High School Dance: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

There's certainly never any bumping or grinding at one of these. However, unless it's a comedy with [[Middle School]]-aged kids, it's unlikely to go boys' side / girls' side.

 

 

If this is a teen movie, the climax has to happen at a big dance.

 

This trope can be an example of [[Truth in Television]], however, since some real-life high school dances contain elements of this. Except "inappropriate" dancing, which seems to crop up pretty much everywhere.

 

 

 

* Mercilessly parodied in ''[[Not Another Teen Movie]]'', where the entire cast has a musical number all singing about the coincidence of everyone's respective plotlines all leading up to the big dance.

** And lampshaded by [[How I Met Your Mother|Ted Mosby!]]

* The Enchantment Under the Sea Dance from ''[[Back to The Future]]'', or the [[Expospeak Gag|"rythmic ceremonial ritual"]] as Doc calls it. The lack of inappropriate dress and dance is pretty well justified, seeing how the dance takes place in [[The Fifties|1955]]. On the other hand, [[Seemingly-Wholesome Fifties Girl|Lorraine]] does clandestinely smoke and drink in one scene. (Again, it's [[Everybody Smokes|1955]].)

* Subverted in, of all places, ''[[High School Musical]] 3'', where there is a graduation dance and at least one of the big song and dance numbers relates to picking out the perfect costumes and how much it sucks/is great, only to completely skip actually showing the school dance when Troy decides to visit his love interest halfway across country. Of course this being ''High School Musical'' there's still tons of dancing happening all over the place.

* The plot of ''[[Mean Girls]]'' is wrapped up at the Prom.

* ''[[Grease]]'' takes the trope [[Up to Eleven]] with all the expected cliches, including a scheming [[Alpha Bitch]], cheesy decor, and a hoodlum who spikes the punch. Quite unusually (for 1950s or any era), the dance is broadcast live on television, with Vince Fontaine and Johnny Casino & The Gamblers (the [[Kayfabe]] identities of Sha-Na-Na) on hand to entertain. Also unusually for [[The Fifties]], there is some decidedly "dirty dancing" on the floor - and it's implied to be commonplace, because the principal even warns the students not to do any vulgar dances before the show begins (and, of course, everyone ignores her).

* In ''[[The Rose Tattoo]]'', Rosa meets Jack at her high school dance and, misinterpreting her mother's advice, dances too closely with him. (This is only mentioned in the play, but shown in the film.)

 

== Literature ==

 

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'': Like many [[Dom Com|DomComs]], ''The Brady Bunch'' had several episodes depicting either "boy asks girl" situations leading to a dance, or the family preparing for some theme dance:

** "Brace Yourself": One of the earliest "dance" episodes, with Marcia not wanting to go because she's "ugly, ugly, ugly!" and not because she's a hermit-like girl who kissing reminds one of licking an ashtray or some insensitive classmate cruelly told her as much ... but because she just got braces and is convinced that her date, Alan, won't want to take her now to the sixth-grade dance. It's never implicitly said, but Alan indeed backs out, claiming he's going to visit his sick grandmother out of town; whether this is a "yeah, right" moment is left to the viewer, because nobody investigates the claim. Instead, Mike, Greg and Alice each try to set up Marcia with substitute dates, only for the whole thing to be ruined due to a lack of coordination. Eventually, Alan is able to go to the dance after all, after he too gets his own set of braces!

* ''[[Family Matters]]'': With several episodes themed around high school dances, the most famous was arguably the one that introduced Steve Urkel to the world. The episode "Laura's First Date" aired December 15, 1989, and was similar to the ''Brady'' episode "Brace Yourself," in this case Laura unable to get her crush, Mark, to ask her to the dance; when he doesn't ask her and Laura frets about her predicament, the rest of the family pitches in to find Laura a dance date. It is her father, Carl, who makes the call that will forever change his life (and the course of the series): He calls up Urkel's dad to set up the date.

** In a crossover with sister show ''[[Step by Step]]'' early in the latter's run titled "The Dance," Urkel helps tomboyish Al Lambert get over the disappointment of her crush not asking her to a school dance. (Of course, it was that boy's complete loss ... by the end of the series, Al had gotten soooooooooo hot that she was never without a prospective date for the big dance!)

* ''[[Step by Step]]'': In addition to "The Dance," one of several dance-related episodes was "Prom Night," where high school senior J.T. is set up with a junior high girl (by one of his buddies as a pretty immature joke, one that would get him arrested and on the sex offender's registry these days); while Dana is dumped by her hunky date when he decides to get back with his ex-girlfriend. The two step-siblings, who are forever insulting each other and at odds in every other way, are left to share a dance ... and in the process gain a gruding respect and appreciation for one another.

* ''[[iCarly]]'': Although the actual dance is never shown, ''iSpeed Date'' revolves around the trio finding a date to the Sadie Hawkins/Girls Choice dance. [[Ship Tease|Carly and Freddie end up slow dancing together after their crappy dates leave]].

** In "A Gordo Story", the "boy has to ask a girl as his date" theme is used. Gordo asks a girl he likes to go to the school dance with him, but she turns him down because he is too short.

** It's a plot point in "Just Friends", too, where Lizzie is nervous about asking Ethan to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

* ''[[Life with Derek]]'' makes use of the 'boy has to ask a girl' theme to a tiring extent, resulting in a long-winded "hilarious misunderstanding" about who asked who.

* All of the ''[[Degrassi]]'' series have had at least one or two of these per season. There might be drugs or alcohol, but never any sexual subtext. Mostly just relationship drama.

** That was a much more realistic example than the others on this list, since at most real High School Dances, there are just as many kids sitting/standing around on the sidelines and talking as there are kids actually dancing.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Fourze]]'' had the prom for the graduating class that nearly got ruined by a Zodiarts who was basically a girl who [[Growing Up Sucks|couldn't stand leaving the school.]]

 

== Music ==

* The Statler Brothers' 1972 country hit "Do You Remember These," a nostalgic look back at the 1950s, includes a lyric about "the Sadie Hawkins dance" (a common high school-dance type, this being a girl-ask-boy event).

* [[Aerosmith]]'s "Walk This Way" is about an experience at a high school dance.

* "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus:

She's walking over to me }}

* [[XTC]]'s "Life Begins at the Hop".

* This is the setting of [[Fall Out Boy]]'s "Dance, Dance"

 

== Theatre ==

* The premise of the musical ''Best Foot Forward'' is the invitation of a movie actress to one of these.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[A Magical Roommate]]'' provides us with the Festival of Swords. Which features dancing. [[Cool Sword|With swords]].

 

== Web Animation ==

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* The big Halloween dance, complete with costumes, at Whateley Academy in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''. Although the invasion by dozens of Syndicate dropships and the attempted assassinations make it a bit more messy.

* ''[[The Descendants]]'' had one of these. On the way there, they had to fight cyborg nerds.

 

== Western Animation ==

** Later in the series (after Kim and Ron were well established) there was a complicated episode where the sub-plot was the [[Alpha Bitch]] (Bonnie) had rigged the Homecoming vote so she and Ron would be the royalty, which turned into helping her get a boyfriend. The main plot being Señor Senior, Jr. kidnapping a Programmer. Episode turns out that there was no big evil plot and all Señor Senior, Jr. was looking for was a girlfriend, and the episode ends with Bonnie and Jr. dancing at homecoming. Now, this is just plain WEIRD.

* The whole premise behind one of the most infamous ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' episodes: ''Shadow Dance''.

** That and Nightcrawler accidentally brings a bunch of monsters from another dimension to crash the dance. Hey, it's X-Men.

* An episode of ''[[The Weekenders]]'' focused on the group preparing for a school dance (Middle School, but the trope still applies) and their attempts to overcome "Lateral Gravity Syndrome", which invariably pulls boys and girls towards opposite walls for the duration of the dance.

* No less than ''three'' times in ''[[Code Lyoko]]'', each with their own set of dating dramas:

* A ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' episode features one of these, wherein the [[Bratty Teenage Daughter|young]] [[Daddy's Little Villain|lady]] pressures her dad into threatening to destroy all of [[City of Adventure|Jump City]] with his swarm of [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|giant steel eating moths]] if [[The Hero|Robin]] doesn't take her to the dance. Starfire comes along to investigate and [[She Cleans Up Nicely|cleans up nicely]].

* The series finale of ''[[Clone High]]'' was a giant two part episode that lampshaded every prom-related trope there is. [[Word of God]] said that had the series gone on, it would have revealed that there are dozens of different dances and proms throughout the year, and that the finale just took place during 'winter prom'.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dancing Tropes]]