The trailer seems to spell out the entire movie.
In a positive review of Prom, film critic Leonard Maltin wrote that it didn't "trivialize the feelings of high school kids," giving examples such as "the first flush of sexual attraction." I would like to know who felt their "first flush of sexual attraction" in high school, let alone at the end of their senior year. In fact, plenty have shed their virginity ages ago. The mythical push to lose one's virginity on prom night is of course one of the staple plot lines of any prom-oriented movie, and this is no exception. One of the couples in this ensemble cast plays right into that.
Other represented cliches include the uptight class prez and her unlikely attraction to the (surprisingly sensitive) bad boy, a boy trying desperately to find a date (he goes with his stepsister. ew), as well as couples struggling to deal with the end of high school and what it means for their relationship. The latter actually speaks to the experiences I witnessed in high school, but nothing else is quite like real life. Where are the girls wondering who will ask them? The people who fly solo, rather than wondering, as the trailer asks "who will you go with?" as though this is the most important part of senior year's final dance. And where are the ditchers, the too-cool-for-prom types and the not-cool-enough-for-prom types as well? And is the world this heteronormative? What prom would be complete today without a same-sex couple?
The Disney Channel has of course been spinning teenage life into a smattering of cleaned up cliches for quite awhile. Their line up of shows over the years has been full of predictable shows on which all girls with glasses are nerds and a chaste kiss is the pinnacle of romance.
Even Stevens, running from 1999 to 2003, was a show that depicted the foibles and mishaps of the Stevens family. Most notably, the show featured Shia LaBeouf in his breakout role as the little brother, Louis, who is always accidentally interfering in his sister Ren's life (played by Chrisy Carlson Romano, who has gone on to do a whole lot of nothing, after starring as a voice talent on another Disney Channel show, Kim Possible, an animated show about a crime-fighting cheerleader and her dweeby best friend). He was the standard goofball and she was the straight-As, type A older sister.
"Disney Channel Original Movies" are a great example of the way Disney would like children everywhere to imagine high school. They kept churning these out for years with little notice until 2006's High School Musical became absurdly successful and launched careers for a few of its stars as well as quite the Disney franchise. The messages in High School Musical is all about acceptance and yadda yadda. The jock, Zac Ephron, has to make the choice between starring in the school musical with the girl of his dreams, and playing basketball. And then he realizes, gee wiz, he doesn't have to make a choice, he can do both! One character, Ryan, is a guy that's into doing musical theatre with his diva sister named Sharpay. What makes Ryan stand out as a Disney character is that he is completely flamboyant, and in the first movie, it's definitely implied that he's gay. That portrayal, although steeped in stereotypes, appeared to be some kind of progress for Disney (a precursor to what Fox would do on Glee), until the sequel, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, a romance plot emerges, rather strangely, between Ryanand a girl. Even though his wardrobe and mannerisms suggested from the outset that the character was gay, when the third film was released theatrically, Disney covered their socially-conservative bases and made the character "straight."
Then of course, in Lizze McGuire presented the sitcom version of middle school, in which every problem was solved by the end of the episode. Lizzie has a crush on the popular guy, but eventually realises her feelings for her best guy friend Gordo. Her best friend is slightly hispanic, an effort by the Disney Channel to look like they're diluting their white bread aesthetic (And yes, That's So Raven starred a black actress. But that was pretty anomalous in their line up. Most shows featured white people who were friends with more white people). Lizzie's arch nemesis is cheerleader Kate, the girl you love to hate.
Now I don't know if going to a private school in Seattle is the main reason for this, but I have seen real live teenage cheerleaders in action all of once in my life. To me, cheerleaders have always been a mythical swirl of hairsprayed ditzes, with some bitchiness thrown in. But that is of course because I've only really seen them on the screen.
Making PG-rated movies and television about High School is just rediculous because for the vast majority of teenagers, the teenage years are when "Parental Guidance" starts to diminish. Whether or not they're out there partaking in sex, drugs 'n' alcohol, teenagers are at the very least talking about it. What is more, the identity issues that teenagers face--in terms of sexuality, future plans, friendships, families, on and on--are far more complex than the Disney-fied version. Sure, Disney is not the only guilty party in distorting teenage life on the screen (house parties do not always turn into ragers and the good girl doesn't always fall for the bad boy), but they sure are reliably trite.
Now, I understand that network execs might not be so hot on depicting a realistic version of teen life on a network like the Disney Channel, which really is aimed at children, and at the oldest, tweens. But Disney might be able to totally avoid the problem of making up a squeaky clean portrayal of teenagers if they would just make shows and movies about kids who are actually roughly the same age as their viewers. Instead of falsely representing teenagers as "age appropriate," they could show something that already is "age appropriate." Could they please stop shoving such a standard version of implausible romance down the throats of children?
To make a movie for twelve year olds that already has them thinking they need a prom date and a stretch limo and floor-length dress is absurd.
Fortunately, Prom was not received all that well, and did worse at the Box Office than expected. I'd like to think that the hyper-unrealistic nature of this sugar rush Disney fantasy is finally starting to grate and peeps might be wising up as this absurdity gets old.
