hsm

So, somehow, heroically, I’ve managed to ignore your incessant clamoring for the answers to my mega-giant-HSM-trivia questions. I know, I know. How I’ve managed to hold off so long in face of your constant pestering, I’ll never know. So, here, finally, O but finally, in a desperate bid to rid myself of you hyenas (and in a blatant ploy to acquire google searches [HSM trivia! High School musical trivia! Win a free ipod! Troy is cute!]), here forthwith are the answers:

1
What does Troy remember about the night before? Pink jelly.
What is Troy’s basketball jersey number? 14 (during song) – 10 (during post-detention pep talk & his missed practice) – 14 (during the big game)
Chad Danforth’s? 8 (during song) – 15 (during post-detention pep talk & practice) – 12 (locker room during training montage) – 8 (during the big game)
Zeke’s? 32 (during song) – 25 (during huddle) – 32 (during big game)
Jason’s? 22 (during song) – 23 (during huddle) – 23 (during big game)
The choreographer’s? 44 (during song) – 12 (during huddle & practice)- 44 (during big game)
Troy’s dad’s? 21
What team? Wildcats!
What should the second equation read? 16 over pi.
Where was Gabriella from originally? San Diego
What is the name of the academic team? The Scholastic Decathalon Team (Taylor is also in the Chem Club)
Which character is left-handed? Sharpay
What is the principal’s name? Dave Matsui
What is West High’s mascot? The Knights
What’s a crowd favorite? Jazz squares
According to Sharpay, exactly what kind of Sondheim is Kelsi? The sawed-off kind.
What are the names of the characters Troy and Gabriella are playing, and what is the name of the show? Minnie (according to Darbus during auditions) Millie (according to the callback sign) & Arnold – Twinkle Towne
What is Martha Cox reading at lunch? Exploring American History
What is Gab eating for lunch? Chili cheese fries, applesauce, orange, milk.
If you could use just one adverb and one adjective to describe crème brulee, what might they be? Really satisfying
What is the men’s locker room number? A404
What is the coach’s room number? A404B
Who’s the local high school sports reporter? Sam Metletter
What is Troy’s dad’s first name?/what is the basketball coach’s full name? Jack Bolton.
Sharpay needs to save the Drama Club from people who don’t know the difference between a Tony Award and – ? Tony Hawk
Who does Taylor hold up as examples of the pinnacles of evolution and civilization? Elanor Roosevelt, Frieda Khalo, Sandra Day O’Connor, Madame Curie, Jane Goodall, Oprah Winfrey
Who is president of the Drama Club? Sharpay and Ryan are co-presidents
Which character is illiterate? Ryan (probably also Jason, actually)
Complete this exchange: “I trust you.” “Energy.”
What are West High’s colors? Blue and yellow
What is the basketball score at the time of the interruption? 8 to 8 (first period, 7:58 remaining) At the end of the game? 68 to 67
What are East High’s school colors? According to the song? Red & White (& Gold)

2
Who is wearing the dunce cap? Zeke
What word is written on the chalkboard at the beginning of “What Time Is It?” (And what do you think it means!!) (“Turn off your cell phones” & “School’s” but most importantly, via a suspiciously grand reveal – “out!”)
What’re Troy’s original summertime plans for he and Gab? Go to the movies, download music, oh – and he’s definitely teaching her the twisted flip on the skateboard. (Gab has first aid training!)
What is the name of the country club featured in HSM2? Lava Springs
What’s the theme of the summer talent show? Redemption
What kind of flake pastry does Zeke want to learn to make? Austrian
How many infractions before employment is terminated? Three
What are Sharpay’s and Ryan’s code names? Goldenthroat & Jazz Square
How do they get to the food today? Skipping
What is rule #3? All dates are official – whether the boy knows it or not.
Wakka wakka wakka nikki poo poo what? Poo!
What is Troy’s golf cart number? 14, same as his jersey number
What country are Troy’s new shoes from? Italy
What does Sharpay suggest Ryan do with his tiki warrior outfit? Save it for Halloween, sell it on ebay, go to a luau, she doesn’t know.
What is the college basketball team Troy goes all gay for? The Arizona Redhawks
Have the employees ever won a Star Dazzle award? *giggle*
Do you got game? A little
What is the final score of the employee baseball game? 10 to 9
What is Chad’s baseball number? 8
What does Gabriella’s mom make better than anybody else in the whole world? Brownies
What did Ryan turn them into the cast of? Grease
What kind of tea would be lovliest for Mr. Fulton? Chamomile
What else might Ryan do in the show? His celebrity impersonations
Who will do an abridged version of last year’s tap dancing epic? Tina and her tippity tappity toes.
Who is performing with a sock puppet? Mrs. Hossenfeffer
Why is the pool closed? Staff party

Answer to Ian’s bonus question:
Why is Jessica such a dillweed? Because she is a jerkwater.

PS – Is it just me, or does Ryan’s face look really oddly realistic in this picture? Like they couldn’t draw it right, so they just photoshoped an actual photograph to make it look as though it had been drawn?
PPS – And also, how much does Gabriella look like some kind of telanovella-hooker-Charo? A lot.

Hooo. Okay. Calm down.

I just got an email.

My pre-ordered copy of HSM3 just shipped.

Hooo. Hooo. Hooo. It’s okay. We’ve been preparing for this. We’ve been listening to the soundtrack, obsessively, over and over. We’ve been thinking of which highfalutin’ literary tactic to take in the analysis (“High School Musical 3 as Metafiction: Three Views: Also, Zack Effron is Cute”). We’re prepared. We are.

Remind me to tell you about:

1. The acting got better. No, really.
2. Everything got sexed way up (the French maid costume, “I want it,” the hammock) – but it’s okay, because they’re all like, 18 now. But is the audience growing with the cast members?
a. Not just the little kids, but
b. When I went to see this in the theatre, I was very literally the second-oldest person in the room (to Ian). Were these 20-year-olds the original audience?
3. No, really: meta
a. Musical as metafiction
b. “Sequels pay better”
c. Panting into the camera, taking their last bows
4. The continuing humiliation of Sharpay – but did she even deserve it this time? What are we doing to this poor woman?
5. If Sharpay is a sociopath, then Gabriella has army brat syndrome. (And Troy is just a whiny baby.)
6. Why does UCLA require its most-talented incoming freshman to skip their last two weeks of high school?
7. The women’s continuing devolvement: Gab as rescuing mother, fat girl as cheerleader, Taylor as…absent.
8. Ryan’s still totally gay.
9. The music sucks!!! The musical sucks!!!!

Oh god oh god oh god. Must get to work…so excited!

The costume, in its full glory! I was, indeed, the only one in costume, and either no one got it (I don’t think so – these were definitely hardcore fans) or else they were all far too cool for school to notice. (Partially untrue: I definitely got a few unreadable stares from drunk 17 year-olds. Where they amused? Disgusted by my pale, chubby knees? Confused as to whether that was my real hair or not? Did they – *gasp!* – think that it was uncool for a 27 year-old woman to dress up as a 19 year-old movie star playing a 17 year-old character in a movie aimed at 8 year-olds?)

Anyway, costume was a huge success, according to me, so there.

Look how excited everyone is!!!!!

A real review will come later. For now, all you need to know is this: Yes, Troy danced it out. No, Ryan was not revealed to be a rapist. Kind of, they dropped the ball on Gabriella’s smartness. Meh, the prom-tux-buying montage was kind of a disappointment. And, perhaps most importantly: the boys are back.

I literally don’t know what to say that could make this any – better?  funnier? awfuller? None of those are right at all.  I literally just don’t know what to say at all. Ryan, how could you?  Please click, friends.

I know that a lot of people have been spending a lot of time worrying about this, and it’s about time we had a serious talk. Let’s finally get this thing out in the open, instead of constantly whispering about it in the shadows. It’s an important query, and the world needs to know.

Is Sharpay Evans a sociopath?

Based on at least six minutes of research on Wikipedia, I think we can all safely agree that the answer is obviously

[Er...you might probably only want to watch the first four seconds or so of that, unless you want to see Troy's weird/adorable face-fall/wink there at the end, which isn't entirely un-recommended.]

The technical definition of “sociopath” gets a little muddled when consulting different sources (that is, different pages of Wikipedia). What I’ve gathered is this: “sociopath” means the same thing as “psychopath.” “Psychopath” means the same thing as “sociopath” and “dissocial personality disorder” and “antisocial personality disorder.” “Dissocial personality disorder” is more about a deficit in interpersonal skills and affect. “Antisocial personality disorder” is more criminal. “Sociopath” sounds the coolest, because the word “psychopath” has been used so often that when you call somebody that, it doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Also, it’s super-hard to type. And while I think we could pretty safely say that Sharpay has antisocial personality disorder far more than dissocial personality disorder (she has a pretty big history with criminal behavior – turning those golf course sprinklers on under false pretenses, anyone??? – and has no problems with affect – obv!), those are long words and also boring. So we’ll stick with “sociopath.” I can only assume that this is roughly the same process of elimination that all doctors use.

How do we know that Sharpay is a sociopath? From a random list I found online, of course – also the way doctors do it. The is Robert D. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist (Revised). We know that it is an accurate diagnostic tool because it has been revised. It’s almost surely correct now. Bob D. describes a psychopath as possessing the following traits:

Factor 1: Aggressive narcissism
1. Glibness / superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning / manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Shallow
7. Callous / lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
9. Promiscuous sexual behavior
Factor 2: Socially deviant lifestyle
1. Need for stimulation / proneness to boredom
2. Parasitic lifestyle
3. Poor behavioral control
4. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
5. Impulsivity
6. Irresponsibility
7. Juvenile delinquency
8. Early behavior problems
9. Many short-term marital relationships
10. Revocation of conditional release
Traits not correlated with either factor
1. Many short-term marital relationships
2. Promiscuous sexual behavior
3. Criminal versatility

Still not convinced? Yeah, I had intended to go through there and post pictures or youtube links or something for each of those traits. Then I remembered that I’m kind of lazy. Just trust me!

Your HSM homework for the night? Compare and contrast HSM1 Sharpay to HSM2 Troy: specifically, compare the songs “Bop to the Top” and “Bet On It.” Is HSM2 Troy also a sociopath? Why or why not? Show your work! Mucho gusto!

Couple of my favorite guys, just hangin’ out, tryin’ to decide what videos to rent. Then they’re going to go play hoop! Get your head in the game, guys!

Okay.  So Ian and I were re-watching Once More, With Feeling the other night, and had a disagreement that perhaps you (and by “you” I suppose I mean “REDACTED FOR SUPER-SECRECY!!!!!”) can help to settle:  Whose outfit is ridiculouser here – Anya’s sparkly side-less rock-and-roll butterfly hankerchief, or Tara’s lesbian-renaissance-festival fairywear?

And, more importantly! In a not-completely-suprising-if-you-know-me kind of leap of musical cosplay fangirl nerddom, this reminded me of the following question:

What should I wear to the HSM3 premier??

Things to consider:

1. I will be attending the literal premier, but, seeing as this movie is marketed toward, you know, eight year olds, this will almost certainly be a matinee premier, not a midnight showing. (Though I wonder if that will hold true in, say, New York? I mean, I suspect this movie will do very, very, very well, and I’m 100% positive that a respectable portion of it will be due to gay men and semi-ironic grown-ups. I wonder how well Disney-slash-the theaters know that? I wonder if there will be any midnight showings?) So I can’t be drunk, and I can’t be dirty, and the jokes can’t be too grown-up-centric. Because…

2. I will be surrounded by 8-year-olds. This costume is for 8-year-olds.

3. It has to be eminently recognizable, hopefully enough so that people other than the really hardcore fans know that it’s a costume. There are really sort of very few truly iconic outfits from these movies, and most of them are goofy Sharpay things. Which, you know, that’s okay – I’ll dress up as Sharpay if I have to. So that’s not a dealbreaker. I’m just sayin’, though.

4. I don’t like to show my knees. I was thinking for a long time of just going with a cheerleader outfit, because it’ll be easy to buy or make, and it’s probably the most iconic thing I could wear. But…then I’d have to dress up like a cheerleader.

The outfit’s kind of hard to see – it’s weirdly difficult to find a good clear photo of them. But – well, if this helps at all, it’ll look something like this:

5. My favorite character is obviously Ryan. I would love to dress like him. Unfortunately, I’d just end up looking even more like a lesbian than usual.

6. I have to bike there. So probably that rules out any 5-foot-long neon-pink tulle trains.

(If you can’t quite see the train in this picture – eh, just trust me.)

So what this probably leaves me with is Gabriella. She wears a couple of fairly iconic outfits (well – okay, at least, iconic for people who’ve watched the first two movies 6 times in a row at sleepovers before) which won’t be too hard to make. So it’s probably basically down to:

The white dress from “Everyday” -

The red dress from “We’re All In This Together” -

(Another non-excellent shot, but you get the idea. It’s plain.)

Or the red shorts and white hoodie from “Work This Out” -

That last one does involve showing my knees, but I can fake it and make the shorts a little longer, maybe. It’s sort of still my favorite of those three.

But, ugh, you also have to remember:

7. Gabriella’s totally boring. (Adorable side-story: I asked my 4-year-old neice who she had a crush on in HSM and her answer was Gabriella. CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!!!)

Or! I could totally take a chance and try to do one of their prom dresses! AWESOME!

Yay! Who can’t wait!! Me!

Also: trailer!!! First, please note that the whole stupid thing appears to be about another one of Troy’s games, with no apparent mention of how smart Gab is and how good she is at science and math. (There IS that one brief shot of Taylor in a purple tie, where she seems to be holding a blackboard pointer? But it also kind of looks like she’s standing in front of a big purple throne, which I think probably implies a fight for Prom Queen between Sharpay and Gab, and maybe Taylor uses her big brain to try to engineer a win. LAAAAAME.) Also, her standing up there and being all, “Hi, Troy, I’m very virginal and I’m going to save you with the power of a woman’s love, YET AGAIN.” LAAAAAME. On the other hand – DANCING IT OUT IN A BANDANA SWEATBAND IN A JUNKYARD, yes that really just happened. And dancing in the rain! Ooooooooh! Too sexeeeee! And I will give you a meeellion dollars if that one shot of him in that blue tux busting out of a dressing room doesn’t mean – oh that’s right I said it – PROM TUX SHOPPING MONTAGE, YES.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god.

What if I wore a powder-blue tux to the premier? Would 8-year-olds get that joke?

Oh god I think I’m horny I’m so excited.

P.S. – What would it take for me to get Ian to wear this, you think?