The "High School Musical" Genre
The “High School Musical” Genre
Individuals view high school as an institute where students face overwhelming social standards and unrealistic expectations on a daily basis. Social chains rank the stereotypical cliques such as jocks, nerds and drama kids. School no longer is a place where you can freely express who you are, but a place of conformity and East High is no different. These factors have become so prevalent in today’s society that a whole new film genre has been dedicated to school based films. High School Musical is a school film as the conventions of the genre are clearly displayed.
School films always have an existing authority structure, either positional or personal. In High School Musical the students hold the most authority. The student body manipulates the teacher’s positional power to achieve their own desires. This is evident at the school musical call backs. Troy and Gabriella are not allowed to audition as a result of their tardiness, but when an overwhelming amount of support comes from the cheering crowd of students Ms. Darbus makes an exception. This demonstrates that the positional authority Ms. Darbus has as a teacher does not uphold the authority of the students. The students’ power is so strong that their presence alone is enough to change Ms. Darbus’ mind. In High School Musical there is a culture of expectations placed on the students. Students must not stray from the clique that defines them. The student body conforms to this rule in order to avoid rejection from their peers. Troy displays the importance of the expectations enforced by his peers when he fails to follow the social rules when he strays from the basketball team to audition for the school musical. This emphasizes the social expectations because not only is Troy the captain of the basketball team, but the most popular person at East High, which places the highest expectations on him. As soon as the student body finds out about this news there is a huge
Individuals view high school as an institute where students face overwhelming social standards and unrealistic expectations on a daily basis. Social chains rank the stereotypical cliques such as jocks, nerds and drama kids. School no longer is a place where you can freely express who you are, but a place of conformity and East High is no different. These factors have become so prevalent in today’s society that a whole new film genre has been dedicated to school based films. High School Musical is a school film as the conventions of the genre are clearly displayed.
School films always have an existing authority structure, either positional or personal. In High School Musical the students hold the most authority. The student body manipulates the teacher’s positional power to achieve their own desires. This is evident at the school musical call backs. Troy and Gabriella are not allowed to audition as a result of their tardiness, but when an overwhelming amount of support comes from the cheering crowd of students Ms. Darbus makes an exception. This demonstrates that the positional authority Ms. Darbus has as a teacher does not uphold the authority of the students. The students’ power is so strong that their presence alone is enough to change Ms. Darbus’ mind. In High School Musical there is a culture of expectations placed on the students. Students must not stray from the clique that defines them. The student body conforms to this rule in order to avoid rejection from their peers. Troy displays the importance of the expectations enforced by his peers when he fails to follow the social rules when he strays from the basketball team to audition for the school musical. This emphasizes the social expectations because not only is Troy the captain of the basketball team, but the most popular person at East High, which places the highest expectations on him. As soon as the student body finds out about this news there is a huge