Let me make one thing clear: I’m quite a movie snob. My film tastes are very picky and sometimes I limit my theater-going experiences to movies that could be Oscar nominees and films made from books that I’ve read. But I love High School Musical.
I’ve found that there are three basic phases in which most people view this magical trilogy. Here they are:
Phase 1. BEST MOVIES EVER.
I was in this stage when I was ten and I watched the first "High School Musical" (HSM) movie for the first time (possibly the most dramatic movie sequence I’d ever seen at that time was the text scrolling across the screen: Game day… Callback day… Scholastic Decathlon day… Help!, and I thought Troy and Gabriella were golden. They seemed like the most serious couple ever and I wanted them to be together forever, so some very real tears were shed during “When There Was Me and You.”
I was still in this stage when I held a viewing party for "High School Musical 2" when I was eleven. My friends and I collectively reenacted Troy’s golf course leaping dance moves during “Bet On It” and cried more very real tears over “Gotta Go My Own Way.” As pre-teens, these movies seemed to epitomize everything we hoped for from high school. It was fabulous. We looked forward to when we could feel like Troy and Gabriella, and we hoped that we’d have friends as loyal and fun as the Wildcats (even though we knew that we probably wouldn’t burst into song in the hallways, as much as we might want to). In short, these movies were like a dream sequence of what high school could be, and we fell in love with them.
Phase 2. Incredibly stupid, but fun to laugh about.
When I was actually in high school, I slipped into the phase of HSM viewing that is characterized by scoffing, eye-rolling and overall disbelief at the ridiculous amounts of cheese exhibited by the films. In this phase, we watched HSM ironically and for laughs, pointing out each silly moment and dorky dance move. Troy steps out of the shadows and offers to sing with Gabriella at exactly the right moment? Please. Troy puts a necklace of the letter “T” around Gabriella’s neck in a romantic gesture? You’ve got to be kidding me.
At this point we were actually in high school and we’d learned that the real thing is almost nothing like East High. There’s a lot more homework, less hanging around and no one carries around basketballs instead of backpacks. Maybe because we’d become jaded upperclassmen, we couldn’t enjoy the movies in the hopeful, loving way we had before. Instead, we watched to make fun of them. Hey HSM, you can bop right to the bottom.
3. Okay, but actually — BEST MOVIES EVER.
In college I’ve discovered that I’ve come back around to pure and entirely un-ironic adoration of HSM. This love comes from nostalgia. It comes from remembrance of what the movies meant to me when they first came out, and from high school itself. Now that we’ve moved on from high school, many of us tend to romanticize it — and HSM helps us do that. When we watch the movies now, we can put ourselves back in the halls of our alma maters and remember the good times instead of the bad.
Once again, I get caught up in the music and the storylines. Though I still recognize the cheesiness and predictability, I love it unconditionally. I can still make fun of it, but I don’t think it’s inherently stupid like I did when I was actually in high school. It’s charming, fun and easy to sing along to. What could be better? Our heads are back in the game and our love can break free again.
With that, I’m going to sing a rousing rendition of "We’re All In This Together" while I fire up Netflix to re-watch the original "High School Musical." Feel free to join me — you know you want to. In the meantime… brr, brr, MAH!
