OMG! HSM3

The entertainment event of the century has come. Although, as college students, we have been sheltered from its apocalyptic ramifications, the musical messiah has in fact come – a third time.

All weekend tweenie-boppers across the nation sang and danced their little hearts out to the beats of the newest cultural cataclysm: “High School Musical 3.”
Ahh, the Disney marketing machine.

They’ve proved once again that the recipe for big screen success is as simple as combining one teenage heartthrob, two pretty faces, several so-so voices and lots of singing and dancing. Just add water and several million dollars and POOF! Phenomenon.

From Uno games and laptop totes to study kits and Zac Efron socks, the Disney-savvy 7 year old need never be at a loss for HSM gear. Such sickening branding and consumerism begs the question: Just what are we teaching our children?

The crazy thing about “High School Musical” is the target demographic. Name aside, there is nothing about HSM that is exclusively high school. In fact, I took a kid that I babysat to see the stage show, and the average age of the audience was not the pre-teen 12 I expected, but was instead a whopping four, maybe five.

What we have on our hands is a generation of kids (mostly girls) who have idealized notions of high school before they have even started kindergarten. What’s more is that the school life that they are drinking down looks nothing like any high school that I know. East High is to real secondary school as Hannah Montana is to musician.

Perhaps the only thing we have to fear from a generation of youngsters who think that schooling is all song and dance is a litany of unfulfilled expectations. In fact, considering the violent over-sexed alternatives, maybe too much bubble-gum pink isn’t so bad.

But I can’t help but wonder what the HSM fallout might be. We caught a glimpse of it in the controversy over the Vanessa Hudgens naughty pictures incident, and presumably it’s only a matter of time before this new batch of squeaky-clean Disney stars goes the way of Lindsay Lohan. And when they do, what will it mean for the legions of disillusioned elementary schoolers left with nothing but their “We’re All in This Together” lunch boxes to cling to?

Perhaps the Facebook group of tomorrow won’t be “Disney Gave Me Unrealistic Expectations About Love,” but “Screw this, I’m going to East High.” Either way, I think while the HSM phenomenon is little more dangerous than teaching young girls to wait for princes, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good either.

By feeding kids a mouthful of snappy pop songs, set in a world where no one wears two-piece bathing suits, we are setting them up for disappointment. To the generation born in the 2000s, the myth of East High is the new Santa Claus, and I pity the parents who one day will have to explain to their child that no, Troy and Gabriella are not real ... and neither is the tooth fairy.