it is here and right now

Yes, High School Musical is the essence of campness.  Actually, I started this journal with a sole purpose: To save the world and millions of blind and/or short-sighted teenagers from ignorance. High School Musical is gay. Gay not as in  “Duuuude, that’s so gay lol11”. No, gay as in “rampantly homosexual”. And, as I am not one to judge without evidence, I am going to list the obvious things that make High School Musical *le* camp. (And that’s why we all love it).

First there is the evident fact that it is a musical: Yes, like The Sound of Music, Hello Dolly! and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Then there’s all the clues and references that ring a bell to any gay adult watching this. First, the main theme of a jock - who’s not just a jock, you see - but who also likes to sing, in secret. A fact that he desperately tries to hide from his parents and his jock friends (who are that manly), for fear they will pick on him if they find out. Then there’s the famous “Stick To The Status Quo” song, where kids who interrupt their lunch to dance on table come out about *dark* secrets – not their sexuality, but their “secret” love of “unacceptable” things. Like this B-ball player who... loves to bake.

Then, there’s the character of Ryan Evans. Ryan Evans in himself is the gayest character that ever walked on a Hollywood set since the dandy lion of the Wizard of Oz (and that's to say something). He's so gay that even tweens spot him - check the countless topics on imdb (he's gay! - No he's not11 - Yes he is11 - No Im the couzin of the acter n I tell ya his not11 - Fuck off bitch11).

Let’s list the evidence, shall we?

•    Well, first he’s his sister’s best friend. Indeed, they are twins, but I have my reasons to think that Disney had at first intended to have Sharpay and her gay best friend, and not just Sharpay and her fruity twin brother (more on that in the footnote). He follows her around everywhere - to yoga classes, to stage rehearsals and he plays the (pink) piano to her songs.

• He’s got an amazing sense of fashion. He wears multiple hats throughout the two movies, all of them being fabulously flashy. Namely, a bright orange golf cap, a sparkling green baker boy hat, a very fashionable straw bowler hat, a red corduroy fedora… He also wears really pink shirts, and trendy shoes. 

•  He is a drama… king. He loves to sing and dance, and drama is basically his life – though in an attempt to butch him up a bit, Disney shows him playing baseball in the second movie –. And you want the best? Sharpay, in HSM2 tells Gabriella not to worry, because “he’ll be on the show, he’ll do his celebrity impersonations”. Celebrity impersonations?? Please! Can you believe that?! Is there anything gayer than doing celebrity impersonations, a part from going to the baths on the Castro? (to those in doubt, the answer is no).

• He is never paired off with anyone. In the first movie he dances with his sister at the end. In the second, he dances with the fat - but fun - girl: in other words, the fag hag.

• He has this lingering way of looking at boys. Three occurrences: When he looks at Zeke and accepts the cookies, when he looks at Zeke again in the following film, with a bright smile and insistant gaze (Summertime). And then the sheepish “hi” he gives to his mother’s yoga teacher. Though Disney didn't go as far as to have him blush.

• Finally, his wonderful bound with his mother. But there we go too far in cliché-land and I must stop before I vomit.   

These are all the clues that indeed, Ryan Evans is definitely gay. And don’t shout me down with the “STEREOTYPES!!!!” argument. A movie, especially a movie aimed at teens, and especially a Disney movie, is full of stereotypes. You have the total basketball hunk and his nice but prejudiced best friend, the nerd-but-still-pretty-and-nice girl with her nerd-only best friend, the infernal and evil – but still pretty- girl who plans on taking over the world (and the main character), and finally the very cliché gay drama boy. Of course if Ryan Evans was a true person in the real world, he could very well be only an eccentric straight boy. But, well, he isn’t real, he’s a character, and everything about him does have a meaning. Here the meaning is: YES he is a flamer, but we being Disney, we can’t say it out loud for fear of having the Conservative Families of America on our back screaming bloody murder, though we also like to taunt the gay audience. So we will only give you clues, but we won't confirm anything. 

But the campness and gayness of High School Musical doesn’t stop at Ryan Evans. Oh no. It is all over the whole two movies. Here are the clues: 

•     The whole Fabulous song. First, who, apart from gay people, use the word fabulous? Nobody. Fabulous is *the* gay word, it is THE CODE. Then, the weird reference to Elton John, via the pink piano in a pool and the fancy clothes. Then, the fact that Ryan is the only male singing and dancing in this song, along with very camp and pink and flowery and big sun-glassed 60s looking girls. All of this with Paris Hilt- oops, sorry, Sharpay singing.

• The Chad / Ryan thing. Which is enormous. Once again, Disney doesn’t aim at teenagers in this one, the clues are way too subtle (for a teenage audience, that is. To everyone else they're as discret as this BIG BRIGHT PINK ELEPHANT who happens to be crossing the road). The lyrics are a good give-away: “hey batter swing”, “hey pitcher” (pitcher, in gay slang means…. Well… Google it if you don’t know). Then the whole sexual tension and the rather obvious underlying theme of a guy who wants to lure another one to a certain activity, saying he cannot know until he tries – very nice and *subtle* metaphor. Then the other guy yields in. And then they swap clothes. And THEN they sit at a lunch table, eating a hot dog, with their legs and feet touching under the table. How can it get more obvious?

• The Humu-humu dance: it is as drag-queenesque as can be, let’s be honest. Lucas Garbeel overacting in a totally flamboyant way, the stupid and sparkling flowery costumes, the flower crown which is replaced for rehearsals by a pink and plushy TIARA, the ridiculous (and assumed as such) lyrics (she was sweet as a peach/ in a pineapple way/ that’s so sad that she hardly speaky): face it, everything in this song screams CAMPNESS. 

• The gay actors. No one, apart from them and their close relations, knows if the three male leads (Corbin Bleu, Zac Efron and Lucas Grabeel) are gay or straight. But it is worth noting that the three leads are all "suspected" of homosexuality. Contrary to what certain people say, it doesn’t happen to every young and good-looking male actor. No. So it is a bizarre coincidence, isn’t it? Zac Efron’s been the target of famous gossip blogger Perez Hilton who’s been trying to out Efron for years. And Lucas has already played a gay part (in Veronica Mars), and is going to do so again in “Milk”, the 2008 movie about Harvey Milk, a 70s gay activist. Add in the Ryan Evans part, and it’s a lot of gay parts for a single straight actor, isn’t it? Oh, and have I mentioned the obvious gayness of the Spanish Lifeguard (just before… Fabulous) ? 

So if after all this you still don't think that Ryan Evans is gay, and that High School Musical is the Priscilla Queen of the Desert of our time, well I don't know what to say, you're hopeless.

Footnote
I indeed have strong reasons to think that the part of Ryan Evans was really intended as a gay friend part at the beginning. My clue? Corbin Bleu declared in an interview that he was going to audition for the Ryan part. Yes. Now, the most gifted observers may have noticed that Sharpay is a white blonde. And that Corbin Bleu is black. And that if they were really meant a twins, well there would be a genetics problem. That, plus the fact that Lucas over-acts the gay thing in film 1, (looks like the part was written this way), and that strangely enough Bleu and Grabeel are "suspected", for lack of a betterword", of homosexuality... And a lot of gay actors fish out for gay parts. Or at least are cast as. and Bleu then declared he auditioned for Chad when he saw Lucas dance "he was really bouncing, and it was waht was good for the part, but I couln't do it" - this is, from memory, what he said... Strange men... 

Footnote 2
Yes this article contains Fry & Laurie references.