Live action Disney channel productions in which fresh-faced teenagers look like they just got back from swimming in Lip Gloss Quarry typically do not appeal to me. There was something about the runaway popularity of High School Musical, however, that always piqued my interest, mostly because I wanted to understand what such an innocuous-seeming TV movie had going for it (besides a fantastic title). And when my nieces (seven and four) suggested (by shouting) that we watch High School Musical (“HISKULMOOSKUL!”), I was only too happy to take hold of that idea and run with it, especially since our other alternatives are usually nightmarishly-digitized Barbie movies that can make you actually fear that toys will take over the world.*

OMG WE CAN SING!

When we rented the DVD from Blockbuster, it was as if we had made their wildest dreams come true. Their teeny little bodies were literally wriggling, and they fought over clutching the DVD case at the store. They sang the entire way home, in perfect unison, songs that I would be singing myself a few hours later, and songs that I am singing as I type this and will be singing as I birth my future children and will continue to sing to the elderly dudes that will hit on me in the nursing home. In sum, HSM is dippy, predictable, and perfect for kids/people who secretly like dippy, predictable musicals.

OMG WHAT??

But that’s not all that’s good about High School Musical. It’s no secret that Disney is one of the most progressive corporate giants in terms of social equality and civil rights, and sometimes you can see this attitude trickle down into even their shiniest, most G-rated products. Troy (Zac Efron) is East High’s star basketball player who discovers that he has a whole other dormant talent, a sweet little voice that comes out magically sounding as if it’s been put through a thousand machines! At the same time, Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) is a brainy transfer who just wants to remain anonymous at East, but realizes suddenly that she also loves to belt out pop tunes! The two stand up in the face of Drama Queen and King (well, maybe Drama Queen and Queen), Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel), and sign up for auditions for the school’s winter musical.

Sometimes HSM appears to look like other movies, but that's just a coincidence.

This throws everyone for a loop. Jocks aren’t supposed to be into the theater and scholastic decathletes aren’t supposed to be into jocks. Other kids at the school begin to bring out their secret passions as well that don’t fit perfectly with their clique’s stereotypes. The emergence of athletic bakers, brainy hip hop dancers, and stoner cellists (stoner cellists!!) throw everyone off, and the rest of the student body attempts to squash this threat to their happy homogeneity.

WE ARE BASKETBALL PLAYERS WHO SING AND DANCE ABOUT HOW MUCH WE HATE SINGING AND DANCING. BOOYA!

It seems like a pretty standard message, but it’s one that, I think, is a little more accessible than the Ugly Duckling Named Cinderella theme that kids always get spoonfed. Troy and Gabriella don’t need makeovers to accomplish their goals, they just need all of their friends to get over themselves and stop pigeonholing everyone. WELL I WON’T RUIN IT FOR YOU but let’s just say that there aren’t just auditions to conquer, there are championship basketball games and scholastic decathlons, all at the same time. And nobody goes home unhappy.

Don't worry, you're supposed to think they're ridiculous.

So if you’re babysitting or something and you need a wildly entertaining kids’ flick…wait what am I saying?? I’m bending to the status quo machine! Rent this for you and you alone! But if you want to roll your eyes a little bit at the happy tears in your niece’s eyes, just remember…High School Musical is the Newsies of the 21^st Century, and I don’t even want to know how fast you guys would get up and get into formation if I started singing “Seize the Day.”

Yeah, I went there.

*Also, the look of pure excitement in Kelly’s eyes when I mentioned to her that that’s what the kids wanted to watch really melted the ol’ heart.

It's been a dicey week in Susanville. I started out sort of sick, then I had some horrific recent-break-up fallout, followed by some tension with one of my BFFs (sorry, buddy), which was followed by me having to admit to my entire office that even though we were being reimbursed, I couldn't afford hotel reservations for this conference I don't want to go to in the first place,* and then Netflix not receiving two of my movies that I sent four days ago.

I hope you can see how Netflix figures into this. Because of the puffy eyes and the dried snot on my face leftover from all this trauma, it's not exactly like I can go out and tear up the town. I've been allowing myself to indulge in a little sitting at home in sweatpants eating bags of Doritos and talking online to hot dudes who have no idea that I'm sitting around in sweatpants eating bags of Doritos, and a prime factor in sitting around is DVDs.

On Sunday, before everything really started its downward spiral**, Kelly and I watched Oklahoma! I have one of those "When I was a kid I watched this movie over and over" stories for this, but I'll just skip it. Anyway, it was fun and boisterous and dancy and colorful, and there are a billion songs that are all catchy. It's like a mood elevator that has the added (and incredible) bonus of singing/dancing cowboys.

I immediately remembered that life is awesome, etc.

Then either Netflix or the US Postal Service or some evil conspiracy consisting of both lost Oklahoma! en route to its home base. Those of you who don't use Netflix (yet) know that this means that I just have to sit here (in sweatpants), staring at my rigid Netflix queue, and pleading them to receive Oklahoma! so I can just get another goddamn feel good movie! It wouldn't bother me so much if  the error actually allowed me to keep the movie longer. But as it is, I have 80 Rodgers and Hammerstein songs in my head and no movie with which to sing along. Instead I just have to worry about poor Gordon McRae and Shirley Jones warbling somewhere together in postal oblivion, never getting delivered to the Richmond Netflix shipping center, and never giving them the green light to send me South Pacific!

What's the big deal, you say? Why can't I just throw in a disc from The Office or rewatch Charlies Angels: Full Throttle?

Although I definitely enjoy the antics of both Ricky Gervais and Lucy Liu, there's just something so wholesomely compelling about Zinneman's musical cowboy flick that goes beyond mere escapism. Or, rather, it summons up a realization that at one time in our cultural history, a wide cross-section of society chose to believe that the trials of the Old West weren't any harder than finding the right accessories for your buggy, shootin' knotholes, and picking peaches. They actually didn't find it ridiculous that farmers and cowboys would end a rivalry on the dance floor of an unfinished barn. They really believed that real fights would break out over who bid the highest number of "bits" for a lady's lunch basket. It's the ultimate escape! A visit to a fantasy world - the Fifties - who idealized the pre-state West within an inch of its life until it became even more fantastic.

Either way, my week took a sharp turn in the up direction, and now I want to go out. But maybe Oklahoma! knew that and froze my Netflix distribution on purpose. Curly wants me to go to the box social. He knows that hunnerds of fellas will bid on my li'l ol' basket. And if you see me around, you better be prepared to give me an "Oklahoma hello."

(ok this is from the stage version, but I couldn't resist)

*Joan says we'll have fun.
**Be aware that a good 80% of this is just in my head. Once you buy a ticket for the self-pity train, it's hard to get off.