High School Musical 2 is being primarily targeted to tweens, and rightfully so. Young girls want to be just like Ashley Tisdale's Sharpay and want to date Zac Efron's Troy. But there's a hidden demographic, a subgroup of High School Musical fanatics lurking on the edges of society – Generation Y.

Young adults in or just out of college are just as into the hit Disney Channel phenomenon whether they admit it or not. It's a guilty pleasure - High School Musical awakens an untapped desire in Generation Y, the desire for camp.

Not sleepaway camp or summer camp, but camp in the sense of John Waters. Beneath the surface of the glossy, positive message in High School Musical is a goldmine of kitsch and absurdity. Generation Y doesn't watch the films for the same reasons as the tween fans. It's a lot like how, when you look back to Saved by the Bell, you realize that it's great because it's so terrible, not because it's great on its own. When you're a kid and you see Jessie Spano so excited and so scared, it was serious and heartbreaking. Now, it leaves you in tears of laughter.

For High School Musical, there's the fact that one of the main characters, Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) is obviously a homosexual. For many tweens, they may not realize that Ryan's garish, glamorous fashion sense and fondness for jazz hands are indicators, but matured minds can see it for what it is and appreciate High School Musical on additional levels. At the end of the first film, Ryan is all too eager to get his hands on baking basketball player Zeke's delicious cookies. While not intentional, 20-somethings longing for their own Rocky Horror Picture Show can certainly appreciate the innuendo.

These people who love High School Musical do so ironically, much the same way people still wear trucker hats or enjoy the comedy of Dane Cook. There's no sincerity as with the tweens, but instead they view it with the jaded eyes of people who know that high school isn't all that fun. In High School Musical, Troy is the star of the basketball team and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) is a brilliant science student, and they both happen to be the school's best singers as well. It's easy to encourage kids to be themselves when they're perfect and multi-talented, but for people who know that the majority of high schoolers lead lives of quiet desperation and are average in every way, it's hard to find any comparison to the characters in the film.

So whether you're 12 or 25, be prepared to fall in love with High School Musical 2. For those in Generation Y, just make sure you understand that you and your little sister will be watching two completely different movies.


High School Musical 2 premieres this Friday, August 17 at 8pm on the Disney Channel. Check back each day this week for the rest of our Top 5 list.

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-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of Disney Channel)