HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL IS CRACK FOR NINE YEAR OLD GIRLS

The “High School Musical” series isn’t just Craptastic. It’s Cracktastic. It’s not even vaguely good for you. Microwave popcorn movies are usually not the stuff to reach tiny-child cult status. This is. I rented the original HSM before I went to see “HSM3” so that I might live through the genesis of Disney’s HSM mania. I realized quickly that I didn’t need to see HSM2 to see the current film. I was going to get it.

In short, it’s entirely awesome. It’s what every nine year old girl thinks high school is going to be like. It’s what my inner 9-year-old-girl wants high school to be like. Sure, there’s disappointment when you realize it can’t be. It also blows when you turn eleven and you don’t get your letter to Hogwarts. That’s no reason not to read and watch in mesmerized fascination the fairytales of the world.

Specifically, it’s “Grease” but not as dirty. The first time I saw “Grease,” I lost my mind. When I saw it again ten years later – all I could think was, “my mother took me to this filthy movie?” Oh, it’s still fantastic. Hell – the dirty now makes “Grease” all the better.

HSM3 is also “Footloose” and “Dirty Dancing” without the political message. (newsflash: Zac Efron will be doing a remake of “Footloose” – whee!). It’s “Flashdance” without the social commentary.

High School Musical takes place in Albuquerque. Not the Albuquerque of “Breaking Bad.” Or even the one I’ve visited. This is a fabulously wealthy high school that still has a music program and banks and banks of computers for the yearbook and school newspaper. It has a rooftop garden and kids with disposable incomes like it’s 2006. HSM is “West Side Story” where both gangs are full of kids that are, really, doing just fine and could be talked out of fighting.

Perhaps because it was never meant for adults, HSM has no adult content. None. The music in the first movie was terrible. It is slightly better in this sequel. You get the feeling, from the original, that no one was more surprised than Disney when it went viral.

HSM3 is a sweet, fun Disney Channel original movie. And it aspires to only one thing more than that, which is to impart its message. The message of the “High School Musical” series is “don’t grow up”. Literally. The main characters talk about how “Life was better in Kindergarten.” And there’s a scene in this movie where the two guys play superhero/ninjas in a junkyard. It’s ‘Peter Pan fed and clothed himself… don’t lose that sense of wonder!’ and the subliminal message that constantly whispered in the back of my mind during the movie, ‘go to Disneyland.’ Where, in the parade, you get to learn HSM’s version of The Hustle.

I’m a grown-up. I don’t have to listen to that message. Oh… I probably will. But I don’t HAVE to.

—Jackie Kashian

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