High School Genre-Crossings!
Jan. 28th, 2006 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6This morning I watched The Faculty again. It's odd, I'd never call it one of my favorite movies, and yet somehow, every time it's on, unless there's something else much more pressing to watch, I find myself watching it (or, in this case, recording it last night and watching it this morning, since it was late and I was sleepy). It's not the greatest movie in the world, and there are huge plot-holes and an ending that seems a little out of place IMHO. But I guess it's just fun, and, as is the case with a lot of my favorites, it facilitates 'what I'd do if I were in that situation'. Plus it's got a fun cast (this time around I realized that Marybeth is the same person who later would play Daisy Adair on Dead Like Me).
It also occured to me that there seems to be a natural cross point to combine 'High School movie/series' and almost anything else, and when done well I really seem to enjoy it. I suspect it's because of several factors... setting something in a high school allows you to get a diverse group of personalities with prior experience with each other without forcing it (it seems to me that high school's the last place that you're really forced to get along with quite this diversity - once in college it's much easier to just form your own little groups, and in the 'real world' you pretty much find the type of people you like dealing with and stick to that... sure, work often forces you to interact with other types but I think its less of a factor because it's more business rather than quite the social experience HS is). Also of course, teen characters can make stupid moves plots often require, without you blaming the characters or the writers as much as kids can be stupid, and they can have heightened emotional beats. And of course high school's a more universal experience than, say, being in the military or driving a bus that can't go under 50 miles an hour or it explodes or surviving a plane crash, etc, so you add in the unreality stuff there's a nice grounding point. I wish any of this unreality stuff happened at my high school, would have made things a lot more interesting.
But, anyway, look at the examples... cross HS Drama with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you get The Faculty. Cross it with Vampires, you get Buffy. Cross it with a Private Eye mystery, you get Veronica Mars. Cross it with a Fight To The Death and you get Battle Royale. Cross it with super-powers and you get X-Men Evolution or New X-Men Academy X. It's just so natural, and some of my favorites have been in this cross-genre. I don't know if anyone's ever set a zombie-apocalypse tale in a high school, but if not, someone should, and quick (maybe doing a little on the whole theme of 'schools churn out zombies who are unable to think for themselves and like to eat human flesh and brainnnnnnnnnnns'). Hell, I'd watch it.
It also occured to me that there seems to be a natural cross point to combine 'High School movie/series' and almost anything else, and when done well I really seem to enjoy it. I suspect it's because of several factors... setting something in a high school allows you to get a diverse group of personalities with prior experience with each other without forcing it (it seems to me that high school's the last place that you're really forced to get along with quite this diversity - once in college it's much easier to just form your own little groups, and in the 'real world' you pretty much find the type of people you like dealing with and stick to that... sure, work often forces you to interact with other types but I think its less of a factor because it's more business rather than quite the social experience HS is). Also of course, teen characters can make stupid moves plots often require, without you blaming the characters or the writers as much as kids can be stupid, and they can have heightened emotional beats. And of course high school's a more universal experience than, say, being in the military or driving a bus that can't go under 50 miles an hour or it explodes or surviving a plane crash, etc, so you add in the unreality stuff there's a nice grounding point. I wish any of this unreality stuff happened at my high school, would have made things a lot more interesting.
But, anyway, look at the examples... cross HS Drama with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you get The Faculty. Cross it with Vampires, you get Buffy. Cross it with a Private Eye mystery, you get Veronica Mars. Cross it with a Fight To The Death and you get Battle Royale. Cross it with super-powers and you get X-Men Evolution or New X-Men Academy X. It's just so natural, and some of my favorites have been in this cross-genre. I don't know if anyone's ever set a zombie-apocalypse tale in a high school, but if not, someone should, and quick (maybe doing a little on the whole theme of 'schools churn out zombies who are unable to think for themselves and like to eat human flesh and brainnnnnnnnnnns'). Hell, I'd watch it.
