In retrospect, one of the most important films of 2006 appeared on the Disney Channel. I remember when I watched the film myself—I was dating a girl at the time who lived in Houston, Texas, and while visiting her family that year, I was told that I should watch this somewhat silly Disney film, High School Musical. The film ended up being lighthearted and full of good music, and also full of a lot of material worth thinking about, far more than one would expect from such a lightweight production. Be that as it may, the film itself was the start of something new, not only a franchise of films (one of which received a theatrical release), but also of a revival of the musical within the larger culture of the United States. This movie and its success, for example, sparked a craze that led to shows like Glee putting many songs on the charts and a great deal of successful albums, and helped create a market for cast albums that, with rare exceptions, had not existed for decades. Not many made for cable television movies can point to that sort of cultural importance.

It does not appear, at least at first, that Disney was aware of what this movie was going to offer. The evidence for this can be found in the soundtrack [1], where the only “obvious” single choice is a version of the song Get’cha Head In The Game by B5, a song that did not even chart when the album was released because so many people wanted to download and listen to the tracks performed by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, both of whom became big stars. The soundtrack was also notable for whose name it did not show as a vocalist, namely songwriter Drew Seeley, whose voice was combined with Zac Efron’s through studio wizardry but who had not received credit for his vocals. Disney might have gotten away with this had the album been the typical sort of modest fare for a television movie, but the soundtrack has sold more than 5 million copies, and it became clear that Zac Efron’s voice had some assistance, which meant that Drew Seeley became a star himself, with enough name recognition to star opposite Selena Gomez in Another Cinderella Story [2] as well as on the live musical tour that High School Musical took.

In another way, the very plot of the movie High School Musical mirrored the larger social concerns about musicals and drama. High School Musical begins when two strangers, one of them a basketball star and the other a shy but beautiful scholar, sing a tentative but beautiful karaoke duet, only to find that they are in completely different cliques when they meet each other at school. Their shared love of music leads them to seek the lead role in a musical, where they start infringing on the turf of a diva named Sharpay and her younger brother. Among high school cliques, the drama queen is a rather fragile elite figure, far more fragile than elites such as athletes and nerds, who can at least rely on a very difficult skill and quantifiable skill set to carry them past competition, unlike the subjectively determined skill at the arts that Sharpay represents. So long as the high school musical remained the preserve of a clique of thespians, their domain was secure, but the growing prestige of arts and music means that multi-talented outsiders find it worth their while to devote time and effort to performance, making the competition tough. The respect that one wants is in tension with the desire to preserve certain space from foreign interlopers, and it is only with broader participation that something like musicals gather broader attention from others.

By dealing thoughtfully with questions of identity and territory and boundaries, this movie reminds us of deeper truths, and that gives it a worth far beyond the likely intents of its derivative creation. It was the right film at the right time to spark a revival for the musical, leading to mammoth album sales and the start of a franchise as well as several worthy careers in acting and music. The film, even in its sillier numbers like “Getcha Head In The Game,” reminds us that the price for flexibility between different roles and different areas of life is a great deal of stress and pressure in having to do more with less time, which can lead to occasional awkward moments. By showcasing a cast of people that possesses diverse talents and abilities, we are all reminded that we and other people are more complicated than immediately meets the eye, something that is true of the film as well, which appears rather superficial in its exterior appearance but demonstrates itself to have more depth and more layers than it is often given credit for. This is likely at least one reason why the film has endured so well so far, and achieved a cultural role far beyond its conception and original plans. Let that be a lesson to all of us as well, to never sell something short, and always to remember that we may not always conceive of what aspect of a work will resonate with others.

[1] See, for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_School_Musical_(soundtrack)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_School_Musical

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/the-heart-wants-what-it-wants/