As an elementary schooler, watching High School Musical gave hope to many that a high school hallways will be full of signing and laughter. In reality, it is the exact opposite. High school is a very happy place, but it isn’t as musically inclined at the movie was itself. The major difference is that the movies that portray a high schooler’s life, don’t show the hard times that they go through behind the smiles given in the hallways.

The main difference between high school in the movies and in real life is the amount of homework and stress that real highschoolers endure during school. The high school movies that we all watch include scenes of friends going on shopping trips on a Tuesday night. In reality, many spend their Tuesday night’s studying for the economic test the next day. It makes sense why the producers want to include those scenes, it’s because they want to show the high school is very fun, but it needs to be more realistic.

Think about it, while watching High School Musical or Mean Girls, you never see Regina George or Troy Bolton doing homework. They are planning out how to win the next basketball game or scheming out the next name to include in the burn book. I think it should be important to show scenes of stress and anger in those type of movies because it makes them more relatable. It shows the true feelings of many high schoolers. By making these scenes, it also ensures the people that are in highschool now that even in fake moveis, they are not alone. When you are feeling stressed and anxious about a test, it might make someone feel better if they know that fictional movies know what they are going through.

Another difference between the high school movies and real high schools is that there are not as many cliques as shown in the movies. Everyone generally gets along with each other in high school and the jocks are never mean to the nerds (at least this is the case here at East Grand Rapids). Personally, portraying these different groups in the movies is unnecessary because it can make the incoming freshmen nervous. Just because one would rather play minecraft than going to the football game, does not make them weird. They just prefer to do one thing over another. In the movies, if people found out that you played Minecraft rather than going to the football game, the minecrafter would be called mean names and be made fun of. The beauty of high school is that you are allowed to do the things that you want. You find what you love to do and you are able to do it through the four years that you are in high school.  It doesn’t matter if your hobbies are different from someone else’s.

All in all, high school is most definitely a four year period where you make friends for life, to be apart of state championship winning teams, and to get into the colleges that you would like. High School Musical and East Grand Rapids High School are different in the fact that you are living the life of a high school student, rather than watching it on television.