By Marriya Schwarz | Editor-in-Chief
As a recent graduate of William & Mary, I have gone through roughly 19 years of education, and I think we’re at the point where I can officially say that school is nothing like it is portrayed in the media.
I have spent my entire schooling on edge, waiting for a Disney Channel-esque food fight to break out in the cafeteria or a student to belt an emotional Glee-inspired solo in the hallways. But alas, nothing. (The closest I ever got was running a tap dance rehearsal on the stage of my high school auditorium and a girl running in, saying “I heard there was a tap dancer in here. I’m an Irish dancer - what’s up?” And she challenged me to a dance battle. To this day, I’m like 58% sure I imagined this because I never saw this girl ever again (after I demolished her, of course))
The biggest difference is simple: basically everyone is the same age. I know, shocking. I personally have never met a 30-year-old high school student. I don’t care how young Jason Earles looks, but Hannah Montana’s 30+-year-old brother would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
Maybe this was just my high school, but lockers are typically super small. I have never been shoved in a locker, nor do I know anyone who was. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t believe I even used my locker in high school to hold my belongings, much less spent long periods trapped inside because of a mean jock. I would have to be one hell of a contortionist to fit in there.
Being a senior doesn’t automatically make you entitled to everything. In the action-adventure hit TV show, Kim Possible, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable often sit in Middleton High’s cafeteria, staring at the coveted Senior Table where seniors would dine on shrimp cocktails, tuna tartare, and all things fancy. It was a big change to the normal mystery meat slop. Now, maybe I’m biased from my own high school experience, but I don’t think we had mystery meat - mind you, we did have hot dogs that would bounce if they hit the floor and Nacho Cheese Doritos in melted cheddar cheese, but I don’t think we had just straight up gray goo. Instead of heaping portions of caviar and rotisserie chicken, seniors get heaping uncertainty about the future.
Prom surprisingly is not everything. No one campaigned; no one passed around cupcakes to be Prom King and Queen. I don’t really remember much about my prom experience, other than that everyone was dancing and people were letting the cake on the sidelines go completely to waste, which I obviously couldn’t let happen. I don’t even really remember who was voted Prom King and Queen. But believe me, if Cady Heron had shown up and broken up a tiara, I would have remembered.
I don’t think blockbusters stress the dress code quite enough. There is no way that the Mean Girls “Jingle Bell Rock” outfits or even High School Musical’s ending Gabriella “We’re All In This Together” dress would have worked at my high school. There was no breaking free of that 3 finger width strap rule because, as every woman knows, a lady holds her innocence in her bare shoulder.
In High School Musical, everyone is so ‘school spirit’ all the time. In reality, a good amount of people don’t really care. I went to maybe one half of a football game in high school. And my school was definitely not willing to decorate our hallways with larger-than-life images of our quarterback for me to swoon dramatically against.
The theater scene is also crazily blown out of proportion. Sure, I did theater, but we didn’t have new sets and costumes week to week like Glee. We had a costume closet and some black wooden boxes to use on the regular.
And don’t even get me started on move-in. How on earth did Beca from Pitch Perfect move into her dorm in a taxi with what looks to be one single bag? In reality, it’s multiple boxes, a lot of crying, and it makes you so sweaty that there is no way in hell I would want to be on camera.
Speaking of which, what is up with these crazy settings? I have gone to two different universities, and I have never seen a room with so much space and such beautiful interior shelving as we get at Pitch Perfect’s Barden University, especially when it is announced in the second film that this is a low-cost university. And what is up with High School Musical’s two-level cafeteria?
One of my biggest problems with Pitch Perfect has to be the shower scene. I mean, first of all, no one has ever entered my individual shower in a hall bathroom. That would be a huge no-no. But more importantly, when we enter the scene, we get a shot of the floor and no one is wearing shower shoes. Are you kidding me? I would like to ignore the whole plausibility of the two best a cappella groups in the country being from the same small university and instead focus on this; thank you.
Now, I’m no lawyer but I don’t think skipping a few frat parties is gonna make you pass the LSAT; sorry, Elle Woods.
And finally: no one seems to study or do any kind of work in movies or TV. High School Musical’s curriculum seems to be full of solely free periods, homeroom, and maybe one science class. So much time is spent on clubs, which isn’t wrong, but school is all about balancing classes with your club work load, and then you might even add in part-time jobs. That’s right: My hands are less preoccupied with crawling on a dining hall floor to avoid being hit with pizza and spaghetti sauce during a food fight than they are with typing up essays. My feet are less focused on learning intense group choreography that can be brought up at any moment a protagonist wants to sing out their inner feelings than they are with running to work after stopping for coffee. And my phone is less meant for spreading juicy gossip about how Lizzie McGuire is an outfit repeater than it is for texting frustrations about assignments to classmates.
But who knows? This is just one person’s biased opinion. All I truly know is that I just can’t wait for a future career where I’m surrounded in the workplace by people with killer vocals, like in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. Wish me luck!