“Do you want to watch High School Musical?”
I would have never guessed that as a 19-year-old woman, my answer to that question would still be "yes." However, after an exhausting game day and an even more exhausting week, a sappy Disney Channel Original Movie turned out to be exactly what I needed.
The last time I watched High School Musical 3 was when it first came out in 2008. I was in 7th grade at the time, and I desperately wanted a relationship like that of Troy and Gabriella. There was something so real about their love—the way they looked at each other, respected each other, and sang to each other. At the time, the only people in high school that I had to look up to were my brothers—neither of whom had serious girlfriends at the time.
Deep down I knew that Troy and Gabriella’s love was scripted, but for some reason I couldn’t keep myself from getting my hopes up that I would someday have a love like theirs.
When high school rolled around, I thought to myself that my time had finally come. I started out a little overzealous and dated the first boy that showed interest. We proved to be very different people with different ideas of what love was. After 6 months - which as a freshman felt like years - we broke up. I was devastated obviously, because he was my first real boyfriend. After watching countless television shows and movies about teenage romance, I thought there was something wrong with me. Why wasn’t I finding what Lizzie and Gordo or Cory and Topanga had? What did those girls have that I didn’t have?
As high school progressed, I naturally grew too old to watch Disney Channel. The movies and shows I grew up watching told jokes that were no longer funny and became more unrealistic. By the time senior year rolled around, Troy and Gabriella’s relationship from High School Musical 3 didn’t seem so feasible. Of course, my boyfriend and I didn’t sing love songs to each other or dance on the roof of our school. However, we had something that Troy and Gabriella would never have: reality.
Even Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens’ “perfect” relationship sizzled out. Zac ended up having a cocaine problem and now Vanessa dates that guy with the huge mouth from "Glee." I had tried so hard to be like the celebrities I saw on TV that I was completely unaware that those relationships weren’t attainable, because they weren’t real. Sure, Kenny Ortega (the director of the High School Musical trilogy) tried to include realistic conflicts between Troy and Gabriella, but their entire relationship was never relatable.
Now, as a college sophomore, I watch these movies and still enjoy them—for different reasons. I no longer wish to be like Gabriella, but instead sing along with her remembering how I used to feel as I watched these movies. I think the media does a real disservice to young girls by portraying high school relationships the way it does. We grow up thinking that there is something wrong with us because we aren’t as pretty as movie stars and we don’t have that powerful connection to the person we’re dating. If we hold on to these ideals, we might be missing out on something truly amazing about ourselves.
