Friday Night Movie

This time I'm going to do something slightly different. Rather than rating our three movies, I'm going to give you our three reactions to one movie: High School Musical, which M had been looking forward to all week (somehow the Disney Channel has become a semi-regular evening activity around here--M switches off between Disney, Food Network, HGTV, and Nick at Nite while I'm putting E to bed--so she had seen about 14,000 previews and was able to tell me the whole story before the movie even started) (in case anyone is worried about E's cinematic desires being slighted, she had some Dora before the main event).

So with no further ado:

E - (all quotations will be in quotation marks) "It's too big kid. There's too much singing." She did pick up on some things, but mainly she drew pictures.

M - "That was a great movie." "That movie was so good." "Wasn't that great?" I tell you, this movie was made for M. First of all, she has a huge and admitted crush on Zac Efron (never heard of him? me neither). Second, she loves musicals. Third, the it's-ok-to-be-yourself message totally resonated with her (as she told me at some length during the commercials, the movie was exactly what it is like for her at school, because all her friends think it's weird to hang out with the boys, but she thinks it's ok). Fourth, it had absolutely no violence of any kind and nothing at all scary. Fifth, did I mention that she has a crush on Zac Efron?

[E: "What's a crush?"
Me: "It's when you like someone."
E: "So M has a crush on E?" (M's best friend)
Me: "Not exactly."
E: "Then what?"
Me: "Can I explain this tomorrow?" (because it was the middle of the movie and we were distracting M and I had no idea what to say--I really hope she does not remember to bring this up)]

Me - Let me begin by making it clear that I am a big fan of teen movies, romantic comedies, and the like. And by teen movies I don't just mean hip hits like The Breakfast Club. I mean The Lizzie Maguire Movie, which I've watched at least a half dozen times with M and still enjoy. Dirty Dancing is in my top five (but that one is kind of hip) (I think) (is it? it would be better for my argument here if it wasn't, but I fear it is) (I digress). Anyway, I was totally prepared to find merit in High School Musical, or at least enjoyment.

There was a bit of overt merit. Really good multi-racial casting: the hero (that would be Zac Efron) was white and the heroine was Latina; of the four supporting actors and actresses, two were white and two were black. The black girl played the head of the--ack, I don't remember what it was called, but some club for smart kids. A rainbow of basketball players, and smart kid club members, and stoners, and cheerleaders, and all that. Of course then you come up against the reality problem that in no high school in America do kids of all colors hang out together constantly without race ever being an issue, but I'm ok with representations of how things could be, rather than how they are. Other overt merit could be found in the it's-ok-to-be-yourself message (more on that in a moment).

Formally, however, this movie was pure pastiche with neither wit nor wisdom to raise it above the sum of its parts (does that sentence make any sense at all? I feel like I should have something to say about post-modernism in regard to this movie, but I'm feeling stupid these days, so I think I'm just going to have to provide examples in lieu of analysis). There was the boy-and-girl-on-vacation-and-then-she-shows-up-at-his-school thing from Grease (which also provided the your-friends-will-still-love-you-even-if-you-act-different-from-them-even-though-you-thought-they-wouldn't theme). There was the Big Game scenario from a zillion high school and college sports movies--and yes, the hero won the game on a shot at the buzzer, yes indeed he did. There was the let's-put-on-a-show theme from a zillion theatrical movies. There were fireworks at midnight on New Year's Eve. There was dancing in the cafeteria a la Fame. In other words, not an original moment to be found.

Then there were the narrative issues--god, this post is getting too long and boring even for me, and I still haven't gotten to my most important point, so you'll just have to take my word for it that there were narrative issues, and that they were closely related to the pastiche issues (i.e. the film jumped from predictable plot point to predictable plot point with absolutely no narrative logic except that this was the thing that had to happen next so it did).

But really, this movie was about homosexuality.

You weren't expecting that, were you? Actually, I think that basically all mainstream cinema of the last 15 years is about homosexuality, but that's another argument for another day. Here, it was unbelievably blatant, albeit covert. The it's-ok-to-be-yourself message? The song about telling your secrets? And the basketball player's secret is that he loves to bake? And the stoner's secret is that he plays the cello? And the drama club guy who prances around?And the baking guy and the drama club guy locking eyes at the end? Uh, pretty clear. But why? Are the right-wing nuts right? Is the media really pushing a gay agenda? Or have we reached the age where we can celebrate homosexuality, sort of? I'm not quite sure, and this post has gone on way too long, so I'll just congratulate you if you've reached this point and still choose to come back tomorrow to continue reading this ridiculous blog.

[And I didn't even get to the totally twisted brother-sister thing, but if you're really curious, I believe Disney is showing the movie again tonight, in the singalong version, and tomorrow night, with special behind the scenes I don't know what.]