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I'm not a big fan of what Disney has done to Broadway. I liked Beauty and the Beast, in a "don't expect much" kind of way. I was totally underwhelmed by The Lion King; I thought the innovative staging was undermined by mediocre music and a superficial story of talking animals. (Somehow talking cutlery didn't seem as ridiculous. Go figure.)
But High School Musical raised Lion King to high art by comparison. This story of incredibly attractive teens who resist being labeled as the best ever at one thing, because they want to be seen as the best ever at everything is, from my aged perspective, a terrible lesson for impressionable kids. (And adults for that matter.) As with every production aimed at kids, the adults are either morons or monomaniacal villains, and generally both. And kids manage to resolve all their differences and see the errors of their ways by the final curtain. If it weren't so relentlessly upbeat (and so completely divorced from any reality I've ever experienced or observed), it would depress the hell out of me.
Still, this isn't about art, and it isn't an Afterschool Special. It's Disney doing what they do best and worst: creating a fantasy world that's brighter and cheerier and far more desirable than reality ever was. And making a couple of tons of money in the process. Oh, and giving us the next generation of Britneys and Christinas. Anybody want to take bets on which Musical star will be the first in rehab?
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