Zac Efrons comment that kids who watch HSM brought back musicals

I have never wanted to punch someone in the face so badly.

---

The question that I am asking myself is this. Where did musicals go in the first place?

---

I mean, obviously in the grand scheme of things musicals are and always have had a presence... but are you all really arguing that the popularity of musicals (even watered-down, bad musicals like High School Musical) among the tween age group, who made the second HSM the highest-rated movie ever shown on TV, hasn't had a large effect on musicals regaining a cultural relevance they haven't had in recent decades?

---

Discussing Musicals is so, not Zac.
Dear boy.
Noel Coward would have known what to do with his talent,
Cole Porter also.

Agree entirely, scott. I was really brought into the world of musicals by Rent, my interest in which, in turn, led me to discover more and better musicals. It just takes something populist like High School Musical to get them in the doors, where they learn that, hey, it's okay for people to burst into song. Without High School Musical, would Hairspray have been the success it was on film? Without megahit movie musicals like Hairspray, would we have gotten film adaptations of more "artistic" musical fair like Sweeeney Todd or Nine?

High School Musical is garbage, but Zac is right. That garbage is giving musicals cultural relevance that the genre hasn't seen in decades.

---

Updated On: 3/30/09 at 11:57 PM

Who said Zac Efron was personally responsible for bringing back the musical?

---

Updated On: 3/30/09 at 12:13 AM

It's really cool to hate Zac Efron. Didn't you guys get the memo?


Get off your high horses, everyone. He's right.

Very intelligent, articulate arguments guys. Thanks...

... for nothing.

---

The question that I am asking myself is this. Where did musicals go in the first place?

They were deliberately killed by the Hollywood studio systems as new young hot shot producers took over and resented all the awards going to "old fashioned" musicals like MY FAIR LADY and SOUND OF MUSIC. The studios liked these big cash cows and wanted more, so the producers set out to overspend lavish budgets on bloated turkeys: STAR!, PAINT YOUR WAGON, CAMELOT, DOCTOR DOOLITTLE, MAME... to look at these you have to wonder who thought any of these were good or even entertaining? They were big expensive failures because they were lousy movies, not because audiences were no longer interested in musicals. By the late 1970s musicals were passé. GREASE brought them back. Oh we can't have that so along came SGT PEPPER and THE WIZ and CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC and ANNIE and BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE to make sure that coffin was nailed ****.

Now with the success of CHICAGO, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL and others the genre is still kicking but let's be clear, the core audience fro movie is teen boys and they don't buy musicals. Their girlfriends may and they will maybe go along. But when films like BATMAN rule the box office you see where the big money goes.

---

Hate him all you want, but HSM DID make a change in YOUNGER kids and their views on MUSICALS. Kids are simply NOT exposed to the genre as they once were. HSM put it pack in their reach and on their radar.

Having been teaching/directing at the middle school level when this came out, I can attest to the rise in both MALE participation in Drama Class as well as participation in our schools musical....and it hasn't yet waned.

Also: the statement was made to an auditioruim full of KIDS. He was talking to them. THEY gave him the award, sowhat is so wrong to pumping them up?

---

But to say HSM is the thing bringing back the musical? Is a wee bit self-centered on Efron's part.

I just threw up in my mouth a little

---