I missed the trend; I missed the hype. I had never seen High School Musical until last week. Naturally, my fans were shocked. “How can you have never seen it?” they said. “It is such a you film.” But now, having seen the first two movies in the series (I’m going to watch the third one tonight), I shall share my valuable thoughts…
Cutting straight to the chase, Sharpay Evans has to be one of the most iconic pop-culture characters of all time. Obscenely demanding and brutally sassy, she is the nemesis of Troy and Gabriella, always trying to get one up on them. Her evil schemes culminate in organising the final auditions for the school show at the same time as Troy has basketball and Gabriella has a science competition! The cunning! The genius! That conniving, nasty bitch! Her brat-chic climax comes in the second movie, creatively named ‘High School Musical 2’, in the song ‘Fabulous’. With her killer lyrics, bold dance moves and audacious flirting, it is no wonder we’ve fallen in love with Sharpay.
On to Troy and Gabriella. I hadn’t realised that Gabriella was played by Vanessa Hudgens until I was told by a friend after watching the movies. The only other film I’ve seen her in is ‘Spring Breakers’. This shy, plastic, high school girl is much different to the version of Vanessa Hudgens I was used to: a coke-snorting, pink balaclava-wearing, gun-shooting badass university student drawn into the underground world of drugs and gangs while on spring break. Her painfully whiney singing voice jars heavily with the foul-mouthed, sexy criminal I thought I knew: “spring break, bitch.” As for Troy, I have never seen Zac Efron in a film before, but judging by the adverts for the film, ‘Neighbors’, it seems Zac is keen to leave behind his singing, prancing, High School Musicaling teens. Even so, his character in the movie is a complete success. This attractive, popular, floppy-haired, basketball-playing, singing, dancing, acting youth has everyone with their tongues hanging out. Add intelligence and personality and you almost arrive at me (only I can have it all) – but Zac/Troy is doing pretty well for himself.
Both films are actually really good fun, as long as you have the right company and are in the right mood. So, if you fancy a throwback and a laugh, settle down with some friends and a bottle of wine (each), and re-enter the wonderful world of brainless Disney magic.
