El High School Musical

Our hotel in Madrid (I'm reverting back for lack of anything recent to blog about) was near what, I guess, is the Broadway of Spain - as on this stretch of road there were about 14,000 musicals, including:



I, myself, have never seen "High School Musical" and cannot speak to whether this is the best, possible product America could have chosen to export to our Spanish-speaking friends in Europe. I also have never gone to high school in Spain. However, I have seen movies set in Spanish high schools AND I am familiar with the standard mythology/plot development of American movies set in high schools. And so what I wonder is this: how to Spaniards understand what the hell is going on in this musical?

I mean, seriously, how do they get whatever there is to get about it? While "Beauty & the Beast" (playing just across the street from this) deals with the all-cultural, timeless story of true love being more than skin deep, this...THIS deals with, what? Singing and dancing about gym class? Do they have cheerleaders in Spain? What about "chemistry teams"? (We didn't even have that one in MY high school.)

Can you imagine the daunting task of translating "High School Musical" into Spanish? Does any even know the Spanish word for "math nerd", because we haven't gotten to that unit in my text book yet.