Disney spent many many years trying to convince us that Sharpay was the villain of The High School Musical franchise, but like many others after rewatching the movies I realized she was quickly written off as evil and spoiled even though she wasn’t.

Sharpay was the most dedicated person in theater. It is obvious that she wants to pursue a career in Hollywood so why wouldn’t she be upset when two total newbies show up to auditions LATE and then get the roles over her. So what if she got the date changed, Gabriella and Troy weren’t much better when they caused two different events to stop and mess with other people’s days so they could sing for a few minutes and join a play they didn’t seem to care too much about.

People often refer to her as over the top but what’s wrong with that? Her performances are always so enjoyable to watch and you can tell that she puts effort into every single one. She comes to every audition, practice, and performance dressed to the T unlike Gabriella and Troy who showed up to their final performance in street clothes.

She is often called spoiled which she may be, but she also works very hard in theater. In each movie there is at least one song about how hard she works and we’re supposed to scoff at her for being so pompous but in reality she’s the one who put in the time and effort into those performances even when she was blown off.

In the end of each movie she ends up helping our “protagonist”  even though they always seem to get what she wants. That’s her demonstrating how she’s the bigger person.

So now you may be asking who the real villain of this franchise is and that’s easy, Troy. While he has some redeemable qualities I don’t really see how we rooted for him as a child.

First of all he was LATE to both his auditions. Punctuality is very important in life especially theatre life and Troy being late didn’t just waste his time but also Mrs. Darbus’ time as well. This is especially unfair to those who showed up on time and put effort into their performance like Sharpay and Ryan and who put on a very enjoyable audition.

He said his girlfriend didn’t matter to him. Secretly recorded or not, that was his girlfriend and he really threw her under the bus so he could convince his meat head friends that he “had his head in the game.” Did everyone in this movie forget that you can do multiple clubs at the same time?

He’s a hypocrite. He spends majority of the second movie with Sharpay and playing basketball with his college bros but then gets angered by Ryan mentioning Gabriella’s mom’s brownies. I know that he didn’t deliberately spend his time with Sharpay and the college basketball players but that’s what ended up happening so of course Gabriella would spend time with different people. Did he expect Gabriella to sit and fiddle her thumbs while he danced with Sharpay.

Also is he clueless? Even though he wasn’t there for the “I don’t dance” scene to witness the undeniable chemistry between Chad and Ryan there were many hints that Ryan wasn’t romantically interested in Gabriella.

Now this is a petty critique but while practicing for their last musical he destroys the set with his pure carelessness. He starts by climbing over the seats like an untamed gorilla, then climbs up the tree set. The wet tree is covered in green paint and is now all over his hands. Now with his green wet hands he grabs the WHITE post and leaves a print. As someone who paints, covering a huge green hand print with white paint is definitely a difficult task. He then grabs Gabriella with his green and white hands. He just destroyed three different materials without thinking twice about it.

Overall it’s clear Sharpay was the actual protagonist of this franchise and was constantly getting screwed by her fellow classmates who didn’t seem to care as much as she did. It’s no wonder she got her own spinoff movie over any other main character.