I will use High School Musical for my Neo-Marxist Perspective.
High School musical is a movie made 2006 about two high school students balancing extracurricular activities while trying to be involved in a musical showcase.
The model of this movie is Gabriella. She is known as the smartest student at the school. She is apart of a group of students who are preparing to participate in an academic decathlon. Aside from intellectual activities, she enjoys singing but her has stage fright. She is a very shy character around others. She dresses plainly, typically wearing muted colors and solid colored pieces.
The anti-model is Sharpay. She is the popular girl who is the co-president of the drama club at the school. She is has her heart set on becoming an actress and intends to improve her craft while at East High. Sharpay tries to crush Gabriella’s chances of participating in the showcase because she is afraid Gabriella will become more popular than her. Sharpay also comes from a very rich family that owns a country club. She shows her wealth by bragging about it as well as dressing extravagantly. Compared to her casually dressed peers, Sharpay makes a statement with her outfits. She is typically dressed in bright pink with many accessories.
Sharpay creates an “us” vs “them mentality because of her determination to keep Gabriella and Troy out of the showcase. She believes that Gabriella (a “nerd”) and Troy (a “jock”) do not belong in her realm. Sharpay and her brother, Ryan, use their wealth to make their performances very flashy and Sharpay doesn’t think Gabriella and Troy belong in a place like that.
With the Neo-Marxist Perspective, it is clear that the movie displays that need of the upper class to oppress the lower class. The richer individuals in the community don’t was the lower class to have the opportunity to enter their spheres and thus, but keep them out. Although, Gabriella is able to enter to showcase on talent alone, Sharpay still tries to keep Gabriella out.
This is a really interesting take on High School Musical, and your analysis of Neo-Marxist Perspective in relation to the movie is a theme that is prevalent today. I’ve definitely never thought about HSM this way, so it changes my outlook on it. If you were to write a paper on this, I think it would be super necessary to talk about Troy’s guilt over doing what he loves and talk about the effects of toxic masculinity in their relation to society, since his character is meant to reject hegemony.
I like this media and the perspective that you chose to use for it because it fits well into the frame of the theory. The only thing I would have brought up would be that Troy is also part of the upper class and how that relationship also defines the dynamic between him and Sharpay as well as his relationship with Gabriella. I.e. Sharpay could have performed regardless of Troy’s involvement, him being there simply would have strengthened her position. However, Gabriella needed Troy to perform to be on that stage at all.