Will Joshua Bassett’s character get a queer romance in Disney+’s High School Musical series?
In High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season three, characters are getting ready for the casting of a school musical. And this season’s musical? Frozen, of course. The Mouse House loves self-promotion! But here’s a twist. This Frozen production will have two male leads in a queer romance. And that’s not all!
In an interview with Digital Spy, show creator Tim Federle was asked whether Joshua Bassett’s Ricky Bowen might explore his own queer relationship through this Frozen production.
Related: The ‘HSM’ Gay Love Song Shows A Rise In Disney’s Gay Representation
“One of the joys of a long-running show is that you get to explore all facets and all aspects of all of these characters,” he said. “So as a queer storyteller myself, I feel a real responsibility to try to tell the truth about the experience of young people today, which is so much more fluid and accepting and exploratory than I think it was when I was a youth.
Federle continued, “I think particularly for Ricky this season, he’s got some big things to figure out. He ends up going to summer camp, feeling like: ‘It’s going to be a summer of fun, and I’m not getting involved romantically. My last entire year has been the obsession of trying to figure my romantic life out’.
“And as so often happens, the best-laid plans go up in smoke when someone important distracts you. So I think he’s definitely on a big arc this season,” the writer added.
real plot twist where ricky and ej start their romance <3
#HSMTMTS pic.twitter.com/V47WE4Yk4l— dani (@FEELBRINA) August 3, 2022
But where’s all this queer romance talk coming from? Well, we’re just a few episodes into the third season. But fans of the show have been elated to see Ricky getting close to his summer camp buddy EJ (played by Matt Cornett). In the second episode of the season, Ricky asked EJ if he was excited to play potential lovers in the show. And the tweets wrote themselves.
https://twitter.com/rickyginas/status/1554727089017917440?s=20&t=OkF4d9GwfLM_4ql1u6v3yw
People also just want to see Joshua Bassett get to perform in an LGBTQ+ role, seeing as he’s queer himself. The actor came out last year by confessing his love of singer/actor Harry Styles.
“What I admire about Harry Styles is that he’s a very classy man and he’s very well rounded. He’s cool, he’s just cool…who doesn’t think Harry Styles is cool? Also, he’s hot, you know?…” Bassett said while talking to Clevver News. “He’s very charming too. Lots of things. This is also my coming out video I guess.”
But how will this Ricky Bowen romance storyline go down? You’ll have to check into High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which you can stream now on Disney+.
Source: Digital Spy, Clevver News,
The show is cute, I hope it doesn’t seem forced if he comes out gay on the series, there is a very cute gay couple (well the past 2 seasons) Carlos & Seb we’ll see if Seb is in this season when more episodes come out but so far no Seb.