I'm just going to dive right into this: I hate media capitalism.
Isn't it bothersome? The way some of your favourite classics and shows are grossly desecrated by horribly mutilated sequels and ridiculous ideas? That, my friend, is called capitalism. To name a few guilty of this horrendous crime, I call out High School Musical, Hannah Montana and Tom and Jerry Tales. Tonight I will address the first one.
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High School Musical
Some people I know do not share the same views as I do. When I tell them that I hold a large abhorrence for the High School Musical franchise, or rather any other milk-curdling bad Disney movies, they either ask why or tell me to go watch the movies first, to give it a chance. In this, they have already assumed that I have not watched the movie, thus I am ignorant of the masterpiece that HSM is, and therefore I abhor it. Why assume that I have never watched the movie in the first place? It's quite simply, really. Since I am not a fan, it means that I have never watched it before and that is the reason why I think it is bad.
So for the benefit of argument, let's go along with the assumption that I have, indeed, not watched the movie yet. Do I really need glasses to see how blown up and contrived the whole thing is? Let's get things straight: It is a movie about teenagers singing about wanting to sing? Alright, given the good track record that movies about musicals have (see also Phantom of The Opera and Hairspray), I give it a chance and watch the movie. That's fair, isn't it?
The first movie was not that bad when I first saw it, I'll give them that. So maybe they're probably underpaying their songwriters and the level of humour stays stagnant. It is also a completely stereotypical portrayal of what an average American high school should look like and operate, where students can strangely spontaneously break into coordinated songs and dance. Any child looking here for any sort of accurate depiction of high school is going to get a very unrealistic idea. Like all Disney Channel movies it is relatively unrealistic and predictable, trying to appeal to the the pop culture that most teenagers are immersed in and failing in my book. The completely histrionic plot about an unlikely couple and unlikely romance now lays the foundation for many tweenie sleepovers across the world and could have been completely predicted and mapped out even by a comatose person. Their songs have absolutely no meaning at all, lyrics chock-full of tin-eared rhymes worthy of preschool television shows and overall, the whole thing is as about entertaining as a shot of Novocaine.
And then comes capitalism.
Guess what? Now they have a sing along edition, with helpful oblique letters that fill up automatically as the actors begin to 'sing'. Then they had to make a dance along edition, and the very helpful actors return to show off their dances again(as if the first time wasn't bad enough). But wait, they're not done yet. Now we have a pop-up edition(horrors!) that share little snippets of information about completely random, 'unseen' sides of the movie. Why, I certainly do give a damn that Corbin Bleu designs all his T-shirts. And I definitely needed a pop up to tell me that Lucas Grabeel wears the most number of hats throughout the movie. And sure, I really am thankful(I really am, actually) that they pointed out that there was a song scrapped to make the movie shorter(Godsend!).
Oh, but since it was such a large 'success', they now have to recycle the whole concept for future films, literally making a whole story out of the same dead plot over and over again. Roll in HSM 2(complete with all the sing alongs, dance alongs and pop up editions, and by the way, they actually DANCE during the number "I Don't Dance". Go figure!), a concert tour, a reality series, an 'on ice' tour, video games and oh surprise, surprise, an actual musical about a movie about a musical. If that wasn't enough, I hear they are actually planning a fourth sequel.
What's really appalling about the whole thing is that they make it out to be such a success when in the first place, it already fails to meet the bar set for it to be deserving of all the hype it is receiving, but they take every opportunity to capitalise on it(probably as bad, if not worse than American Idol). Corny, predictable plot? Check. Senseless songs? Check. Endless reruns on television every week? Check. For EVERY movie? Check. People wanting to get the plot of all three movies would be better off watching Grease once and saving their time, not to mention eye candy.