Rationalizing High School Musical.

The fact that my computer doesn't spellcheck the word "teenybopper" is strange. I don't really use that word almost ever. I'm pretty sure this is the second or third time I've ever typed it. That's not necessarily the point, but I do think it's an interesting comment on how our society currently is.

I've always had great pride about the fact that I'm ridiculously eclectic with most things in my life. My music taste is somewhere between folk and rap, with everything in between. My novel taste is from Gossip Girl to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. My television taste is somewhere between Doctor Who and South Park, with a good bit of everything else. My film taste is no different. Somewhere between Chasing Amy, Inception, and High School Musical.

So I thought I'd talk about that last one. If only because, to anyone but me and a good few of my friends, it seems out of place and random. Although, with the variety of things I like, I don't really understand how people even question me about my tastes in things anymore. Obviously I don't have an answer.

I was a freshman in high school when the first film came out. It was hitting mildly hard and I wasn't really biting. I was still watching Disney Channel, though, as a freshman. It was around the time that I stopped, however. After High School Musical 2 came out, I was pretty much done with Disney. Beside the point, though. The point is that I was one of those people who scoffed at HSM the first because it was cheesy and I was a proper high school student. (Which is code for, "I'm too adult for this bullshit." Which is always a lie, by the way. #thingsilearnfromgrowingup) Then I was bored and it was on when nothing else was. Isn't that how it always is, though? At least that's how I get into a lot of random things I never thought I'd like. Maybe that's just me though.

Okay. So I got into High School Musical. I bought the DVD and learned the dance and I was so very much a "teenybopper." (As a side note, this is right before Twilight got really big and I had just gotten into that series. You win some, you lose some.) From the moment I got into HSM I didn't stop. I watched HSM2 the night it premiered the next year and I went to see High School Musical 3: Senior Year in theatres. WHICH WAS AWESOME, by the way. I love HSM. Now that we've got that out of the way, let me try to convey why I enjoy it so much. Mostly characters, for your information. The second and third had good plots, as well. First one, not so much. So, it's all about the characters.

In the first film Sharpay was the only character I really liked. It half came from my love of Ashley Tisdale, from her being on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and the other half came from the fact that she was kind of the only character that had any, cliché as it is, character. No matter how seemingly two-dimensional that character was. The other characters had even less character, falling flat into one-dimensionality. Once the second and the third films came out, though, Ryan became my front runner. He's my favorite and I just simply adore him in all his coded gayness. (Although I really do wish they'd had him holding hand with a guy just once in the background, or slipped it into random conversation because I don't feel like we should have coded gay characters anymore. I always thought we were over that. Apparently not. Regardless, he is glorious.)

My evolution with the other characters, however, goes about like this.

Troy Bolton is probably one of the most manipulative characters I've seen from Disney and he does so in such a subtle way that I almost want to scream. At the same time, though, he's also the biggest sheep. Which is part of why I am so fascinated by his character, I think. He often places what his friends think about him higher then even what he thinks of himself and is willing to do anything, just about, to maintain the "leader" role that they've given to him. I do love him as a genuinely great character in the third movie, however, but I think it had more to do with better writing, better acting, and just a general sense of better from the cast and writers.

Gabriella Montez gets better and better with every movie. In the first she's the very typical "girl-next door" who just wants to be in love and falls for a douche bag jock. I do love, however, that she's a fucking genius though. I always thought that was a nice character touch, since she didn't really have that much character. The second movie showed Gabriella standing up to Sharpay, and not for Troy. It had nothing to do with Troy, she didn't really care. She cared that Sharpay was fucking with her friends and her summer, and she told her so. Then she broke up with Troy. And even though they got back together at the end, I adore her show of strength. Gabriella in the third movie also showed her to be strong, which was lovely. I really enjoyed her character development throughout the series. Plus I have so much love the beautiful and lovely Vanessa Hudgens.

Part of a Picspam of Baby V I made. 

Chad and Taylor were characters I really liked. I wish they had both had more character development. Taylor especially. I love that she too was a genius and was going to Yale and was just fierce for what they showed of her. Chad got a little more exposure, but I also feel like the writers wrote him off as the comedic one. While I maintain the belief that he is comedic and it's perfectly glorious, I think his friendship with Troy is interesting. His friendship (gayship) with Ryan is also glorious. Both relationships deserved more exposure, I think. I also thought that Chad and Taylor didn't really belong together and were only pushed together because the writers/Disney thought that HSM was the ark and everyone needed a date.

So. Characters. Characters are my bread and butter. Over analyzing, like I said to Syd, is also my bread and butter. I love it and I do it often to everything. I think it's mostly to rationalize why I like the light hearted, shallow even, teenybopper things I like. Regardless, I hope this gave some insight. Plus I'm always down for musicals. So, there's that.

-Wednesday