Film

It’s Time We Acknowledge The Cultural Impact Of ‘High School Musical’

From its own franchise to 'Glee', 'Pitch Perfect' and reviving the movie musical- the movie musical owes a lot to those Wildcats.

by Merryana Salem  27 January 2021
High-School-Musical

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15 years ago, on January 20th in 2006 a little movie aired on Disney Channel called High School Musical.  Despite its relatively tiny budget and a cast of unknowns, it spawned two more films, a multitude of spin-offs that are still being produced, and breathed life back into a dying genre.

Many critics were and are baffled by High School Musical‘s enduring success. Even some of its original stars have come to resent it’s inexplicable, never-waning popularity in the hearts and minds of anyone who grew up watching the original trio of films.

But I’m sure if anyone genuinely knew the answer as to why the original High School Musical was so instantly and faithfully loved, that answer would have been bottled and sold to the highest bidder long ago. But for the record, it’s not as if the film was made by amateurs.

While the cast may have been unknowns, HSM was directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega, who directed of cult classics like Hocus Pocus, and choreographed iconic films like Dirty Dancing, Newsies and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s true that some things are just made with the right ingredients at the right time, and there’s no one thing that can be attributed to its magic, but it never hurts to acknowledge that HSM had some talented minds behind it.

But I’m not writing to attempt to explain why High School Musical is great. We know that it is. What I want to talk about is how High School Musical revived the popularity of the movie musical and that, without it, the movie musical would still be residing in the washed-up fringes of the tv movie, the straight-off broadway adaptation, and gimmicky musical episode.

Prior to the release of High School Musical,  the majority of movie musicals with original songs and characters were animated and, more often than not, released straight to TV. Movie musicals that did make it to the big screen were usually either musicals with an established audience from broadway, animated, or musicals featuring songs that were already popular (known as the jukebox musical).

The noughties and nineties did have a few live-action original musicals and what I call, musical-adjacent films. But the majority of live-action musicals released to cinema were adaptations of broadway musicals like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Dream Girls, Chicago, or The Producers. Or jukebox musicals like Across the Universe, Moulin Rouge, or The Blues Brothers. 

School of Rock, The Fighting Temptations, Everyone Says I Love You, 8-Mile, and The Five Heartbeats make up the handful of major live-action musicals featuring original music in the twenty years preceding High School Musical‘s release.

In the early 2000s, the movie musical wasn’t dead by any means, but it was waning in enthusiasm, and High School Musical had a lot stacked against it in terms of even generating interest.  The music and characters were all original with no previously established fanbase to guarantee an enthusiastic audience like Chicago or Dreamgirls. It didn’t have the star power of a Moulin Rouge or 8-Mile either, as the majority of HSM‘s main cast were unknowns in any industry getting their first big break.

It’s all this that sets the scene for what makes what High School Musical and its legacy achieved after January 20th 2006 so astounding.

Following High School Musical‘s explosive success live-action musicals, both original and jukebox simply boomed. The year 2007 alone saw a string of popular movie musicals capitalising on the moment, like Hairspray, Enchanted, Once, and Sweeney Todd. Closing out the noughties, we also saw major musicals in cinemas like Mamma Mia, Bandslam, Fruit Fly, and Fame.

Not to mention the uprising live-action musical and musical-adjacent cinema of the 2010s. Burlesque, the Pitch Perfect franchise, Joyful Noise, La La Land, Anna And The Apocalypse, and Been So Long – many of these films garnering critical acclaim as well as incredible success at the box office, tailing the momentum of revitalised enthusiasm for the movie musical inspired by HSM.

This post-HSM boom wasn’t limited to the cinema either. The live-action musical tv series was more or less unheard of prior to High School Musical. Series such as Glee, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Get Down, Nashville, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and Jullie and the Phantoms – owe their existence to the cultural legacy of High School Musical, and how the film made a whole generation love the live-action musical once more.

None of this even scratches the sides of the impact High School Musical had on the Disney Channel itself. The rise of the Disney Channel Original Movie seemed unstoppable post-HSM, spawning the Camp Rock franchise which, while not as astronomically successful, is almost directly responsible for launching the careers of Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers.  Other successful Disney Channel Original Musicals included Lemonade Mouth, Starstruck, Teen Beach Movie, and The Descendants Franchise— all spiritual descendants of High School Musical.

It’s also worth mentioning that the success of Hannah Montana, and thus Miley Cyrus, was in no small part connected to HSM as well. The musical series launched in the same year and was advertised heavily during High School Musical‘s commercial breaks. In fact, Hannah Montana’s first episode aired on March 24, 2006, as a lead-in to a rerun of High School Musical. This connection was acknowledged when Miley Cyrus made a cameo in High School Musical 2‘s finale number, ‘All for One.’

All this is before we even consider the High School Musical franchise’s latest reboot, the Disney Plus original series, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. I confess, I am little too much of a High School Musical purist and have not seen it. But I know one thing for sure, none of us would be crying to Olivia Rodrigo’s viral hit,  ‘Drivers Licence’ if the original High School Musical hadn’t been so successful that Rodrigo would star in its reboot and release a sad banger about the on-set drama.

It has been 15 years. The cultural impact of this low-budget Disney Channel Original Musical appears even more unstoppable and immeasurable, and certainly not what anyone could have expected or imagined. Even now as I sit sipping water out of the Troy Bolton print cup I’ve had since 2007, it’s a little maddening for me to consider that the Disney Channel musical everyone in my life roasted me for enjoying has influenced so much of pop-culture.

High School Musical revitalised an entire genre of storytelling that had up until then 2006 sidelined, relegated to a genre exclusively for theatregoers. It inspired sequels, spin-offs, reboots, careers, and for me, wholly unrealistic expectations of high school– But what more can I say after 15 years than, once a wildcat always a wildcat.

Merryana Salem is a proud Wonnarua and Lebanese–Australian critic, teacher, researcher and podcaster on most social media as @akajustmerry. If you want, check out her podcast, GayV Club where she gushes about LGBT rep in media with her best friend. Either way, she hopes you ate something nice today.