Hollywood’s first rock’n’roll musical, Blackboard Jungle, prompted teddy boys to riot on Tower Bridge. Half a century later, its latest, High School Musical, is generating a more unsettling phenomenon — a mass outbreak of puppy eyes and deep sighs among the tweenies. At least pop is keeping its youthful appeal.
In America, Disney’s made-for-television movie, which will be shown on British screens next month, has grizzled rock fans scratching their heads. This is Grease for 9- to 13-year-olds, sans sex, spots or even the Bee Gees’ pop hooks. What is the appeal? Parents know the truth. This is a kiddie movie without the snarky depth charges layered into Disney’s other family-friendly hits, such as The Incredibles; it is another country, one it would be yucky if a grown-up got.
The facts speak for themselves. Since High School Musical’s low-key debut on the Disney Channel last January, tweenie demand has led to 12 repeats, totting up a record 37m viewers and six Emmy nominations. The triple-platinum soundtrack is, to date, this year’s No 1 album in the USA; the DVD, with lyrics bopping along the foot of the screen, has sold 23m copies, 400,000 on its first day. Parents are sending their beloveds to High School Musical-themed summer camps. Robyn Roberts, principal at the Utah school where the low-budget, quickie movie was shot last winter, has had requests from other schools for its floor plans, so they can copy its “feelgood layout”. You cannot buy this kind of publicity.
On one level, High School Musical is awesomely awful: the music is thin and obvious, the acting rich with muggery. The plot wends a path obvious to the blind: pretty geek girl and hunk jock discover a shared secret passion for karaoke and, despite the machinations of the bitch queen, triumph together in the school musical. The moral is: Be True To Yourself.
The cast of six largely unknowns were gathered together for a shockingly short 10 days of rehearsal and 23 days of shooting by the choreographer-turned-director Kenny Ortega. Ortega, who choreographed Dirty Dancing, has worked with all the divas — Madonna, Cher and Elton John — so transforming this pretty half dozen into hoofers required only a minimal deployment of tantrums and lung power. “We did not have time for drama,” he says unironically.
Earlier this month, the cast gathered on the pavement outside Hollywood’s El Ray Theatre for a Teen Vogue photoshoot and showed why the High School Musical bandwagon, which has already conquered Australia, may prove a hit here too. The cast were good-naturedly vamping for the photographer when a large 4x4 heading to a museum suddenly U-turned in the street, disgorging a frantic nine-year-old who dashed madly to the rope line. Once she got there, of course, she went all shy.
This was Alexandra Daniels, who, according to her mother, Cynde, has watched High School Musical a total of 16 times, knows every song and does all the dance steps with her friends. “It is something we feel safe with,” says Cynde. “And that is very rare.”
So what is so cool about it, Alex? She shuffles her feet, blushes and mutters: “It’s all about being friends.” Which is why her favourite song is an ensemble number, We Are All in This Together, which proclaims: “Everyone is special in their own way/We make each other strong/We are not the same/We are different in a good way.” Sentiments that must be comforting to a little girl facing what is all too often the hell of American high school for the first time.
I live 100 yards from Venice high school, where Grease was filmed in 1978. It’s nothing like Disney’s school. There was a gang-related fatal shooting there last month. When it empties at 3pm, I cross the street to avoid the older kids. So, is there any grain of reality in this movie, or are kids being suckered? Lucas Grabeel, 21, who plays bitch queen Sharpay’s fey brother, Ryan, says he went to a similar high school, Kickapoo, in Springfield, Missouri. If I did not know that Brad Pitt had also attended Kickapoo, I would have thought he had made it up. “No, really, Kickapoo was a clean, safe, pretty happy place — we won every sport, every year. There were cliques, of course, but nobody took them seriously. Okay, the five jocks took themselves seriously, but nobody else. It was a world away from the psychotic goths at Columbine.”
At this point, superfan Alex cannot contain herself any longer. She pops around the lighting rig for an autograph; the sextet make her welcome, like a little sister. Even the main man, Zac Efron, 18, whose fringe appears to honour David Cassidy, is the epitome of well-mannered charm.
“We love it all,” says Vanessa Anne Hudgens, whose Chinese-Irish heritage and dazzling eyes won her the slightly Latina lead role of Gabriella, the “Einsteinette” who tries to understand love as maths. “I am home-schooled, so for me it’s going to high school for the first time. And everyone has been so sweet to us, so why should we not be happy for now?”
Everyone in the cast has record, film or appearance deals: this is before the planned live shows, the sequel and the clothing ranges. In India, a Bollywood musical version has been proposed.
The cast may not come together again until the film’s sequel starts shooting in January. Ashley Tisdale, prom queen both on and off set, already thinks she knows what the plot will be: “Sharpay’s revenge.”
This has happened already — the best revenge in Hollywood is always success.
High School Musical will be shown on the Disney Channel on Sept 22; the official soundtrack is released on Sept 18
