Please to asplain

October 10, 2008 2:43 AM

I do not 'get' appeal of the film "High School Musical 3: Senior Year". Am I just getting old, or has everyone else lost the plot?
posted by chuckdarwin to society & culture (15 comments total)

I think this'll probably get tossed as being chatfiltery, but I also don't get the appeal. I think there's demographics at play.
posted by empyrean at 2:56 AM on October 10

For what its worth, I'm 21 and I must be old too because I have no idea what the appeal is. Also- I refuse to fall for all of this Jonas brothers propaganda.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 2:56 AM on October 10

When I was in the cinema to see WALL-E, a trailer for the aforementioned HSM3 came on the screen... at full volume. Trapped like a rabbit in a snare, I literally had to put my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes and try to magic myself into a happy place where the bad, evil people didn't sing those awful fucking songs. When I came to, I had a little vomit in the back of my mouth, my fingers were actually lodged in my auditory canals and a small amount of blood had leaked from my eye sockets. I was weeping softly to myself and calling for my mother.

It seemed like a deformed gang of horrible, stage-parented circus freaks had brayed torturous, atonal dirges at me for several hours... but it was probably more like three minutes. Seriously, this shit is the worst thing to happen to humanity since taxes were invented. This the sort of music they blast at those poor bastards down in Guantanamo bay. Luckily, my children were as horrified by it as I was. Must be genetic.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:05 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]

Demographics is everything. Unless you are a girl born since 2000, I seriously doubt whether Disney has taken your likes and dislikes into consideration. For those who fit the demographic, this stuff is like cat-nip to kittens. In fact, imagine cat-nip with a huge marketing budget and kittens who know everything about emotional blackmail but very little about the concept of money well spent.

(spoken from the perspective of a father of a 5 year old HSM fanatic who has been invited to attend a HSM3 birthday party at the local cinema along with a whole bunch of other 5 year old HSM fanatics)
posted by oclipa at 3:24 AM on October 10 [4 favorites]

oclipa, that might be the best answer to any AskMe, ever. Like, since the site started.

You deserve some sort of baby pool filled with beer for that comment.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:27 AM on October 10

What oclipa said. Plus, isn't Zack Efron like a total hottie, OMG!!!
posted by mattholomew at 3:34 AM on October 10 [1 favorite]

Another HSM parent here, but with a different perspective: I actually kinda like the films. They're not "Singing in the Rain" by any stretch, but they are well-intentioned musicals with solid production and good pop songwriting. Keep in mind that many of the songs that are now standards probably sounded pretty insipid at the time ("Frim Fram Sauce," anyone?).
posted by jbickers at 4:06 AM on October 10

Also: Yes, you're getting old.
posted by jbickers at 4:07 AM on October 10

This should explain a lot of what is at work...
posted by Thorzdad at 4:31 AM on October 10

Youre 21? And you dont get a film aimed at tweenie girls? Youre an adult. Youre not supposed to have even really heard of it.
posted by daveyt at 4:55 AM on October 10

I was a camp counselor a few years ago and I had to learn to sing and play a bunch of HSM songs. They are indeed good pop songwriting -- I would even go so far as to say that out of context they're indistinguishable from "regular" modern bubblegum pop.
posted by danb at 5:07 AM on October 10

I agree with jbickers. I'm an HSM parent. I thought that the first one was good for what it was. That, plus massive marketing, pretty much explains the popularity.
posted by idb at 5:09 AM on October 10

Am I just getting old?

Here's a non-rhetorical question, in all seriousness: What do you expect entertainment marketed to, like, 8-year-olds to look like? When you were 8 years old, what kinds of things were marketed to you? Have you gone back and tried to watch the stuff you enjoyed in earnest when you were 8? I'd be willing to bet whatever it was, it was awful.

You have officially gotten old when you can no longer remember that young children don't have complex, interesting, or subtle taste in anything.
posted by 23skidoo at 5:44 AM on October 10 [1 favorite]

HSM3 has some of the same appeal as Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors: Red. This is senior year, man!
posted by box at 6:23 AM on October 10 [1 favorite]

Do you work in advertising or something? Why is this even on your radar.

(I am aware of the film, due to having done so .... )
posted by shownomercy at 6:50 AM on October 10