Nguyen 1

Jenna Nguyen

U of U Writing

Prof. Erin Rogers

20 November 2017

Sympathy for the Monstrous It-Girl

The plot of American teen-oriented movies mostly originate to one concept: if it’s about a

young girl in a generic high school, chances are she has a crush on a popular boy and has a

mean girl antagonist. This generic plot can be accurately presented upon the continuously

growing list of Disney Channel originals such as High School Musical. Ashley Tisdale portrays

Sharpay Evans in this film, the vain it-girl. She is very well concerned about her reputation, and

strives off of the intimidation of others. (Grant) While Sharpay Evans is the physical

embodiment of the average American mean girl in a teen movie, there are other settings on the

opposing side of the spectrum where the mean girl mentality continues to linger in young adult

targeted stories. There is a familiar connection between the teen movie monsters and their origin

stories; many of them originate from a destructive background that becomes the reason they

lack a charismatic personality. There tends to not be a place for sympathy when it comes to

monsters, but with a deeper understanding of the roots of their behavior, there is room for

reasoning behind their actions. Sympathy can exist, only if their behavior was genuinely not

monstrous from the very beginning. Their monstrosity is unnatural, and does not actually reflect

who they are.

Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender is a greedy, power-hungry individual who works

relentlessly to maintain a rich image for herself and her honored family. Through deeper

analysis, Azula’s true destiny is to maintain a reputation in which people respect her or remain
 Nguyen 2

envious of her. (Vasconcellos) She lives to keep the honor of her family intact in society, and

she does this by portraying the generic mean girl mentality. Sharpay Evans and Princess Azula

seem like two completely different people when analyzing the characters on a surface level (in

fact, their film classifications are complete opposites) but their roots are the same. They both are

very well concerned with how they represent themselves to others. The root of their monstrous

bitterness is in their need of acceptance and love from others.

Over the course of the High School Musical franchise, Sharpay Evans continued to keep

up with her diva spoiled attitude. The three movies of the series showed only a slight increase in

character development away from her set persona. It was only until the High School Musical

spin-off Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure that set Sharpay’s true understanding of herself.

(Sullivan) Amber Lee Adams is introduced in the film as the ultimate star of the show Sharpay

aspires to be in. Amber is seen as a role model to Sharpay only for the perceptible fact that she’s

extremely successful. The movie makes it obvious that Amber is yet another perception of

Sharpay’s true personality, which causes Sharpay to question all she had worked for to meet an

end goal she no longer wanted. This very moment of realization created such an impact on

Sharpay, that it caused her to ponder the possibility of letting go of her life goal, showing how

tremendously it affected her.

The bitterness Sharpay reflected off of her personality is very well connected to the

growing pains she experienced when she was younger. As the film High School Musical 2

suggests, Sharpay’s relationship with her parents was never truly an emotional connection. The

recurring scenes of neglect she experienced with her parents only continued to convey the

projection of lost connection between them. (Karim) Undoubtedly, Kenny Ortega, the High

School Musical director, wanted to portray Sharpay as the antagonist of the series. It was
 Nguyen 3

generic for Disney to have a young protagonist with a completely opposing character. The

original plot lines for many of the Disney Channel original movies consisted of a main

character, a love interest, and an anti-protagonist. (Vena) Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure breaks

this conventional theme by creating an antagonist that reflects the main character, or can even

be considered an identical form of the main character. The generic mean girl monster is not

Sharpay Evans as seen in the previous three movies, but this time is now Amber Lee Adams.

In the pursuit of trying to be like Amber Lee Adams, she recognizes that Amber was not

a role model she wanted to idolize. Sharpay had always been the spiteful monster in the

previous three High School Musical installments, but in Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure, she no

longer holds such a negative role and is instead the film’s heroine. She recognizes the error in

her temperament, which was rarely an option when seeing her nature among the three films.

Sharpay manages to become the character viewers can finally get invested in, and receives the

sympathy she should’ve gotten earlier. (Two) This specific diva-monster personality was

created due to environmental tensions: with her charismatic parents’ only seeking for fame and

societal value, and her peers overlooking her malicious tendencies and treating her values

poorly. (Karim)

On the opposing side of High School Musical, the animation containing the mixture of

Japanese anime and Western domestic cartoons, Avatar: The Last Airbender is presented. This

action adventure series contains very few elements that are similar to the Disney original, one of

which being the presence of a teen female antagonist. The nature of the show is completely

different from the teen musical drama, but still contains the vain diva embodiment within a

character named Princess Azula, who strives to capture the main character, the Avatar Aang in

hope of bringing and maintaining the formal honor her family receives from their nation.
 Nguyen 4

(Fekete) Sharpay Evans and Princess Azula, coming from two completely different sides of

television share similar ideologies and beliefs as to what their purpose in life is.

During the series, Azula has a primary goal of capturing the Avatar. This is because her

father, the man of the throne to the Fire Nation, can only be stripped of power by the Avatar. To

prevent any risk of being overthrown, the firelord demanded that the Avatar was to be captured.

Aang, the chosen Avatar, left the world for a hundred years by freezing himself in an iceberg.

His revival sparked a revolution amongst individuals within the other nations, thus contributing

as a major factor in the downfall of the Fire Nation. Azula’s family, with the exception of her

banished brother Zuko and her abandoning mother, was the royal family with full authority in a

world where the Avatar didn’t exist due to resting in the iceberg. Azula was naturally a

monstrous bully with Zuko, and in many flashbacks caused him emotional pain. Without the

Avatar even being a concern, she was already considered a “mean girl.” what completely

amplified it though, was the combination of the abandonment of her mother, the banishing of

her brother, and the revival of the Avatar.

Unlike Sharpay Evans, Azula had a childhood that consisted of a loving mother. While

Sharpay had a childhood that surrounded her with constant societal pressure, Azula was in fact

already put on a hierarchy by her royal family. She and her younger brother Zuko experienced a

rather luxurious childhood, yet she had traits to be considered a diva it-girl. On playdates with

her friends as a young adolescent, she wanted to be considered over her peers. The egotistical

tendencies she held were possibly due to her family’s set ranking in society and her desire to

maintain it. This understanding continues to be the reason why she aggressively searches and

plots to kill the Avatar. Even though she already held traits of being a self-absorbed monster
 Nguyen 5

when she was younger, these traits amplified when she devoted all her time to search for the

Avatar.

Azula had a full devotion to capturing the Avatar throughout the three season of The Last

Airbender due to risk of losing the throne. It is unclear as to whether her commitment was due

to the pressure her father put on her constantly throughout her life to be better than Zuko, or due

to proving to herself that she was truly better than whoever she wanted to compare herself to.

Regardless of what her motive was, one of the things factually definite was the increased

amount of effort she put into stopping the Avatar. While many of her plans always had a last

minute solution in favor of the Avatar, she undeniably had an elaborate setup for it, and without

lack of communication, would have captured the Avatar long ago. The final episode of The Last

Airbender was the very last time she would try to capture team Avatar, and was the very first

time the audience saw Azula give up hope in seizing them.

Sozin’s Comet was the very last episode of The Last Airbender series, and allowed

audiences to witness Azula’s first emotional breakdown. She constantly has visions of her

mother throughout the two-hour episode, and while it was very normal for Zuko to have them, it

was not for her. While she maintained an image that consisted of needing power and dominance

over love and affection, this last episode revealed that this truly wasn’t the case. Every person

that stood in Azula’s way was always defeated by her firebending. She had always fought her

boundaries with her bare hands. With constant visions of her mother watching her, she is this

time unable to fight them. She could not fight the continuous visions of her mother with her

firebending anymore, because these images were all in her head. At one point, Azula sees her

mother in the reflection of her mirror, and instead of confrontation, she shatters the mirror with

her fist. Before breaking the mirror, she even talks to the image allowed, saying that her mother
 Nguyen 6

only thought of her as a monster. She then sobs uncontrollably, realizing that she has been

defeated, and has no way of being victorious. Azula can no longer destroy what is in her way,

because all of this was a mental creation. The boundary that was standing in her way was her

mind, and she was unable to control it or defeat it.

Azula had become the ultimate monster of herself during Sozin’s Comet when Katara and

Zuko, the Avatar’s companions came for a one-on-one battle with her. Azula visually was in the

worst physical shape she had ever been in the series after suffering through many multiple

mental breakdowns. When it was time for her to fight with Katara and Zuko, Azula no longer

had the motivation to fight them. The endless amounts of fights she had endured would make it

seem like this fight would not be as excruciating as it actually was. The disorderly fashion she

walked in with, the uneven cutting of her hair during her mental breakdown, and the widening

of her pupils created a truly horrifying image of Azula. While she was viewed as a monster by

being an antagonist, she was a monster this time by her physical appearance. She undoubtedly

looked insane and unstable. Her fighting abilities seemed to weaken once she realized that there

truly was something that she was unable to defeat.

At the near end of the battle, Katara is able to fully defeat Azula by chaining her onto a

drain and successfully tying her up. Azula doesn’t verbally admit to her defeat, but indicates it be

breathing fire out from her mouth and filling the silence with her shrieks and sobs. Katara and

Zuko reflect the audience with their initial reactions; with their wide eyes, still figure, and

concerned look. After three seasons of seeing Azula as the horrendous egotistical monster, this is

the one scene she is no longer with the power. Zuko, her opposing sibling and the one who was

at war with her ever since the beginning, is seen radiating sympathy for her. His facial expression

gives the indication that she was no longer someone he despised as usual, but rather someone he
 Nguyen 7

felt sorry for. He was no longer someone who was jealous of her position and where she was, but

rather realizing how fortunate he was to not have been put under Azula’s circumstances. The real

monster was truly what she had become. The development of Azula’s character had always been

a young monster wanting to gain more power, but the true monster she progressed into was one

created due to defeat.

While High School Musical’s Sharpay Evans may seem like a villain that does not hold

vast similarities to Princess Azula of The Last Airbender, they both hold similar origin stories to

each other, and due to this, have a similar outcome of becoming a monster. Their outcomes

though after realizing the mistakes in their ways are completely different, with Sharpay trying to

correct her mistakes and being aware of her faults, and Azula not fully admitting defeat and

instead pulling herself down. The teen movie monsters and their origin stories are similar though,

consisting of a destructive family background. There tends to be a lack of place for sympathy

when it comes to these monsters, but there is room for reasoning behind their destructive actions.

Sharpay Evans and Princess Azula, coming from two completely different sides of television,

easily share similar ideologies and beliefs as to what their purpose in life is. Both characters

experience lack of connection to their intermediate family, and must compensate for that with

manipulating the one thing they believe they can gain full control of: others.

Works Cited

Fekete, Bob. “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” IGN, 20 June 2008.

Grant, Hannah. “High School Musical: A Character Analysis.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 2

July 2014
 Nguyen 8

Karim via Twitter. “Why Sharpay Evans Was the Real Victim of High School Musical:

A Thread.” Twitter, Twitter, 14 May 2017,

Oppliger, Patrice A. “Bullies and Mean Girls in Popular Culture : A Critical Survey of

Fictional Adolescent Aggression.” McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers,

2014.

Stevenson, Lesley. "“Bad Bitch” or Just a “Bitch”: The Mean Girls of High School

Films." Through Gendered Lenses.

Sullivan, Brian. “Production Has Begun on ‘Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure," a Disney

Channel Original Movie Starring Ashley Tisdale.” The Futon Critic, 8 June 2010.

Two, Tommy. “Interview: Cameron Goodman” Tommy2.Net, 16 Feb. 2011.

Vasconcellos, Eduardo. “Interview: Avatar's Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante

DiMartino.” IGN, IGN, 6 Sept. 2007.

Vena, Jocelyn. “Ashley Tisdale Promises 'Special Cameo' In 'High School Musical' Spin-

Off.” MTV News, 21 May 2010.