#being able to find things like motifs and callbacks does not come naturally to me and it's frustrating tbh bc it's hard to feel like you're

[carbonateddelusion]

the pile of writings I will probably never show anyone aside from Ben is slowly growing

[paceunknown]

high school musical, often abbreviated “hsm”,

is quite literally one of the best musicals ever released. it draws on old, often overused tropes that any audience would recognise and be able to identify with (chance meeting/running away at midnight - cinderella; main characters on opposite sides of the tracks - romeo and juliet; etc). said tropes tug on memories and expectations that make the movie interesting enough to want to see through to the end but aren’t boring and predictable enough to steer one away, as the plot itself can play out in a multitude of ways with the promise of a cute and happy ending still present. 

troy bolton’s characterisation is the one of the driving forces behind why the franchise as a whole is so successful and you can fight me on it. he’s just… so nice, so thoughtful, his character breaks all the stereotypes and makes you love him and therefore the whole movie because you’re rooting for him to open his eyes and be himself. he’s the typical jock, yes, number one star player with narrow, one-track minded friends and a pushy dad, and that’s how he’s introduced in the exposition. but that’s quickly broken during the countdown to midnight scene where he’s honest with gabriella about having enjoyed singing and how he’s genuinely, earnestly interested in keeping in contact (and absolutely solidified when he does everything in his power to ask for gabriella’s forgiveness). completely off trope, he’s nervous and awkward with her instead of cocky as expected, and we immediately understand that troy is a lot nicer and conflicted than we’d originally thought; when we see him back at east high laughing at chad’s dig at sharpay it’s confusing, as it should be, since he’s been established as a Good Guy™, but it makes sense because we also know he has an image to uphold (see: “why are you whispering?”). further, though gabriella coerces his love for music out of him, troy ultimately comes to the conclusion for himself. she made the joke about auditioning, but it was him who lingered on the poster, let the idea of singing influence his basketball practice, hid at the back of the theater, and decided to do the callback. that’s something we don’t usually see in these kinds of love stories: the boy didn’t need the girl to be his end-all-be-all savior—all she did was give him that little push which he used to make his own decisions.

and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk about troy and gabriella’s relationship that has set my standards high since 2006. first of all, even though gabriella is sweet and soft spoken, she doesn’t take any shit (“nice penmanship” blew my eight year old mind; when she came for sharpay in hsm 2 I lost it). from the jump she’s interested in troy, clearly, but she doesn’t go all goo-goo over him like I’m sure he’s used to: running away to find her mom at the party, basically ignoring him to find her classes, not being so willing to accept it when taylor revealed the webcam thing was plotted. it’s not something that’s been unseen, but it’s definitely out the norm to see the nerdy girl not let the cute jock engulf her life. in fact, it’s pretty much the opposite way around: troy asks for her number, troy risks getting in trouble to call her in class, troy is the one off his game when gabriella stops speaking to him whereas gabriella’s sad but she keeps on keepin on. this role reversal is key in not only further establishing how much he’s unlike his stereotype but cementing hsm’s Groundbreaking Originality. on this as well, it ends up being troy who convinces gabriella to do the callback (both times, pretty much) which again breaks the stereotype. also, they’re just so fucking cute together it makes me wanna die?? it’s natural cuteness (probably because zac and vanessa had that real life chemistry but), not “these are our love interests and they’re supposed to be in love” cuteness. they’re goofy together (practice room with kelsi, detention when they’re humming breaking free, when they're on the court together), honest with each other (rooftop garden, scene after darbus’ class), genuinely care for one another (gabriella’s pushiness to get troy to do what he enjoys and not what’s expected of him, troy’s understanding of gabriella’s stage fright and taking the first verse of breaking free/telling her to just look at him). their entire existences don’t become all about each other, which is so incredibly refreshing, but we still get to see their relationship happen over the course of something longer than a three-minute song. and it’s apparent that they aren’t even technically dating/haven’t had That talk yet by the looks on their faces when troy kisses gabriella’s cheek after breaking free. that’s what really gets to me: we were supposed to assume they were together but ,, they weren’t! and that’s due to good world building and character progression! are y'all hearing me the ENTIRE MOVIE we #thought but they were still in the beginning stages of their relationship! when has any romcom ever! talk about slow burn I LOVE that their relationship actually grew and wasn’t just written to have happened spontaneously WHEW BOY okay.

let me also discuss the whole webcam incident. what troy said was dumb and inexcusable, definitely, but the fact that both sides realised what they did was wrong and conspired to fix it not even for their personal gain (the upcoming game, the decathlon) but because they genuinely cared about their friends’ happiness and even helped to devise this ridiculously complex plan to help get their friends to the callback!! everyone changed, it wasn’t just troy and gabriella. even though troy still struggled internally with his love for singing all the way up until the end of the last movie, it was never a thing where their friends continued to conspire against them or they had to keep proving their worthiness to be on stage. they realised their friends were more important and that was it, and that’s such a beautiful message and, again, one you don’t see too often: typically the leads have to be together in secret, or run off together, or only one or two of their close friends accept them. like I said! Groundbreaking Originality!

now onto the music. I was listening to the rent soundtrack a few weeks ago and recently bopped the hsm soundtrack, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the former. not because of content, obviously, but the range of styles and a lot of the styles themselves were reminiscent. the hsm soundtrack wasn’t your typical disney musical, it wasn’t all bubblegum and legato and, just, old school disney. it’s like rent, it’s new and fast-paced and used fuckin guitars and one song literally made a beat using basketballs like bro. so many different influences went into the music. hsm was ahead of its time, at least where made-for-children musicals were concerned, and it’s success musically has been copied so many times but never to the same level, there can never be another musical like hsm. it’s just impossible. you had your typical musical theater-esque tunes, you had your modern tunes, you had your ballads, you had a little bit of everything, everyone can find at least one song they like because there wasn’t a strict motif being followed (like rent wow). not only that, but the songs are BOPS and I’m genuinely not being biased. there aren’t many songs that can hold the test of time, especially not songs from musicals, ESPECIALLY not when those songs were everywhere due to the massive commercial success of said musical (prime example: frozen) and the fact that hsm’s music can still be enjoyed with just as much fervor as it was 11 years ago speaks volumes. not to hate on 2 and 3 because I would die for those movies too, but out of all three soundtracks, the first is the one most would pick for replayability (that’s not a word I know but it works). there’s just something effortlessly timeless about it, catchy but not annoyingly so, nostalgic but not saddening, something that forces you not to hit skip and just belt out the lyrics. I’ll skip you are the music in me (reprise) all day but let what I’ve been looking for (reprise) come on. I just wanna be with you could catch that swift next but my finger will never come near that button when breaking free is on. it’s like the second two movies worked too hard to continue to capitalise off the commercial success (for example, hsm 2 made sure to have multiple easy-to-learn dances because of the reaction to we’re all in this together) whereas the first movie didn’t have anything it clung to or had ties to so it was free to just exist. please don’t get me wrong: the entire trilogy owns my ass, music and storyline alike, but the first one just has a special touch musically.

I could quite possibly go on forever but moral of the story: high school musical is a masterpiece, deserved a grammy, deserved an oscar, deserved a golden globe, deserved a vma, deserved a brit award, deserved a people’s choice, deserved an AMA, deserved a much music award, deserved an ARIA, deserved a SAG award, deserved a critics’ choice, deserved an emmy, deserved five stars on imdb and a 100% on rotten tomatoes,