Who makes the criteria for judging movies now? I’m sure there’s a Big Brother out there who decides which films are cool to praise and which are not. Otherwise how do you explain Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pulp Fiction and The Matrix in the Top 30 ranked films of all time on this site? And at the same time High School Musical gets a very low rating of 5.0? I guess this one doesn’t drag Hollywood down in to the gutter blockbusterism, special effects excess, hyperbole, tastelessness and subversiveness. Instead it tells a simple story with relevant message, and with the help of musical interludes. I suppose it has committed a few crimes there, according to the prevailing movie wisdom (???). The shrieks go out, “It’s cheesy!”, “It’s a musical!”, “It’s all been done before!”, “It’s all squeaky clean!”, “No profanity, no nothing!” Of course, if you are judging by the criteria that every film that comes along should apply a sledgehammer to society as we know it, then HSM is bad, no doubt. But it’s your loss, because you’re missing out on a great movie experience.
High School Musical is a perfect musical, and it should rank right up there with Singin’ In The Rain, The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady. While I was watching it I was thinking, “So this is where Grease went wrong!” There’s a similar plot going on. But instead of the wooden Olivia Newton John and the tiresome John Travolta, we have great acting from Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron, and in fact great performances all round. The script is picture perfect. I couldn’t spot anything gratuitous anywhere. Everything is there to tell the story and move the plot forward. I mean, there were so many things that could have tempted the filmmakers. The Ms. Darbus character was on a roll, and they could easily have gotten over the top with her. Sharpay Evans was a brilliant bitch, but they didn’t overdo her either. The song and dance numbers were spectacular, and spectacularly good, and they could easily have squeezed another two in. But every number was there for a good reason. The basketball number highlighted Troy’s confusion to perfection, while the cafeteria number portrayed the central theme of “straying out of the box”, and at the same time dramatised Sharpay’s fears of having competition. The film sparkles with humour throughout, and there are plenty laugh-out-loud moments. It could have decided to become soppy by showing Troy and Gabriella winning the audition. But, no, it immediately cuts to the basketball match, and after that there’s a rousing bonding number where Troy and Gabriella are lost in the “togetherness” of it all. It’s a tremendous feel good ending, but we feel good about something good, and not just for the hero and heroine winning everything in sight. The film sends a clean and wholesome message, and the tone is kept clean and wholesome throughout. This is something commendable in any age, let alone in this one of perversity and excess. Grease got it wrong by throwing in sex and profanity when we were supposed to feel nostalgic about wholesome fifties morality.
One more word about the criticism that the film is too clean to be taken seriously. So do these critics not enjoy films from the classic era of Hollywood at all? Films were clean then. It’s not true that society was clean so the films were clean. There were nasty things going on then too, but films just didn’t follow down into the gutter. There were censors to stop that. Citizen Kane is still a strong film today because it tells something timeless and does not rake muck for the sake of it. It also tells us something about the forties too, much more than does the “realistic” Goodfellas. Today realism boils down to raking muck for the sake of raking muck. 99% of the time it’s used titillate the baser instincts than to say anything about reality. So to judge films using this criterion is to confuse film with pornography. There may be homosexuals in high school today, but that has nothing to do with the theme of expanding your potential, so the token homosexual is quite rightly left out of HSM. There are other things going on in today’s high schools, and more worthy to talk about.
In conclusion, I can’t commend enough the people involved in this fantastic film. It should be a magical experience for all ages. I’m sure it will be a classic in time to come. And finally, don’t let the dope-smoking Big Brother spoil the fun for you.
