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High School Musical may be a Disney movie, but director Kenny Ortega believes that the film contains an underlying queer message. In a new interview with Variety, Ortega revealed that he initially wanted Ryan, played by Lucas Grabeel, to be openly gay, but he was concerned that an LGBTQ storyline would be vetoed in 2006. “We decided he’d probably going to come out in college,” said the director. “It was less about coming out and just more about letting his true colors come forward.”
When asked about the “queer aesthetic” of his films, Ortega, who came out as gay in his early 20s, insisted that his films are representative of his own story, regardless of the genre or intended audience. “That’s who I am. I put a lot of who I am into my work,” he told Variety. “I mean, really all the way back from the earliest work that I’ve done, even as a choreographer in film and television. And I think, yeah, that it’s just there, and whether it’s screaming at you, or whether it’s just sort of quietly there, it’s there.”
Ortega explained that Ryan Evans, Sharpay’s twin brother, is a good example of this quality. High School Musical viewers have long known that Ryan is gay, but because of the era and the film’s Disney background, the director felt that he couldn’t make the character’s queerness explicit.
“I have to be honest with you. I didn’t think at the time — and Disney is the most progressive group of people I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “I was concerned because it was family and kids, that Disney might not be ready to cross that line and move into that territory yet. So, I just took it upon myself to make choices that I felt that those who were watching would grab. They would see it, they would feel it, they would know it and they would identify with it. And that is what happened.”
“Thousands of kids that have said, ‘If it weren’t for High School Musical, I don’t know that I would have ever been comfortable in my skin,” added Ortega. “I don’t know when I would have been able to feel comfortable enough to come out, embrace who I am.”
Read Kenny Ortega’s entire interview with Variety here.
