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Showing posts from January, 2020

Moulin Rouge!: Musicals Chasing Authenticity

             In 2009, SNL premiered a comedy skit “ High School Musical 4 ” as an imagined follow-up to the Disney Channel musical movie franchise. In this skit, Troy Bolton, the singing basketball star of the movies, returns for the ceremony for the next graduating class of East High. The students enthusiastically welcome Troy with an impromptu musical number which he quickly dismisses. Troy then imparts a grave admonition to the wide-eyed graduating seniors: “No one sings at college. And from what I can tell, this is America’s only singing high school."           The graduating class is aghast, but there's more. Troy continues to detail just how brutally he  was  pummeled by reality once he stepped out of the bubble of his perfectly choreographed cotton-candy haven and into a world that does not appreciate him singing about his feelings in his apartment at night. Not only does nobody sing in the real world, but also his East High education has left him entirely unp