On camp, sincerity and 'High School Musical: The Musical: The Series'

We’re all in this together

Photo: Natalie Cass (Disney+)

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There’s a quote floating around TikTok right now that reads, “Your thirties are all about rediscovering what you loved as a 13-year-old and doing it again, but this time without the shame, without the judgement.” But I wonder if part of being a theater kid means never feeling that shame to begin with? That would certainly explain why I spent my high school and college years happily following the High School Musical film franchise – a series aimed, at best, at sixth graders. And it would also explain why now, as a grown adult, I have passionate opinions about the love triangles of its meta Disney+ spinoff series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. (Season three did my boy E.J. so dirty.)

In a lot of ways, these two High School Musical iterations are on opposite ends of the kids entertainment spectrum. Directed by girl culture stalwart Kenny Ortega, the original trilogy of HSM movies are essentially modern-day updates of the campy, self-aware Beach Party movies of the 1960s. Academic whiz Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) and star athlete Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) shake up the social hierarchy of East High by breaking out of their cliques and trying out for the school musical, much to the chagrin of devoted theater kids – and vaguely incestuous siblings – Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) and Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale). 

It's a mid-aughts riff on Grease that’s so over-the-top it almost functions as a satire of Grease too. Though there’s ostensibly a message of tolerance and acceptance at the heart of the original HSM movies, the true power of the franchise lies in its blend of earnest commitment and knowing ridiculousness – never better encapsulated than in Efron’s iconic golf course performance of “Bet On It.” Ortega and his cast clearly love the tradition of movie musicals, but they understand the absurdity of the genre as well, and they aren’t afraid to lean into the joke. HSM is exactly the sort of thing mainstream culture mocks for being too garish and sincere, even as pre-teen girls love it for its winking self-awareness.

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, meanwhile, takes that self-awareness to the extreme. Created by author and former musical theater performer Tim Federle, the 2019 series deploys a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary format to follow the “real” students who attend the high school where the High School Musical movies were filmed. These Zefron and V-Hudge fans are thrilled when ambitious new drama teacher Miss Jen (Kate Reinders) decides to stage the school’s first ever production of the High School Musical stage show. Thus the knowing winks of the original films become active text in the TV series, particularly in the final season, where a film crew takes over the school to film a fourth High School Musical movie, complete with (at least some of) the original cast playing heightened versions of themselves.

Yet while on the surface High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is the more self-aware series, it’s paradoxically its earnestness that makes it shine. While the original HSM films were definitely for theater kids, they weren’t exactly about them. (There was far too much of an anti-Sharpay slant for that.) HSM:TM:TS, however, functions as a love letter to high school drama dorks everywhere. Particularly as the series went on, it found its groove celebrating the weirdo specificity of the actual high school musical experience: Communal, creative, slightly competitive, but also deeply supportive.

Photo: Fred Hayes (Disney+)

What HSM:TM:TS lacks in Ortega’s visual flair and campy cohesion, it makes up for in its earnest, openhearted stories about teenage thespians – like Glee but with the snark and sentimentality proportions reversed. I cried watching a season two storyline where Ashlyn (Julia Lester) self-sorts herself as a Mrs. Potts only to be cast as Belle in her school’s production of Beauty and the Beast – a storyline that touched on ideas of body image, type casting, and self-worth in a way I’ve never really seen from a mainstream theater TV show before.

Like Ortega’s underrated 2020 Netflix musical dramedy Julie and the Phantoms, HSM:TM:TS also paved new ground by putting queer teen love stories front and center in a kids show – something the original HSM movies could only do with winking subtextual nods and sexually charged dance-offs. The best original song in the show’s final season was a romantic duet between Frankie Rodriguez and Joe Serafini, and that’s just not the kind of thing that existed in PG-rated content when I was growing up.

Across its four season run, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series grew with its young cast, particularly once Olivia Rodrigo departed for pop star pastures and Sofia Wylie stepped up with breathtaking emotional vulnerability as the show’s new leading lady. And while I suspect the show won’t have the same cultural staying power as the original High School Musical films, the fact that it’s a little more niche feels right for its scrappy, ever-evolving energy too. Despite its uneven plotting and lackluster original pop songs, HSM:TM:TS has that “greater than the sum of its parts” quality I always find deeply endearing in a TV show.

If the pleasure of the original HSM movies lies in their over-the-top excess, the joy of HSM:TM:TS lies in its socially minded sincerity. And it’s hard to think of anything that sums up the theater kid experience more than that.

Next time on Girl Culture: Let’s revisit the first season of Doctor Who

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