Triumph of song and self-esteem

When Howlin’ Wolf sang, “The men don’t know / But the little girls understand,” he couldn’t possibly have been thinking of the Disney Channel’s business plan, but that describes it well enough.

Following the world-shaking phenomenon known as “High School Musical,” which conquered young minds this year, comes a belated sequel to the network’s successful but not quite as successful “The Cheetah Girls,” based on a series of books by Deborah Gregory about a high school singing group.

Like its predecessor and so much else produced by Disney since “The Little Mermaid” remade its fortunes in 1989, “Cheetah Girls 2: When in Spain” is aimed squarely at tweenage girls, a demographic that blends on the low end with more mature tots and on the high end with actual teenagers who are not yet too cool for school -- or in the present case, for a summer vacation in Barcelona, where the Cheetahs go to compete in a big singing contest.

And then there is me. I am almost embarrassed to admit how successfully this stuff works on me, given that I am old enough to know better and am as far out of the target audience as one can get while still being human. Yet I am a sucker for the backstage musical, a venerable line that runs back to the very dawn of the talking picture -- the mere words “Let’s put on a show” raise my temperature two degrees -- and if this is not the most refined example of the form, it at least hits the necessary marks.

The best of the musical numbers are authentically exciting in just the way they’re meant to be, and there are enough of them that even a person uninterested in “growl power,” group hugs and cries of “Cheetalicious!,” or in cute hand-kissing, guitar-playing, scooter-riding or tango-dancing Spanish boys, can weather the spaces between.

Certainly, the script is formulaic, though not out of laziness or a lack of imagination (it seems to me) so much as a faith in formula, and it is not without hiccups of wit. (“That party was bananas,” says Cheetah Aquanette, played by Kiely Williams, “and I can’t bounce back the way I did when I was 12.”)

And if the music, reminiscent of the Spice Girls and En Vogue and TLC and Jennifer Lopez and like that there, is strictly factory-made, well, factory-made music has historically had its (many) moments -- it is made to have them. And while I think it’s safe to say that none of these songs will have the staying power of “When You Wish Upon a Star” or “The Bare Necessities,” that will not matter to the 80,000 Cheetaheads who bought the soundtrack (already out) in its first week and who will be all set to sing along tonight with Galleria, Aquanette, Chanel and Dorinda and their new friend, Marisol, played by Mexican teen-pop sensation Belinda. As a childhood Monkees fan, I am not going to cop an attitude on this count.

And there is Barcelona itself, which makes its first appearance at minute 14 and stays in until the end, and which is “craaazy” beautiful in the words of Galleria (co-executive producer and Disney stalwart Raven-Symone). While there is something strange about seeing Antonio Gaudi’s great Park Guell or the equally fantastical Palau de la Musica Catalana used as a backdrop for this fluff, still, it’s great to see to see them. The city adds real soul to the less-real visiting Hollywood soul, and lets the kiddies see the world.

The young lead actresses, none of whom is quite as young as she’s supposed to be -- and who also include Adrienne Bailon as Chanel and Sabrina Bryan as Dorinda -- are for the most part wonderfully relaxed and natural. Raven-Symone, who has been in show business since she was 3 or 4, acts with every inch of her face; she is animated like a Disney cartoon. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.

There are other refreshing and admirable things about the film: It portrays a range of body types as attractive; it’s multicultural without being schematically inclusive; it’s not exactly bilingual but is full of Spanish, spoken and sung. Best of all, it’s not the least Ameri-centric and has no time for our native obsession with winning. To the Cheetahs, you win by being yourself, saying it loud, being proud. You make your own kind of music, sing your own special song. The film’s finale comes with the contest, naturally, set in a corner of the old city -- but in the end the contest is simply forgotten in a celebration of sisterhood and getting up to get down. Everyone’s a winner.

*

‘The Cheetah Girls 2’

Where: Disney Channel

When: 8 to 10 tonight

Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages)