High School Musical is one of the most well-known Disney Channel movies of all time. From its iconic musical numbers to its picture-perfect portrayal of teenage life, it depicted high school as a place full of singing down the hallways, spontaneous dance numbers, and theatrical drama. Once you actually get there, reality sets in. There are no coordinated dances in the lunch room, no major choreographed numbers, and definitely no breaking into song in the middle of a sports game.
Walking into high school for the first time can be a huge letdown compared to what Disney had promised. Students are often met with tired faces and teachers handing out syllabi like candy. Instead of high-fiving and breaking out into song and dance throughout the day, students can commonly be seen getting bumped around in the hallways and rushing to class. Not everyone is a basketball player or cheerleader, and not everyone has a boyfriend or girlfriend. Disney created a false reality that makes high school far less exciting than viewers imagined. “I was kind of excited to go to high school. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna find this big group of friends and I’m gonna be a cheerleader, and then I’m gonna date somebody’. And it’s just like, I’m not a cheerleader, and I’m not dating anybody,” junior Samantha Gross said.
One major aspect not shown in Disney movies is the amount of homework high schoolers have to manage. It’s not always just about basketball or the latest musical, but rather balancing school life with jobs, friends, sports, and clubs. The average high school student receives around 2.7 hours of homework per weeknight, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for spontaneous musical numbers. “It’s definitely like a lot more work, like in movies they don’t really show how much you do with homework and classes,” sophomore Brooke Parry said.
Social groups are also highly idealized in High School Musical compared to reality. Most of the friendships seen in the movie are with people who have the exact same likes and interests, and their friendships don’t really go deeper than that. The nerds are friends with the nerds, the cheerleaders are friends with the cheerleaders, the jocks with the jocks, and so on. Everyone has their own group to hang out with and has to always make sure they are sticking to the status quo. This leads to characters seeming two-dimensional and lacking personality traits that make them more complex and relatable. “I feel like it’s just like, ‘Oh, they’re all just the same person, so they’re all friends with each other,’ when in reality, people in friend groups are so different from each other,” Gross said.
Still, without choreographed dance numbers and set friend groups, high school has its own way of being a movie. Friendships are deeper, there’s less drama, and people don’t have to worry about being mislabeled for being friends with whoever they want to be friends with. While it may not come with catchy songs and dramatic hooks, the real-life connections and unforgettable experiences are what make the real version of high school so cherishable and memorable. “I don’t think people dramatize anything here. Some people just want to be liked and have a good friendship with others, make good memories,” junior Scarlet Scheff said.