to go against what everybody else tells them to do and be what they want to be. Look at the caste-system in India and the subsequent rage in Bollywood movies to transcend this socially opressive system and fall in love regardless. Look at any type of movie where the main character is torn between what he feels is right and what others thell him is right.
If we all still listened to what society, parents or constitutions tell us is the right thing to do, we would still be stuck in our narrow-minded world like Victorian England, Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. Funny how Belgium doesn't have its own specific compound noun like that, maybe we're doing something good after all?
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