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Fandom Overview: High School Musical
Fandom Overview: High School Musical
If you ask your friends about High School Musical, chances are you won't hear many rave reviews. But the thing is, millions and millions of people have watched these movies. And a lot of them, even self-respecting fangirls (and fanboys, we don't discriminate here) like them. Like them enough to stop channel surfing when they chance across High School Musical 1 or 2 rerunning on Disney Channel. Like them enough to sing along if they're certain no one can hear them. Like them enough to sneak off to the theater and see High School Musical 3. And they certainly like these movies enough to create some good fandom around them.
I'm here today to tell you it's okay to like these fluffy, plot-holey Disney movies, and it's more than okay to enjoy the fandom. So sit back and relax, and let me share with you the joy that is High School Musical.
The Main Characters: Bring on the Pretty
Troy is the main protagonist in all three High School Musical movies. Played by Zac Efron (as if you didn't know), Troy is the star and captain of the basketball team (and also the coach's son, which no one seems to see as nepotism). In the first film he discovers a love of musical theatre and a love of Gabriella Montez, both of which carry through all three movies.
Gabriella is our second protagonist and Troy's love interest. Played by Vanessa Hudgens, Gabriella is used to moving frequently due to her mother's job, and she's a self confessed "genius girl." She has always loved to sing, but feared the spotlight until she met Troy and sang with him. *cue sighs*
Chad loves basketball and is Troy's best friend. After three movies, we don't know much more about him than those two facts, and they drive his character throughout all three movies. He is played by Corbin Bleu.
Sharpay, portrayed by Ashley Tisdale, is the diva of East High and our go-to villain. Co-President of the Drama Club, Sharpay is used to having the spotlight to herself (she doesn't count sharing it with her brother, Ryan, because he makes her look good), and she resents all attempts to take it away. She pursues Troy, but it seems to be motivated more by vanity than by affection.
Ryan's character undergoes a transformation over the course of the three movies. In the beginning little more than comic relief and a pawn for his sister, by the third movie he's a part of the gang who cares about other people's feelings. One thing that never changes is his passionate love of dance. He's played by Lucas Grabeel.
Taylor, played by Monique Coleman, is the head of the Scholastic Decathlon team, and she quickly becomes Gabriella's best friend. She's no-nonsense and organized, and she dates Chad in a kind of asexual way after the end of the first movie.
Secondary Characters: Who are These People in My Fic?
Kelsi, played by Olesya Rulin, writes the music for the various shows we see in the High School Musical movies. Despite her obvious talent, she doesn't seem to get much respect before Gabriella arrives to turn East High on its collective ear.
On the basketball team with Troy and Chad, Zeke - who is played by Chris Warren, Jr. - outs himself as a secret baker in the first movie. He also has a crush on Sharpay that persists despite her ... charming personality.
Played by the effervescent KayCee Stroh, Martha is a brain who likes to dance hiphop. In the third movie, she's on the cheerleading squad.
Jason is played by Ryne Sanborn. He's on the basketball team, and he's the kid who asks awkward questions and who misses social cues.
Ms. Darbus, played by Alyson Reed, is that over-the-top Drama teacher that schools on TV always need to have. She takes her little high school theatre seriously, and heaven help the student who disagrees. She does seem to have affection for her students, despite her bombast.
Coach Bolton gets to be the stereotypical parent who just doesn't understand. Played by Bart Johnson, Coach Bolton pushes his son to focus all of his energy on basketball, regardless of Troy's actual wishes. He's less horrible in the third movie.
Plot Summaries: Watch Out For Falling Logic
High School Musical: Less Gay Than Fame, More Musical Than Saved By The Bell
Troy and Gabriella have a classic meet-cute when they are selected to sing karaoke together at a ski lodge New Year's Eve party. They get flirty and exchange phone numbers, but don't really expect to see one another again. In a very Grease plot development, Gabriella transfers to East High after the break and finds that Troy is a student there. Drawn together by their mutual attraction and their desire to sing, they wind up auditioning together for the winter musicale and getting a call back, much to the consternation of reigning thespians, Sharpay and Ryan Evans.
Somehow, Gabriella and Troy's willingness to break out of their fore-ordained roles (brain and jock) to audition for the musical sends the whole school into a tailspin, as people break into song at lunch, confessing their secrets to their classmates. Sharpay takes this as a sign that if Gabriella and Troy get the parts, not only will she be out on her duff, but civilization as we know it will end. She and Ryan plot. Meanwhile, the basketball team is concerned that Troy is losing focus because he's thinking about the musical and Gabriella, and the Scholastic Decathlon team worries that they're going to lose their recently acquired brainiac. Chad and the basketball team join with Taylor and the Scholastic Decathlon team in plotting.
Basically, there's a whole lot of plotting going on.
Through cunning use of surveillance technology, Taylor and Chad convince Gabriella that Troy's a jerk who doesn't want to audition with her. Troy and Gabriella split up. All seems lost for our singing lovebirds. But wait! This is a Disney movie. Moved by the plight of their friends (and noticing that they don't seem interested in basketball and academic competitions when they're heartbroken), the various East High Wildcats scheme to get Troy and Gabriella back together. And it works, yay! Everything is sweetness and light until Sharpay convinces Ms. Darbus to reschedule the call backs to coincide with the big basketball game and Scholastic Decathlon meet, which will be taking place simultaneously. All of the other Wildcats conspire to rig things so that Troy and Gabriella can still make their audition. They short out the basketball scoreboard and set off a chemical reaction in the Scholastic Decathlon meet, and Troy and Gabriella sneak out during all the hullaballoo. They audition and get the parts, the basketball team wins the big game, and the Scholastic Decathlon team takes first place. Everyone is happy, there's a big dance sequence, the end.
High School Musical 2: With 50% More Angst and 300% More Swimsuits
It's the last day of school, and everyone celebrates the release from school in traditional TV fashion, with much running through the halls and throwing of papers. Troy celebrates by labeling Gabriella as his with a pendant bearing his initial, and Sharpay celebrates by scheming to get the "primo boy" at East High (that would be Troy) for her very own. To that end, she tells the manager of the Lava Springs Country Club (which her super-rich parents own) to hire Troy for the summer. But Troy doesn't come alone, and soon the entire student body of East High (or at least all of Troy's friends) are working at the country club. The Wildcats are glad for the jobs, since they all need money, but they're oddly put out when they find they're actually expected to work. We also learn that there's an annual talent show that Sharpay always wins.
Sharpay plots ways to separate Troy from Gabriella and their friends, getting him a job as a golf instructor and setting him up to meet college basketball players while Chad and Taylor and everyone are slaving away. She even manages to work him into her act for the summer talent show, which leaves Ryan out in the cold (metaphorically. It's summer in the desert, after all).
Ryan winds up hanging out with the other East High students, playing baseball and choreographing their talent show act, and generally enjoying spending time with people who aren't his sister. Sharpay can't have that, so she gets the employees banned from the talent show. Sick of Sharpay's scheming and Troy's generally idiocy, Gabriella quits her job and dumps Troy. Troy comes to his senses and makes up with his friends. As a surprise twist, Ryan schemes, and gets Troy out on stage with Gabriella, where they make up through song. (Awwww!) Ryan wins the talent show, even though he didn't actually perform, and everyone goes and jumps in the pool. (This is where that microsecond cameo by Miley Cyrus happens.)
Note: If you've got time,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
poisonivory's HSM2 recap is hilarious and awesome.
High School Musical 3: Wow, That's Cinematic!
It's the final semester of senior year for our intrepid band of Wildcats, and they've got a lot going on. So they aren't exactly thrilled when Kelsi signs them all up for the spring musical. She says it's because they should take this last opportunity to work together, but really she's just thwarting Sharpay's desire for a one-woman show. Gabriella convinces everyone to do the show, and Ms. Darbus tells them it will be all about their senior year experiences. She also tells them that Kelsi, Ryan, Sharpay, and Troy are all up for one scholarship slot at Juilliard. The selection committee will attend the show and make their decision then. (There is a fine disregard for how scholarships actually work in this film. Just go with it.)
Sharpay acquires an assistant named Tiara, and Chad and Troy acquire toadies. Gabriella is accepted to a special Freshman orientation at Stanford because of her big brain, and Sharpay schemes (I know, it's such a surprise!) to get her to go, so that she can sing Gabriella's part. Her reasoning is that Kelsi always writes the best songs for Troy and Gabriella. She tries to recruit Ryan, but he's not buying into her plot this time around. He does ask Kelsi to prom, though.
Gabriella goes to the Orientation, and Troy angsts about being apart from her. He doesn't know what his future should hold. In an emo-fest of a song, he breaks into the school to ponder this and meets Ms. Darbus, who tells him she submitted the application to Juilliard in his name. Gabriella calls and breaks up with Troy so that she doesn't have to keep saying goodbye to him. Troy hops into his junker of a truck and drives all the way to California to dance with her. They don't make it back by the start of the show.
With the Juilliard folks in attendance, the show gets underway, with understudies in for Troy and Sharpay (because Sharpay is taking over Gabriella's part). Troy and Gabriella arrive just in time to save their big romantic number from Sharpay and Troy's hammy, nervous understudy. At the end of the show, Ms. Darbus announces that Ryan and Kelsi won the scholarships (they were so impressive that Juilliard added another one), and Troy declares that he's going to college in California to be near Gabriella. There's a big graduation-themed song and dance, and everyone goes out smiling.
The Fandom: Celebrating HSM in All Its Glory
There seem to be two kinds of fan in the High School Musical fandom. There are the fans who truly think these are the best movies EVAR, and there are the fans who admit that these films are flawed, flawed, flawed, but love them anyway. Both types of fans write fic in a variety of pairings. There are a few canon pairings which get fan attention:
The ultimate canon pairing, Troy/Gabriella is often shipped by people who ship the actors as well. You are likely to find Zac/Vanessa fic mixed in with your Troy/Gabriella fic. (I hate the name mashups, but this is called Troyella.)
Chad asks Taylor out at the end of the first movie, and they're still together in the third, but this pairing doesn't seem to get a lot of love. There are fans of it out there, though, and they call it Chaylor.
Ryan and Kelsi work on shows together, go to prom together, and share a hat fetish. They've developed a following as a couple, and they're known as Ryelsi.
Less than canon:
In the first movie, Troy says that Sharpay is pretty, and in all three films, Sharpay shows interest in Troy. In the second movie, she gets him alone quite a bit, so there's a lot of room to fill in the blanks with some shippiness. These guys are called Troypay.
Yes, I know it's incest. Ryan and Sharpay obviously spend a lot of time together and depend on one another, and they do shows where they play romantic parts opposite one another. This pairing is called Rypay.
In High School Musical 2, Chad and Ryan duke it out on the baseball diamond in a super-slashy game, and then trade clothes. Thereafter, they are friends ... and maybe more. (You should definitely readqueenitsy's ship manifesto for this pairing.) They are most commonly known as Chyan, although there's an argument for Rad.
Chad and Troy are bestest buds who share a locker room. Chad is considerably upset when Troy starts spending time on Gabriella, and the two of them have a big dance scene together in HSM3. I think these guys are called Choy.
There are tons of different pairing options, though. You can find Jason/Martha, Troy/Ryan, Ryan/Gabriella, Zeke/Sharpay, Taylor/Kelsi, etc., etc. This is high school, after all, and break-ups and new hook-ups are to be expected. If you're willing to brave The Pit, you'll find a lot of fic there for all pairings.
The Fandom on LiveJournal
The following comms have fic on LJ (if the comm name says what you'll find there, I haven't bothered to clarify):
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hsm_fics (seems to be gen and het)
hsmslash
hsmusical_slash
troypayxlove
troypay
troy_ryan
rypay
idontdance (a Chad/Ryan comm)
chyanxlove
ryelsi_fans
There are also comms for fans of the movies in general, for graphics, and for RPGs. Just search interests for 'High School Musical' or 'HSM'. If you have other good links, feel free to include them in comments.
Summary: TL;DR
I'm not here to tell you that you have to love these movies, and I'm not here to tell you that you have to come out of your HSM closet, if you're in one. But I am here to tell you that there's a lot of good fic in this fandom, and a refreshing enthusiasm. I hope you'll give it a chance.
If you ask your friends about High School Musical, chances are you won't hear many rave reviews. But the thing is, millions and millions of people have watched these movies. And a lot of them, even self-respecting fangirls (and fanboys, we don't discriminate here) like them. Like them enough to stop channel surfing when they chance across High School Musical 1 or 2 rerunning on Disney Channel. Like them enough to sing along if they're certain no one can hear them. Like them enough to sneak off to the theater and see High School Musical 3. And they certainly like these movies enough to create some good fandom around them.
I'm here today to tell you it's okay to like these fluffy, plot-holey Disney movies, and it's more than okay to enjoy the fandom. So sit back and relax, and let me share with you the joy that is High School Musical.
The Main Characters: Bring on the Pretty
Troy Bolton
Troy is the main protagonist in all three High School Musical movies. Played by Zac Efron (as if you didn't know), Troy is the star and captain of the basketball team (and also the coach's son, which no one seems to see as nepotism). In the first film he discovers a love of musical theatre and a love of Gabriella Montez, both of which carry through all three movies.
Gabriella Montez
Gabriella is our second protagonist and Troy's love interest. Played by Vanessa Hudgens, Gabriella is used to moving frequently due to her mother's job, and she's a self confessed "genius girl." She has always loved to sing, but feared the spotlight until she met Troy and sang with him. *cue sighs*
Chad Danforth
Chad loves basketball and is Troy's best friend. After three movies, we don't know much more about him than those two facts, and they drive his character throughout all three movies. He is played by Corbin Bleu.
Sharpay Evans
Sharpay, portrayed by Ashley Tisdale, is the diva of East High and our go-to villain. Co-President of the Drama Club, Sharpay is used to having the spotlight to herself (she doesn't count sharing it with her brother, Ryan, because he makes her look good), and she resents all attempts to take it away. She pursues Troy, but it seems to be motivated more by vanity than by affection.
Ryan Evans
Ryan's character undergoes a transformation over the course of the three movies. In the beginning little more than comic relief and a pawn for his sister, by the third movie he's a part of the gang who cares about other people's feelings. One thing that never changes is his passionate love of dance. He's played by Lucas Grabeel.
Taylor McKessie
Taylor, played by Monique Coleman, is the head of the Scholastic Decathlon team, and she quickly becomes Gabriella's best friend. She's no-nonsense and organized, and she dates Chad in a kind of asexual way after the end of the first movie.
Secondary Characters: Who are These People in My Fic?
Kelsi Nielsen
Kelsi, played by Olesya Rulin, writes the music for the various shows we see in the High School Musical movies. Despite her obvious talent, she doesn't seem to get much respect before Gabriella arrives to turn East High on its collective ear.
Zeke Baylor
On the basketball team with Troy and Chad, Zeke - who is played by Chris Warren, Jr. - outs himself as a secret baker in the first movie. He also has a crush on Sharpay that persists despite her ... charming personality.
Martha Cox
Played by the effervescent KayCee Stroh, Martha is a brain who likes to dance hiphop. In the third movie, she's on the cheerleading squad.
Jason Cross
Jason is played by Ryne Sanborn. He's on the basketball team, and he's the kid who asks awkward questions and who misses social cues.
Ms. Darbus
Ms. Darbus, played by Alyson Reed, is that over-the-top Drama teacher that schools on TV always need to have. She takes her little high school theatre seriously, and heaven help the student who disagrees. She does seem to have affection for her students, despite her bombast.
Coach Bolton
Coach Bolton gets to be the stereotypical parent who just doesn't understand. Played by Bart Johnson, Coach Bolton pushes his son to focus all of his energy on basketball, regardless of Troy's actual wishes. He's less horrible in the third movie.
Plot Summaries: Watch Out For Falling Logic
High School Musical: Less Gay Than Fame, More Musical Than Saved By The Bell
Troy and Gabriella have a classic meet-cute when they are selected to sing karaoke together at a ski lodge New Year's Eve party. They get flirty and exchange phone numbers, but don't really expect to see one another again. In a very Grease plot development, Gabriella transfers to East High after the break and finds that Troy is a student there. Drawn together by their mutual attraction and their desire to sing, they wind up auditioning together for the winter musicale and getting a call back, much to the consternation of reigning thespians, Sharpay and Ryan Evans.
Somehow, Gabriella and Troy's willingness to break out of their fore-ordained roles (brain and jock) to audition for the musical sends the whole school into a tailspin, as people break into song at lunch, confessing their secrets to their classmates. Sharpay takes this as a sign that if Gabriella and Troy get the parts, not only will she be out on her duff, but civilization as we know it will end. She and Ryan plot. Meanwhile, the basketball team is concerned that Troy is losing focus because he's thinking about the musical and Gabriella, and the Scholastic Decathlon team worries that they're going to lose their recently acquired brainiac. Chad and the basketball team join with Taylor and the Scholastic Decathlon team in plotting.
Basically, there's a whole lot of plotting going on.
Through cunning use of surveillance technology, Taylor and Chad convince Gabriella that Troy's a jerk who doesn't want to audition with her. Troy and Gabriella split up. All seems lost for our singing lovebirds. But wait! This is a Disney movie. Moved by the plight of their friends (and noticing that they don't seem interested in basketball and academic competitions when they're heartbroken), the various East High Wildcats scheme to get Troy and Gabriella back together. And it works, yay! Everything is sweetness and light until Sharpay convinces Ms. Darbus to reschedule the call backs to coincide with the big basketball game and Scholastic Decathlon meet, which will be taking place simultaneously. All of the other Wildcats conspire to rig things so that Troy and Gabriella can still make their audition. They short out the basketball scoreboard and set off a chemical reaction in the Scholastic Decathlon meet, and Troy and Gabriella sneak out during all the hullaballoo. They audition and get the parts, the basketball team wins the big game, and the Scholastic Decathlon team takes first place. Everyone is happy, there's a big dance sequence, the end.
High School Musical 2: With 50% More Angst and 300% More Swimsuits
It's the last day of school, and everyone celebrates the release from school in traditional TV fashion, with much running through the halls and throwing of papers. Troy celebrates by labeling Gabriella as his with a pendant bearing his initial, and Sharpay celebrates by scheming to get the "primo boy" at East High (that would be Troy) for her very own. To that end, she tells the manager of the Lava Springs Country Club (which her super-rich parents own) to hire Troy for the summer. But Troy doesn't come alone, and soon the entire student body of East High (or at least all of Troy's friends) are working at the country club. The Wildcats are glad for the jobs, since they all need money, but they're oddly put out when they find they're actually expected to work. We also learn that there's an annual talent show that Sharpay always wins.
Sharpay plots ways to separate Troy from Gabriella and their friends, getting him a job as a golf instructor and setting him up to meet college basketball players while Chad and Taylor and everyone are slaving away. She even manages to work him into her act for the summer talent show, which leaves Ryan out in the cold (metaphorically. It's summer in the desert, after all).
Ryan winds up hanging out with the other East High students, playing baseball and choreographing their talent show act, and generally enjoying spending time with people who aren't his sister. Sharpay can't have that, so she gets the employees banned from the talent show. Sick of Sharpay's scheming and Troy's generally idiocy, Gabriella quits her job and dumps Troy. Troy comes to his senses and makes up with his friends. As a surprise twist, Ryan schemes, and gets Troy out on stage with Gabriella, where they make up through song. (Awwww!) Ryan wins the talent show, even though he didn't actually perform, and everyone goes and jumps in the pool. (This is where that microsecond cameo by Miley Cyrus happens.)
Note: If you've got time,
poisonivory's HSM2 recap is hilarious and awesome.High School Musical 3: Wow, That's Cinematic!
It's the final semester of senior year for our intrepid band of Wildcats, and they've got a lot going on. So they aren't exactly thrilled when Kelsi signs them all up for the spring musical. She says it's because they should take this last opportunity to work together, but really she's just thwarting Sharpay's desire for a one-woman show. Gabriella convinces everyone to do the show, and Ms. Darbus tells them it will be all about their senior year experiences. She also tells them that Kelsi, Ryan, Sharpay, and Troy are all up for one scholarship slot at Juilliard. The selection committee will attend the show and make their decision then. (There is a fine disregard for how scholarships actually work in this film. Just go with it.)
Sharpay acquires an assistant named Tiara, and Chad and Troy acquire toadies. Gabriella is accepted to a special Freshman orientation at Stanford because of her big brain, and Sharpay schemes (I know, it's such a surprise!) to get her to go, so that she can sing Gabriella's part. Her reasoning is that Kelsi always writes the best songs for Troy and Gabriella. She tries to recruit Ryan, but he's not buying into her plot this time around. He does ask Kelsi to prom, though.
Gabriella goes to the Orientation, and Troy angsts about being apart from her. He doesn't know what his future should hold. In an emo-fest of a song, he breaks into the school to ponder this and meets Ms. Darbus, who tells him she submitted the application to Juilliard in his name. Gabriella calls and breaks up with Troy so that she doesn't have to keep saying goodbye to him. Troy hops into his junker of a truck and drives all the way to California to dance with her. They don't make it back by the start of the show.
With the Juilliard folks in attendance, the show gets underway, with understudies in for Troy and Sharpay (because Sharpay is taking over Gabriella's part). Troy and Gabriella arrive just in time to save their big romantic number from Sharpay and Troy's hammy, nervous understudy. At the end of the show, Ms. Darbus announces that Ryan and Kelsi won the scholarships (they were so impressive that Juilliard added another one), and Troy declares that he's going to college in California to be near Gabriella. There's a big graduation-themed song and dance, and everyone goes out smiling.
The Fandom: Celebrating HSM in All Its Glory
There seem to be two kinds of fan in the High School Musical fandom. There are the fans who truly think these are the best movies EVAR, and there are the fans who admit that these films are flawed, flawed, flawed, but love them anyway. Both types of fans write fic in a variety of pairings. There are a few canon pairings which get fan attention:
Troy/Gabriella
The ultimate canon pairing, Troy/Gabriella is often shipped by people who ship the actors as well. You are likely to find Zac/Vanessa fic mixed in with your Troy/Gabriella fic. (I hate the name mashups, but this is called Troyella.)
Chad/Taylor
Chad asks Taylor out at the end of the first movie, and they're still together in the third, but this pairing doesn't seem to get a lot of love. There are fans of it out there, though, and they call it Chaylor.
Ryan/Kelsi
Ryan and Kelsi work on shows together, go to prom together, and share a hat fetish. They've developed a following as a couple, and they're known as Ryelsi.
Less than canon:
Troy/Sharpay
In the first movie, Troy says that Sharpay is pretty, and in all three films, Sharpay shows interest in Troy. In the second movie, she gets him alone quite a bit, so there's a lot of room to fill in the blanks with some shippiness. These guys are called Troypay.
Ryan/Sharpay
Yes, I know it's incest. Ryan and Sharpay obviously spend a lot of time together and depend on one another, and they do shows where they play romantic parts opposite one another. This pairing is called Rypay.
Chad/Ryan
In High School Musical 2, Chad and Ryan duke it out on the baseball diamond in a super-slashy game, and then trade clothes. Thereafter, they are friends ... and maybe more. (You should definitely read
queenitsy's ship manifesto for this pairing.) They are most commonly known as Chyan, although there's an argument for Rad.Chad/Troy
Chad and Troy are bestest buds who share a locker room. Chad is considerably upset when Troy starts spending time on Gabriella, and the two of them have a big dance scene together in HSM3. I think these guys are called Choy.
There are tons of different pairing options, though. You can find Jason/Martha, Troy/Ryan, Ryan/Gabriella, Zeke/Sharpay, Taylor/Kelsi, etc., etc. This is high school, after all, and break-ups and new hook-ups are to be expected. If you're willing to brave The Pit, you'll find a lot of fic there for all pairings.
The Fandom on LiveJournal
The following comms have fic on LJ (if the comm name says what you'll find there, I haven't bothered to clarify):
hsm_fics (seems to be gen and het)hsmslashhsmusical_slashtroypayxlovetroypaytroy_ryanrypay idontdance (a Chad/Ryan comm)chyanxlove ryelsi_fansThere are also comms for fans of the movies in general, for graphics, and for RPGs. Just search interests for 'High School Musical' or 'HSM'. If you have other good links, feel free to include them in comments.
Summary: TL;DR
I'm not here to tell you that you have to love these movies, and I'm not here to tell you that you have to come out of your HSM closet, if you're in one. But I am here to tell you that there's a lot of good fic in this fandom, and a refreshing enthusiasm. I hope you'll give it a chance.