High School Dance: Difference between revisions

''It's always a surprise.''

''There's nothing better''

 

The '''High School Dance''', especially on television directed toward a pre-teen audience, shows these teen events at their most watered-down and dated. If it's a theme dance, then everyone will dress up. It's quite possible that some sort of awkward "boy has to ask a girl as his date" scenario will crop up at some point. For extra drama, it can be a Sadie Hawkins dance where -- ''gasp!''—the girl asks out the guy. There will almost always be colourful streamers, a punch bowl full of something orange, and happy-go-lucky kids dancing in the most parentally-approved manner possible.

 

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!]]

* 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.)

* The school dance is a key event in ''[[Better Off Dead]]'', allowing Monique and Lane their first moments alone together, while at the same time suggesting that Frankensteinian nerd Ricky possesses [[Hidden Depths]] of his own.

 

== 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!

** 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 ==

* [[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 ==

* Spoofed on ''[[Homestar Runner]]'', in a Strong Bad Email where Strong Bad is asked about his [https://web.archive.org/web/20131027140836/http://www.homestarrunner.com/kotpoptoon.html senior prom], and Strong Bad talks about the time he crashed the "Entrapment All Up on the Moon Dance".

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

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

* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', the lead up to and eventual event of the High School Dance in v4 is ultimately what takes up most of the [[Developing Doomed Characters|Pre-Game]].

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dancing Tropes]]