High School Musical Scene Analysis: “You’re Not Just a Guy”

High School Musical is often written off as a dumb teenage movie for somewhat valid reasons. It’s soapy, predictable, and requires you to turn your brain off throughout. That being said, the movie does a ton of things right, and scenes like this one are definitely worth appreciating.

Scene Comes From: High School Musical

Scene Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swR71Ztwppg

Scene Context:

Troy has been spending a lot of time with Gabriella at the school play, to the irritation of his basketball team, coached by his father. The team has a championship game coming soon.

Scene Conflicts:

• Troy wants to be able to make his own decisions.
• Troy’s father wants him to focus solely on basketball.

Scene Outline:

1. Troy shows up to practice right as it ends. The team leaves and Troy says he’ll stick around and workout. His father says he owes it to them.
2. Troy works out. Gabriella shows up, jokes that the court is his “real stage”. Troy jokes that it’s just a smelly gym.
3. Troy tells Gabriella that he skipped practice to work on the school play. Jokes that it’s her fault if he’s kicked off. She playfully takes his basketball from him and the pair wrestle for it.
4. Troy’s dad re-enters. Tells Gabriella that she needs to leave the gym.
5. Troy introduces Gabriella to him. He calls her Troy’s “detention buddy.” Doesn’t shake her hand. Gabriella awkwardly leaves.
6. Troy tries to explain that she wasn’t the reason he was in detention. His dad says that Troy’s been acting weird ever since Gabriella showed up.
7. Troy defends Gabriella. His dad says she threatens Troy and his team.
8. Troy says Gabriella is just a girl, causing his dad to fire back that Troy has to be more than just a guy, but rather the face of his team. Explains the special position Troy is in.
9. Troy argues there’s more things special that playing basketball. His dad says Troy belongs in basketball, and not in singing. Troy argues he could do both, and then storms off.

Why It Works:

Beginning, Middle, End: I didn’t expect this scene to be as structurally coherent as it was. But, when I mapped the beats out, it became strikingly clear that yes, even this scene which has lines like “Her name’s Gabriella… and she’s really nice” follows a clear structure. Beats 1–3 are the beginning. Things are peaceful, but a conflict is bound to come along. And with the middle (beats 4–7), that conflict appears in the form of Troy’s dad, who forces Gabriella to leave before insulting her to Troy. We are then left with the scene’s end (beats 8–9), which showcase the fallout of this conflict and climaxes with Troy’s spoken “revelation”, which is that he can be more than a basketball player.

Emotional Stakes: Gabriella plays the role of the stakes character in this scene, with both Troy and his father battling over her. Troy wants her to stay in his life, while his father wants her far and away from him. Because she has made such a personal impact on Troy, we see him get extremely defensive of her, thus elevating the emotions of the scene to something beyond a father-son spat. This is now Troy battling for a right to choose who he loves without the interference of those who want to control him.

The Worst Possible Scenario: When Gabriella appears, we know it has to be more than a cute scene. Right when it feels too comfortable the audience is settled… Troy’s dad walks in. And he doesn’t walk in on Gabriella watching Troy play. Rather, he comes in right when she is directly distracting Troy. What he sees then confirms his suspicions, and thus informs his intense and relatively cruel reaction for the remainder of the scene.

Focused Desire: One of the things this movie does really well is making sure the audience is keenly aware of each character’s desire. We know Troy just wants to make choices for himself, and we know Troy’s dad wants nothing more than to win a championship with his son leading the team. Sure, it can be a bit on the nose sometimes, but it undoubtedly makes for engaging scenes like this, in which every character’s action has a clear purpose that develops or shifts their desire.

Summary:

High School Musical is, by all means, a ridiculous and fun movie. But just because a story is fun doesn’t mean it can’t have depth, and this scene proves it. By giving each character a succinct desire, and then forcing them to defend that desire, the scene creates a surprisingly emotional moment that perfectly punctuates this flawed father-son relationship.