The Big One: The 'High School Musical' phenomenon

It’s the most-watched US cable broadcast of all time. Its soundtrack became the world’s biggest-selling album of 2006. And it’s been re-enacted in more than 1500 high schools and community theatres across the United States. High School Musical - a Disney Channel made-for-TV movie - is arguably the biggest pop culture phenomenon of our time.

But what is it? If you’re over 13, and haven’t had much contact with excitable kiddiwinks during the last year, you could be forgiven for knowing absolutely nothing about this relentlessly optimistic cheese-fest. So here’s a handy precis: Troy Bolton, the captain of the East High basketball team, and Gabriella Montez, the school’s most gifted student, are desperate to star in the school musical, but they’re hamstrung by their allegiances to their cliques. Is it possible for Troy to be Michael Crawford as well as Michael Jordan? Can Gabriella combine studying with singing? The answers to these questions are never in doubt, but High School Musical keeps us hangin’ on for an hour-and-a-half by reeling out a procession of chipper pop songs, snappy dance routines and earnest self-empowerment messages nicked from The Oprah Winfrey Show.

It’s not immediately obvious how this modest Disney Channel production, made for a paltry £2 million, became a worldwide TV sensation. The acting flits between hammy and wooden; the characters are as two-dimensional as that cardboard cut-out of Kim Wilde outside your local branch of Holland & Barrett, and the movie’s out-of-sync dub job would shame an early eighties pop video. Though director Kenny Ortega shoots the movie in a lurid day-glo colour palette, there’s no mistaking the cheapness of its production values. And realism is clearly an afterthought: Troy’s supposed to be a basketball player with college scholarship potential, but the actor who plays him, tween pin-up Zac Efron, is so slight he’d be turned away from the scarier rides at Alton Towers.

What’s more, its songs don’t really hold their own when divorced from the boundless joie de vivre of the movie. ‘Breakin’ Free’ became a transatlantic top ten smash thanks to its lethal, candy-coated hook, but most of the soundtrack is an unholy marriage of Broadway grandstanding and sexless, slightly dated teen pop. ‘We’re All In This Together’ makes a token concession to hipness by appropriating the marching band beat of Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’ – and the verses of ‘Stick To The Status Quo’ flirt flaccidly with funk – but, for the most part, the High School Musical soundtrack is as cutting edge as the Carpenters. As Chad, Troy’s best mate, notes: "That music's not hip-hop or rock or anything to do with culture. It's, like, show music." This is the sole in-joke of the movie.

And yet, High School Musical is far from a creative wash-out. Peter Barsocchini’s script brilliantly captures the way in which teenagers use their cliques to shape their social identities. At East High, the jocks hang with the jocks, the geeks stick with the geeks and the punks play with the punks. The movie’s most vibrant scene shows the students breaking free from the shackles of their peer groups – one sporty chap reveals he has a secret passion for baking crème brulee – in a Grease-style song and dance spectacular. Only the most curmudgeonly old crone could fail to be moved.

At its best, often when Ortega’s dazzling choreography is ushered to the fore, High School Musical offers guilt-free escapism of the highest order. Barsocchini believes it's found such a large audience because today's youngsters are expected to grow up too soon. “A lot of its success has to do with kids being so inundated with lectures on drugs, violence and sex,” he told Gay Spy recently. “High School Musical is the opposite of all that. It's light, fun and fluffy. We don't have some big message. I think kids want to be kids because it gets taken away from them pretty young.”

And there’s little doubt that the world’s tweenagers have taken High School Musical to their hearts; as Barsocchini recalls, “Text messaging on all the major US carriers spiked massively when it was first shown”. But it’s just as important to acknowledge its huge parent appeal. Its script pushes messages – Teamwork matters! It’s the taking part that counts! Friends are important! – that all parents want to instill in their children. What’s more, there’s nothing remotely threatening about High School Musical: its leads are pleasantly cute rather than pant-wettingly gorgeous; nobody ever stays miserable for more than 30 seconds, and its plot is as devoid of sex as Cliff Richard’s bedroom. In fact, the burgeoning romance between Troy and Gabriella notwithstanding, High School Musical doesn’t feature a single kiss.

So there we have it, High School Musical is kitsch, sexless and hopelessly clichéd, but it manages to offer a giddy sense of fun to a generation that's overdosing on seriousness. Kids, parents, ne'er grow ups, we've got some good news for you: it's only a matter of weeks until the Disney Channel screens the sequel.