Highly Stupid Musical

I was very glad to see this review in today's Sun Times trashing High School Musical. The concert version is playing an inexplicably sold out show tonight, so unfortunately this review won't prevent it from being a box office hit, but at least it got the truth out there.

Like most people, I never heard of High School Musical (or HSM) until after its Disney Channel debut. I'm not much for following hype but the fact that a musical of all things was suddenly so cool piqued my interested and I ended up renting the HSM DVD. What a mistake. Not counting Footloose: The Musical, it was the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Did anyone involved in making this ever actually go to high school? Grease is more realistic, and that's sad. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, especially since it's essential for watching a musical, but it can only be taken so far, and HSM didn't just strain believability, it whacked it over the head with a shovel, cut it into pieces in the bathtub, and buried the parts under the newly sodded football field. Really, in any high school other than the one from Fame, does anyone in the "in-crowd" want to be in the musical or even care about who makes it? Not in my high school. Then, by the time the end of the movie rolls around, nothing has happened. They all sing about how they "did it together," but as any high school theatre nerd knows, the real blood-letting doesn't begin until rehearsals. There's still plenty of time for the diva to arrange an accident for the leading lady. In no world would the diva acquiese her leading lady status so easily. The post-audition drama would have made a far more entertaining show, but instead they mistakenly think that the hard part's over once the cast list is posted. That would be like ending Grease: You're the One That I Want with the selection of the 50 finalists going to Grease Academy. It just rings false.

Now, there are plenty of musicals out there that found success despite having a horrible book. In almost all of these cases, success can be attributed to the gloriousness of the score. Such is not the case with HSM. The songs were all bland, limp, insipid, pop-wannabe confections. The fact that Zac Effron's voice had to be dubbed does not bode well for Hairspray. I can't believe the soundtrack is the top selling album of the year. For a real high school musical experience, get the Camp soundtrack instead, and rent the movie for that matter. That was a show that really rang true and had a glorious soundtrack to boot, yet in typical fashion was almost completely ignored by mainstream media while crap like HSM reigns supreme in popular consciousness. It's no wonder in this kind of atmosphere that Jersey Boys beat Drowsy Chaperone for best musical.

However, not everything related to HSM is worthy of scorn. About 5 minutes after the DVD ended, I turned on Mad TV and saw one of their funniest skits in years; a parody of HSM. Now if that was released on DVD, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.