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1%%* ActorShipping: Everywhere.
2* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
3** Quite a few fans assume that Gabriella has trust and CommitmentIssues about getting close to people. Despite the fact she and Troy adore each other, she's repeatedly thinks he's going to hurt or leave her, and pushes him away in every film because of it.[[note]]In #1 it’s because of a set up video that everyone else I. Their school lives sets up and ended up pressured Troy into, in #2 Sharpay's fault and #3 Troy doesn't do anything at all.[[/note]] Then add in that she has a DisappearedDad, was [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation ostracized at her previous schools]] and apparently never had a permanent home (living somewhere longer than a year) and she borders on BrokenBird.
4--->'''Gabriella:''' I'm a lot better at saying goodbye than you. I've had a ton of practice.
5** Likewise, Troy seems less like an uber-popular BigManOnCampus and more of a BrokenAce worn down from years of being East High's golden boy. ''Every'' film has him breaking down over disappointing his Dad or friends, often while Chad and the Wildcats sit there criticizing him. His delight at Gabriella liking the [[BeneathTheMask "real him"]] makes you wonder when he'd last been allowed to just relax. One tumblr post argues him attending Berkeley was less about Gabriella and more about escaping everyone's expectations.
6** There is one blogger that claims that Gabriella is an abusive girlfriend to Troy and that he might be an emotionally broken character because of her, as this Tumblr user demonstrates [[https://web.archive.org/web/20170924061613/http://boltonevans.tumblr.com/post/136711493063/whats-your-opinion-on-gabriella-in-the-hsm-films here]], [[https://web.archive.org/web/20161107082451/http://boltonevans.tumblr.com:80/post/121779417273/how-is-gabriella-abusive-not-being-mean here]] or [[https://web.archive.org/web/20140823010611/http://boltonevans.tumblr.com/tagged/Anti-Troyella here]] (warning:some of the links are broken due to the posts being deleted).
7** [[https://twitter.com/SHARPAYSAVICTIM This]] Twitter user sees Sharpay as the [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/jenniferabidor/this-sharpay-theory-will-change-everything-you-thought-you?utm_term=.ubdbwnMgG#.plqDPwB9O victim of having her spotlight AND scholarship stolen]] by newbies whose only singing experience was at a karaoke and were luckily accepted as the main roles.[[note]]Of course it's entirely possible that Sharpay feels entitled to the lead role because she's never had any competition, and anyone who's worked in the performing industry knows that it's up to the directors and casting people to decide who's right for the part.[[/note]] However, this ignores that the scholarships are won by Kelsi and Ryan, who both genuinely earned them (and were both belittled by Sharpay in the past).
8** [[WebVideo/GameTheory Film Theory]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4TZEVqKIvs&t=893s proposes]] that the role of the true villain of the series is not Sharpay but... [[spoiler: Troy]]. Though it's not much of a spoiler considering the rant at the beginning...
9** Podcast/RiffTrax posits that in the first movie, Troy's dad sees Troy less as his son and more as his prized player. While it is angled at humor, the consistent tone of his father ignoring Troy's feelings and concerns for the championship does give some credence to the idea.
10---> Coach Bolton: But you're not just a guy, Troy!
11---> Rifftrax: You're my meal ticket! Son! Son, I mean son!
12* {{Anvilicious}}: The first film in particular is very heavy handed with its messages about not following the crowd and trying out new things. Not a bad Aesop but not a subtle one either.
13* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Every song in the movie clinches it:
14** As the one that started it all, "Start of Something New" has a special place in the hearts of the fans.
15%%** "Get'cha Head in the Game".
16** Both versions of "What I've Been Looking For" deserve attention for their respective strengths: the first for being danceable and upbeat, the second for its slower and methodical pacing.
17** "Stick to the Status Quo" is highlighted as one of most memorable and fun ensemble pieces of the series.
18** "When There Was Me and You" stands out specifically as having a few minutes just to highlight Creator/VanessaHudgens all on her own and it's a TearJerker that totally works.
19** "Bop to the Top" for its quick pacing and catchy beat helps make it worth remembering.
20** "Breaking Free".
21** "We're All In This Together".
22%%** The exclusive to soundtrack song "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" is worth remembering too.
23* CaptainObviousAesop: "Be yourself and don't bully others." Not a revolutionary concept, but a great way to pass on through the catchy music and dance moves.
24* ContestedSequel:
25** ''Film/HighSchoolMusical2''. Some saw it as a step in the right direction but many people pick up on a lot of issues, in particular the InformedWrongness of Troy's decisions (how dare you miss a baseball game to work for a scholarship!), the Wildcats' reactions (focusing on the future is bad), Sharpay [[{{TookALevelInJerkass}} taking a ridiculous level in jerkass]], and most of all ''it's not even set in high school!'' Also, other than the variety/talent show ''nor is there a musical either!''
26** ''Film/SharpaysFabulousAdventure''. It's ''barely'' a musical, and even factoring that and its spin-off status in it has a completely different "feel" to the other movies. And those are the minor points - it forgets that Sharpay was supposed to go to the University of Albuquerque after graduation and that Ryan and Kelsi went to New York (they had to rush just to get Lucas Grabeel into the movie at all, so much that his scene is only in the broadcast version).
27* DieForOurShip: Some fanfics demonize Taylor for "getting in the way" of the more popular Chad/Ryan pairing.
28* DracoInLeatherPants: While Sharpay has sympathetic qualities, some fans tend to give her more sympathy than she deserves by saying that she wasn’t a villain and is a victim. This negates the fact that not only was Sharpay a rude AlphaBitch to almost everyone she came across, but she (with Ryan) went out their way to convince Ms. Darbus to change the time of the audition schedule just to ensure that Troy and Gabriella cannot audition for the lead roles in the play. This also points to Sharpay not being willing to work for the lead role or feeling entitled to it. Then, in the second movie, she hits on Troy, knowing that he's in a relationship with Gabriella, and Troy can't tell her to back off because she's the daughter of his boss.
29* EnsembleDarkhorse: The increasingly fabulous Ryan. Since the first movie, he was already considered one of the most talented members of the cast, despite being just the villain's sidekick and a SatelliteCharacter at best. In the second movie, he gets a lot of CharacterDevelopment, ShipTease with Chad, a cute OddFriendship with Gabriella, and is shown to be very likable when not around his sister. In the third movie, he also becomes a DeadpanSnarker which only helped to increase even more his popularity with fans.
30* EstrogenBrigade: Zac Efron, Lucas Grabeel and Corbin Bleu carried teen heartthrob status among many a tween and teenage girl at the time. Not to mention the protagonists being on a basketball team allows them to wear less clothing in a few scenes.
31* {{Fanon}}:
32** Gabriella's mom is nameless in the films, but is usually Isabella or Maria in fanfic.
33** Ryan being dyslexic is brought up in at least 75% of fanfics where he has a lead role, most likely based on him being unable to read "Go Drama Club" in the first movie despite being portrayed as very intelligent in the later movies.
34* IncestYayShipping: Advertising marketing paired twin siblings Sharpay and Ryan Evans together. Fans who hadn't seen the films yet assumed they were an item and were Squicked out when they realized what they really are. Some didn't care and shipped them together anyways.
35* MemeticMutation:
36** If you go into a group of people that were kids in the mid-to-late 2000s and shout, "WHAT TEAM?!", at least half those kids will, without fail, scream, "WILDCATS!" in response, often without even thinking about it.
37** It's not uncommon for the kids who watched the films when they first came out to say "high school was nothing like they promised".
38--->'''[[WesternAnimation/GravityFalls Mabel]]''': Why aren't they singing about following their dreams? TV taught me high school was some sort of musical.
39--->'''Wendy''': TV lied man!
40** "[[ItMakesSenseInContext What the heck are those two doing in a TREE?]]"
41* {{Moe}}:
42** Gabriella is a sweet girl who has a BreakTheCutie moment in every entry. The trope is especially evident in the first where she was a ShrinkingViolet, but is still somewhat present in the sequels.
43** Kelsi, especially for being a soft-spoken girl in glasses.
44* {{Narm}}:
45** Even the franchise itself would eventually acknowledge how silly it is to present a guy being interested in both sports and musical theater as any kind of huge shocking thing, with the Disney+ series having a main character that is into both without anyone giving a damn.
46** Being a musical where everyone sings and dance, it comes off as silly when someone claims to be [[{{Hypocrite}} against singing or dancing]], especially during musical numbers:
47*** During "Stick to the Status Quo", the entire school perform a CrowdSong to express their disgust at Troy's shocking secret: ''he likes to sing.''
48*** During "Stick to the Status Quo", a nerd named Martha admits she likes dancing more than homework. All her nerdy friends get mad at her... while dancing at the same time.
49* NarmCharm: The series in a nutshell. It's ridiculous, corny and twee... but it was insanely popular for a reason.
50* SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames: The games are pretty good, but only because of what gameplay they’re based on. The first two games on [[UsefulNotes/NintendoDS DS]] use the ''VideoGame/EliteBeatAgents[=/=]VideoGame/OsuTatakaeOuendan'' gameplay, while the third DS game uses ''VideoGame/GitarooMan''[='=]s gameplay. The console ''High School Musical 3 Dance!'' game also uses ''[[VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution DDR]]'' gameplay on dance pads (On ''UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}'', it's Wii Remote and Nunchuk). While it's somewhat simplistic in terms of difficulty, it does serve as a decent rhythm game. Unfortunately, all the games use [[CoverVersion covers]], which is ironic since Disney develops the games and films. The UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance game based on the first movie does have it's own merits too, despite being one-half platformer, one half rhythm game.
51* OlderThanTheDemographic: Despite being themed around high school, the franchise was not intended to be aimed at teens. Many of its fans were middle school-aged.
52* OnceOriginalNowCommon: As hard as it is to believe today, ''High School Musical'' was very popular and praised by critics when the first film debuted in 2006. It was seen as an impressive step-up from a production, writing and acting standpoint from the previous Disney Channel Original Movies of the era in most every way, and it getting two sequels ([[DevelopmentHell with another in development]]), a spin-off, foreign remakes in Latin America and China, a concert tour, stage adaptations for the first two films, and [[CashCowFranchise tons of merchandise]] was unheard of for their previous movies. With most of the [=DCOMs=] after this one being {{Spiritual Successor}}s to ''High School Musical'', such as ''Film/CampRock'', ''Film/TeenBeachMovie'', ''Film/{{Descendants}}'' and ''[[Film/{{Zombies2018}} Z-O-M-B-I-E-S]]'', the format of promoting a teen star being streamlined by both this film and ''Series/HannahMontana'', and even other studios deciding to take advantage of its popularity, most noticeably ''Series/{{Glee}}''[[note]]Creator/RyanMurphy adamantly denied that he had heard of ''High School Musical'' when people pointed this out, but if Murphy does have some {{plausible deniability}}, it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that Creator/{{FOX}} jumped on his idea because of FollowTheLeader.[[/note]], it's hard to remember that the original film was seen as inventive and fresh compared to a lot of children's programming at the time. Its success even brought the musical genre back to the mainstream after ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1'' was seen as the final nail in its coffin for a while, something completely lost to new viewers today who see it as another run-of-the-mill musical.
53* RomanticPlotTumor: The romance arc between Troy and Gabriella is often criticized for being the forefront of the films, mainly for the amount of {{wangst}} between the two, and taking away screentime from more likable characters (eg: Sharpay and Ryan). It didn't help that the second film was somewhat influenced by [[Literature/TheTwilightSaga another romance series popular with the target audience]].
54* RootingForTheEmpire: A lot of people seem to prefer Sharpay and Ryan to the heroes due to their charisma and the fact that they just wanted to have the coveted play roles. Also many people feel they had better ambition and work ethic, which the song "Bop to the Top" is about, making them more deserving of the roles.
55* RonTheDeathEater: Many of Sharpay's fans tend to make Gabriella out to be an asshole for "stealing" Troy from Sharpay. This is inaccurate because Troy never liked nor dated Sharpay, and Gabriella was just a sweet, intelligent girl who loved math and musicals and liked Troy for who he was (unlike Sharpay, who only liked Troy for superficial reasons like the fact that he was popular).
56* SignatureSong: "Breaking Free" was supposed to be this, and was for ''1'', but "We're All in This Together" is probably the most remembered song for the whole series.
57* {{Squick}}:
58** Off-screen, but in ''1'', Taylor says brother and sister Ryan and Sharpay played the title roles of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''.
59** The fact that Ms. Darbus seemed to have no issue with a brother and sister playing romantic interests. Not only that, but the school administrators don't seem to notice (or care).
60* StrawmanHasAPoint:
61** Chad's rant at Troy in ''1'' about how becoming a drama kid would lead to him fading into obscurity, citing Creator/MichaelCrawford as an example of someone who would never be a celebrity endorsement that appears on the front of a popular cereal box is portrayed as this, but theater is expensive and the lower-income masses are lucky to either afford to go or get their hands on free tickets to stage productions, therefore only the one percent would be familiar with places like Broadway. Not only that, but it has been traditionally very hard for stage actors to transition to mainstream acting, like on television and in the movies, so if Troy were to become an actor, it could be a struggle to garner recognition by the rest of the world, if he doesn't know the right people that will get him there.
62** You can't really blame Troy's dad and his team getting concerned that his attention was pulling away from them, considering they were the ones that elected him as captain and that this hobby could lead to a good place in college and a successful sporting career. However, it's clear he and the team have been putting a lot of pressure of on Troy for a long time, without considering what he actually wants.
63* TearJerker: Gabriella's break-up songs in each film: "When There Was Me and You", "Gotta Go My Own Way" and "Walk Away".
64* TestosteroneBrigade: Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale at the height of their TeenIdol status - with plenty of {{Fanservice}} and showcasing of their beauty. Additionally, the beautiful supporting cast like Monique Coleman and Olesya Rulin. Unsurprisingly many fans used the beauty of the actresses as an excuse to enjoy the film as a GuiltyPleasure.
65* TookTheBadFilmSeriously:
66** Most of the performances range from poor to OK, with a few cartoony HamAndCheese characters. But Zac Efron plays Troy with real sincerity, ending up being one of the key things that lifts the film above the mediocre direct-to-TV Disney Channel fare it was intended to be.
67** Vanessa Hudgens manages to make break-up songs that could be {{Wangst}}y into genuine {{Tear Jerker}}s.
68** Ashley and Lucas qualify too, albeit in a different way, going for strong, entertaining, enjoyable comedic performances instead. Ashley actually took it so seriously that, when she and fans were unhappy with how ''Senior Year'' concluded Sharpay's storyline, she pushed for a spinoff to give her a better wrap-up. Needless to say, these two are overwhelmingly more popular than the lead characters and are often considered the best parts of the entire series.
69* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Ryan, especially before he steps out of Sharpay's shadow. "What Time Is It?" shows all the students wanting Sharpay to sign their yearbook and ignoring Ryan, even if the latter was holding a pen. Even after befriending the main cast, he's still overshadowed by his sister to an extent ("Sharpay and what's-his-name?"). However, he's a big fan favorite among viewers.
70* VindicatedByHistory: Although it was a success, it was despised outside its tween demographic and mocked on the internet for being such a blatantly idealistic story in the "oh so cynical" late 2000s. Not to mention movie musicals were still far from mainstream (it was common for trailers to hide singing to disguise that the film was a musical even as far as the early 2010s). Years later, it's remembered far more fondly by the now grown-up children and teens who loved it in their youth. The popularity of musicals and appreciation of the messages about toxic masculinity have only helped the film age very well. And that's in addition to those same grown-ups becoming quite fond of the NarmCharm.
71* {{Wangst}}:
72** Vanessa seemed to be contractually obligated to sing one overly emotional break-up ballad each movie.
73** ''"NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. STICK TO THE STUFF YOU KNOOOOOOOOW."'' Granted, in ''this'' instance, wangst might have been the point.

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