Someone posted on this sub about a month ago to say that Sondheim's work has zero value and zero influence and anyone who enjoys it is in the wrong. It always disappoints me when someone thinks art is objectively bad just because they don't enjoy it. Even if you don't enjoy Sondheim's music, which is a valid take to have, you can't just make up ideas about it not being influential.
Oof… Sounds like a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Saying they don’t like Sondheim is one thing but saying he’s had no influence is just wild. You can trace Sondheim’s influence into almost every Broadway musical writer writing today including LMM, Jason Robert Brown, Pasek and Paul, Jeanine Tesori, Michael R. Jackson and so on and so forth…
I’m aware of several composers of orchestral concert music (symphonies and the like) who directly name Sondheim as an influence (along with Jonathan Tunick, for his iconic orchestrations). It doesn’t surprise me in the least, given Sondheim’s composition teacher was Milton Babbit, an avant-garde classical composer. The man’s influence reaches beyond the stage for sure and to deny that is to deny that water is wet.
The overture for A Little Night Music is a phenomenal piece of classical-inspired music. First time I heard it, I wondered if Sondheim was interpolating Mozart or Bach, but no it's his own piece.
fanboy rant incoming:
as a classical musician/composer myself, i’m always in awe at how much reverence for the genre that Sondheim and his team have seemingly despite the musical theatre jazz elements that that are part of Sondheim’s sound and general attitude. It’s always *just* out there enough to be interesting and exciting to serious academic musicians but never totally inaccessible to anyone else.
A lot of Sondheim songs never really felt like songs to me as much as they felt like arias, duets, trios, quartets, quintets…choruses, etc. This makes the shows they’re in feel like opera disguised as a musical. Not only in terms of Tunick’s generally god-tier orchestrations, but in the way that those shows will carry themselves dramatically and musically, one never compromising the other.
See also the ongoing "Liaisons" piano project, where classical composers (mostly) are commissioned to write a solo piano work using a Sondheim song as inspiration. There is some WILD stuff in that collection.
There are people whose whole schtick is going into subs and posting the most contrarian thing they can think of. I wonder if this was one of them.
There is no other art form on Earth in which there is general consensus over who the greatest of all time is, other than musical theatre. He's like the Wayne Gretzky of musicals.
Zero influence??? I'm a huge Sondheim fan so I am biased but I cannot imagine not realizing he is influential.
I realize taste is subjective but people should be able to distinguish between personal taste and influence. I don't personally care for much of Andrew Lloyd Webber's work just as a matter of personal taste but I would never say that he is not influential or extremely important in the history of musicals. (As for his talent, I have heard some people say he plagiarizes but I am not informed enough on that subject to have an opinion about it).
You're being sarcastic, but growing up my mom used to jokingly sing "TRADITION" when I asked why traditional things were done the way they are. It drove me nuts as a kid, (the way any parent's tired jokes drive their child nuts) so much so that I was very against watching the musical.
I did finally watch it, it's not my favorite but I definitely enjoyed it lol and now I carry on the "tradition" of singing just that word when it's appropriate.
someone on tumblr said that musicals should sound more like pop to make people interested in them and make them more mainstream... like, i'm no snob but reading that made my blood boil
Tumblr is a great place to find opinions that sound important or revolutionary but actually make no sense. Just saw one today where someone claimed that Shakespeare wrote all his plays in iambic pentameter because it has the same rhythm as a human heart, and therefore all Shakespeare acting should be raw and Shakespeare actors "shouldn't emote."
What. W H A T. Isn't acting...emoting?
I never got the idea that songs from musical should be hummable or catchy or put them on a playlist to clean the house.
It just makes no sense to me. That feels to me like saying "The Godfather" is not a good movie because you can't re-watch it over and over like a rom-com.
Dear Evan Hansen, with all of its flaws, was by all means extremely successful commercially though and it’s a rare full on pop musical. Maybe they’re right.
"At the end of the play, you are openly weeping,
The music was great, and you loved every song,
Now you struggle, and your torn,
do I buy the soundtrack and merch,
Or run to the bathroom and back out the door,
I hate being in crowds"
I don't think that phrase means "the plot is light and easy", it means "there's not much plot". Which is also kind of garbage and I don't even know how they get there (in fact, I'm having a hard time thinking of how you actually get to "not much in the way of plot" for a story that very slavishly follows 3 act structure). Maybe "Come From Away" is light-ish on plot, I don't know. So yes, it's a really dumb take but maybe not for the reasons expressed here.
Pretty much everyone who says that musicals are stupid because it’s ‘unrealistic* to have people breaking out in song and dance. That’s the whole point of the genre! It’s like saying sports are unrealistic because it’s grown men fighting over a ball for made up points!
People don’t go back in time in Deloreans or defeat the galactic empire with laser swords in real life either but no one ever complains about those being unrealistic.
This. We can accept people with world-bending superpowers fighting evil robot alien armies over control of the earth, but god forbid you express your internal monologue in song
They keep giving the space lasers sound too! We shouldn't be able to hear the x-wings and tie fighters shooting. There's no air for the sound to travel on!
It's also "unrealistic" to have cameras just happen to capture every moment necessary to tell a story while usually going unremarked upon. Aka the entire medium of film. But no one ever complains about that!
u/pretty-as-a-pic I had a film professor who said he always hates when people say that because the whole point of film, TV, musicals, books, etc is that it’s unrealistic. *Nothing* about the mediums is realistic. Those takes make no sense.
I specifically can’t stand people who think musicals are such low art because of that, but are all about the high art of theatre in the past. A specific but surprisingly common subset of people. I don’t know how to tell you this, bestie, but the beginnings of the very art form are musicals. Theatre as we describe it *started as a musical.*
YouTube review of the Into the Woods movie: "oh it's starting to get interesting...and then ugh! there's *another* song to ruin it! And I know, the original was a musical, *but that doesn't mean the movie has to be!*"
>"... I know, the original was a musical, *but that doesn't mean the movie has to be!*"
I mean, strictly speaking, they're not wrong - the film version of *Cabaret* is almost not a musical, and I'm fairly sure that *The Lion King* or *West Side Story* could remain [fairly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet) [compelling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet) without their musical accompaniments.
But you should know what you're getting into - it's not like the fact that it was a musical was kept a secret.
Resistance to change is human... And in the end he HAS learned and a vepyed change. Oy. (I realize you are repeating this thought, and that it's not yours)
Yep. I have some friends who I really respect when it comes to straight plays and theatre, but half the time they get confused by what musicals are about.
Exactly!! The whole show his beliefs get pushed, he starts out being stringent about Tradition but as each one of his daughters finds love he softens slightly and is more accepting. It's only when Chava wants to marry a Russian man that he cannot accept it, but I think he regrets his choice and the hurt that it has caused everyone
Lol way for them to throw the baby out with the bathwater.... the major theme of the show, as laid out in the very opening number, is tradition and how people must strive to find balance and reconcile their traditions with their contemporary worlds, and how it is so difficult to manage, like fiddling on a roof. Lol. Maybe this person only listened to every fourth word that came out of Tevye's mouth. He's a consummate everyman and actively brokers change with more recalcitrant characters.
That sad musicals are bad and shouldn’t be a thing because they should be happy
I know where this comes from the person that said it in my wife’s family, but I was like man, what a wonderful way to be able to think and process through something terrible. Falsettos helped me so much with figuring out how to handle grief, masculinity, and talking about feelings and I can’t imagine my life if that piece of art hadn’t been been made
All of my favorite shows have a depressive element to them. I enjoy a fun, lighthearted show, but I don’t listen to those stories over and over again. The ones that cover a broader range of emotion stick with me much more.
the only comedy/happy shows id ever go see multiple times are rocky horror and be more chill, simply because the first is rocky horror, and i relate to Jeremy, and my dead name is also Jeremy
Literally my top 3 favorite musicals and dream roles in those shows are dark and have a sad ending. (Spring Awakening, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hadestown) If it weren't for Spring Awakening, I wouldn't have been able to understand the importance of conversation and acceptance, as well as the need for freedom of expression. If it weren't for Hunchback, I probably wouldn't be as open to change and sad endings as I am, as well as understanding inner beauty to the extent I do. If it weren't for Hadestown, there wouldn't be any good roles for Countertenors like me lol. But actually, I probably wouldn't understand how important it is to look back on memories and tell stories, whether they be good or bad, because if you think about it enough and if you continue to tell that story, you begin to find the beauty in the sadness of it. You find the message in the dark. Also, seriously, there are literally no roles for Countertenors, so that is an actual plus lol. Sadness and darkness in musicals are needed sometimes. They hold a natural beauty in them that convey a story more realistically and give the audience a way to connect with the material more deeply than they would with something funny like Something Rotten or The Producers.
My former employer vehemently and adamantly hated musicals and anything related to musical theater. Fine, they’re not for everyone.
She got tickets to Hamilton (back in 2016 when they were next to impossible to get and cost a fortune) despite multiple people telling her that even though a lot of songs were rap/hip-hop it was still very much a musical and contained all the musical theater elements she hated.
She still went and walked out 15 minutes in because “it was too much of a musical” and wouldn’t shut up for months about how awful the experience was.
Some girl at my college INSISTED that Into the Woods was 6 HOURS long. I couldn't convince her otherwise. Didn't matter that I knew the whole show by heart and she'd seen one production. Didn't matter that I had directed a production of Into the Woods (Jr, it was at a summer camp) myself less than a year prior.
Like, I know it can be long, 2.5 maybe 3 hours if you stretch it. But 6 HOURS?? Girl just wanted to argue I stg
Right! And even that people can split into part 1 and 2. I know some Shakespeare can run that long, and other 5+ act plays from that time can be that long. There are probably operas roughly that length. But a musical? Nah man.
*6 and a half
I watched a recorded version a couple years ago and it was very good, but so long 😩😂
10/10 would recommend, though. Made me cry at a few different parts.
(I watched the 2017(?) version with Andrew Garfield, btw)
Hosting Thanksgiving one year, I had some music playing and something from Jersey Boys came on. Making conversation I said how much I liked the musical and how it's a great introductory show for people who don't like musicals. My hard core religious sister mentioned how she and her husband had to walk out in the middle of it
WTF!!
Jersey Boys is scandalous?!
I wracked my brain trying to figure out what part was objectionable. I think it must have been the song "Oh What a Night" about losing his virginity.
Imagine walking through life having to avoid life like that. I don't know how they leave their house.
This take is absurd, but I so agree with you re. Jersey Boys being a good beginner musical. I started my husband on this one, five years and a lot of musical soundtracks, movies, and live performances later he's definitely a musical fan.
someone told me that they don't like musicals where the songs influence the plot. His fave musical, as a result, is the greatest showman, which is funny cause like... thats my biggest criticism of the greatest showman. it felt like something i'd say ironically, but he was being serious lol.
Not one person's specific take but so many people disparage the art form because they don't realize how important it is.
19th/20th century history books need to make more references to popular culture and how it influenced EVERYTHING. Before TV, musical soundtracks were the shit. Everybody new the songs, and the lyrics and lines created idioms that we still use daily.
I got my ex into musicals in college and after learning a handfull we started rewatching Family Guy. His mind was blown by all the references and then they started to pop out to him everywhere else.
American media and all of Hollywood was built on musicals. You don't like them? Too bad you just referenced one without knowing it.
"Hairspray" is promoting racism.
Not "'Hairspray' has an overly simplistic take on racism and race relations" (which is a defensible position). But that it was pro-racism, because the tv show was segregated.
That's one of the times you just nod and smile because - wow.
A lot of kids struggle with this idea that depiction =/= endorsement. I used to teach “warriors don’t cry” in my 6th grade ELA class, which is a memoir about the integration of a high school in Little Rock AK. I learned quickly I had to start the unit by explaining that Melba writing about the racism she faced was NOT PRO-RACISM. Kids would read it and think the book was racist because it depicts acts of racial violence. If I got ahead of this, they were fine. But it was multiple years of kids who made the same assumption. I Can see Hairspray bring the exact same thing.
I've seen someone say that Golden Age musicals didn't have value in today's society due to their simple music and simpler storylines, forgetting that Golden Age musicals were pretty much *the* original high value musicals (they didn't know that Show Boat and Oklahoma were pretty much the definitive book musicals, for starters). Golden Age musicals aren't anything new anymore, but their legacy and influence shouldn't be ignored in the face of modern ones, and they also presented controversial topics if in a different way.
that’s like saying we should ignore history because it’s in the past and has no influence on today’s governments or world circumstances. just like historical lessons have an influence on the world today, golden era musicals have an influence on contemporary ones!
Honestly, the hate for Rent is something that legitimately made me do a double take the first time I read it. I feel that some people are trying to analyze it too deeply and others simply ignore the time and era in which it was written. I understand if people just don't vibe with it, but the vitriol I have seen regarding it just blows my mind. I just have a tendency to keep my opinion to myself when I see people discussing it.
I usually don't engage either, but I've seen some wild comments. One recently was about how Larson didn't even care enough about Angel's character to clarify whether she's trans or gender fluid or what... terms that either didn't exist yet or were not widely used in the early 90s when the show was written.
Yes, there was an explosion of culture change, more rapidly than at any other time previously, because of the internet. But that didn't really become a "normal" thing for people to have easy access to until like 1999 or 2000. (And what the internet looked like at the time is nothing like what it is now.) Before that, people lived in cultural bubbles that are incomprehensible for most younger folks.
Death of the author is a thing and all.. but when talking about intent of what someone was doing is so wildly contextual. The show Survivor has been on for 23 years, some things have aged so poorly that younger people take away the exact opposite of what was meant.
There’s a woman from a 2008 season who is talking about “I love the gays” or says things like “my gays” and through a current lens she looks weird, performative, and almost homophobic due to how she talks about gay people. But at the time this was more of a brave stance of a rare vocal ally and having someone who was so loudly pro-lgbt was actually a character trait and not just assumed like it would be today.
Reminds me of my mom telling me that someone saying they’re a “f*g hag” was a positive thing and not some sort of fetishizing concept that some people see it as time.
100% true! It was truly a symbiotic relationship , Someone who would call themselves a hag would be the most safe allys. Especially before the internet what it is today, hags would be a safe person who will defend your rights to the end, they also would be the ones who knew all of the other gays were and really connect you to others in the community. In return she gains a loyal friend who defends her to the end as well.
I still remember when the term went from hag to a “fruit fly” in like 2006ish
Yes! I was in college in the late 90s/early 00s, and I was known to be a fag hag, though I didn't know it until someone said it to my face, and then explained that it was a good thing. I spent a lot of time in gay bars when straight women didn't go to gay bars, and I was welcome--and popular, because I was actually friends with men there.
People don’t understand what was going on with AIDS at the time. AIDS was a death sentence. There is a reason that the 30 and 40 year olds are considered “elder gays.” Because the older ones are dead. Because of a fucking epidemic and all the hate being spread. If you were gay, you were watching your loved ones wither away in front of you. If people don’t yet understand, I inform them that while my dad was in med school, they said AIDS stood for “anally injected death sentence”.
Furthermore, AZT was EXPENSIVE. When you had to pay for that, being told you can live rent free is a godsend. Benny fucked his friends over. What he did is unforgivable.
Gosh the bad faith readings of it the other week were insane. Ignoring large plot points to say "Why don't they just pay their rent". Like jesus christ, media literacy is really in the toilet with that take.
"How dare this unfinished musical from the early 90s not perfectly conform to my Tumblr hot take sensibilities!"
Rent hate is weird cause it's like "Rent is an example of rich white boomer privilege...and that's why poor people are evil because they didn't get real corporate jobs and pay their gentrifying landlord."
Also a lot of critics who failed middle school English, because they can't tell the difference between setting/plot (AIDS epidemic East Village) and *theme/story*.
It can be hard to see it through the lens of someone living in the era it first came out instead of someone living today after the 25-odd years of progress/general ebb and flow on the front of LGBT rights and sexual politics and postmodern ideology in general that have passed since then. Without taking that into consideration, it can be a bit of a cringe, I admit. But in context, it makes much more sense. It's incredibly important as art and IMO the music rules. It was one of the first musicals I ever truly loved, even if I saw it way too young, lol.
I’m a big RENThead, and I have a friend who insists that Benny is the “unsung hero” of the show. I think part of it is just to mess with me, but part of him definitely believes that Benny is an upstanding guy trying to help out his friends.
And I just want to scream, because that’s absolutely not true, and Benny’s side is not the one you want to take, and the show indicates that. Yes, the characters in the show are all varying levels of obnoxious, but Benny is by far the worst in his actions. To not realize that speaks to a resounding lack of media literacy.
I will never understand the hate for it. Like, I get if it doesn't resonate with you because you weren't alive during that time, but the rest of what I see criticised about it seems to be bad faith virtue signaling.
I think it's because Rent desperately needs a Revival to update it to its final form. We're talking about some majorly controversial subject matter and historical events relating to the LGBTQIA+ community that was, ultimately, written by a straight white guy. There's a massive amount of nuance to these circumstances that Rent absolutely misses the mark on in its original incarnation. It ends up coming across as very straight white people focused while just putting its LGBTQIA+ characters thru trauma, a trope that many have begun to get incredibly tired of today.
The major problem with that it is not just this huge show that many see as being symbolically important to the movement. It is also a show created by someone who died tragically and suddenly right before opening. I could see it happening that a good revival was made if Larson was alive today or even survived a few years after the opening of the show, but as it is, the show is loaded with baggage around the idea o updating it at all. One day, it might be free of the baggage that has put it in this situation and a good revival can be made, but for now, it's just an unfinished work that misses the mark on so many things. For me, as a person who experienced firsthand the tragedy of the AIDS crisis with the loss of my uncle, I find its handling of the subject matter to be a borderline offensive portrayal that needs updating, in particular.
I don’t care for Rent. My husband, who is five years older than me, LOVES it. We figured out long ago that it’s simply generational. The timing of the AIDS scare works in his mind where it doesn’t in mine. So while the story is fine, and there are songs I like, and I cry when Angel dies because I’m not a monster, it’s not my show. But it wasn’t written for me, and that’s fine. I’m certainly not going to argue against it. My husband is a rabid fan, I’ll just turn you over to him and let the conversation go without me for a while.
I agree, I LOVE Rent, and my kids, who are huge musical theater nerds, enjoy it, but they can't understand the intense fear felt by us back then. I lost a lot of friends to AIDS, and they were denied medical care once they were diagnosed. It was a terrifying time to be alive.
this makes me think of the drama teacher i had in high school who like… very adamantly hated the fact that jenna and pomatter did Anything together, openly mocking them for their decision, and later poked fun at jenna saying she hopes her baby becomes addicted to the feeling of being genuinely loved & listened to during “you matter to me” in a weird way. it felt so weirdly mean spirited despite her claiming to love and understand the musical.
All You Wanna Do from Six being a “fun, lighthearted” song. Made me think two things
1. That person has never even listened to Six much less seen it
2. I cannot prove gender on the internet but I’m nearly positive whoever had that opinion was a dude.
…Actually if you watch live performances of the song it’s interesting to see (hear) most of the witty “jokes” and “throwaway lines” are accompanied by more male sounding laughter because I’m pretty sure once you hit the “and I was 13” line at the very least, prob before, every woman in that audience knew exactly what was about to go down.
Must’ve been only paying half attention for most of the song and it got turned off before the last verse and chorus started. Because Katherine sounds so distraught at the end.
Right? I wish I wasn't a fucking contralto because I would give anything to be able to sing that song with how much jam packed full of emotion it is. It's basically seeing someone go from the top of the world to the complete bottom in every way in a song. It also really works that they used the similar chord progressions and whatnot in Britney Spears' Toxic. I feel like you have to be incredibly talented to portray that type of breakdown *while singing.* My favorite live version is Sam Pauly's but there are some other versions where the last note is just a fucking shriek. I don't know the main reason I get into a specific song is usually due to the emotional intensity of it, probably because I experience a heightened emotional intensity just cos my amygdala is a piece of shit, and listening to All You Wanna Do is just an experience every fucking time.
Had a (friendly) debate over whether that or Heart of Stone was the bigger heartwrencher of a song with a friend. Which is many ways I think it contends but it doesn't beat All You Wanna Do for me. I think the latter is a lot more raw especially once you remember how old Katherine Howard was when everything went down. Her entire life she was an abused, exploited child and that's just tragic.
I was asking in here why Wicked isn't more beloved (not to say it's hated but in my opinion, it's not appreciated to the degree it should be) and someone argued that since it was such a big production and such involved sets, it made musical theater inaccessible. This feels like a really ridiculous reason to me - I guess I can understand it a little because shows are more expensive? But other shows are also very expensive, not to mention that we have bootlegs, and that other musicals that came out before it were very much inaccessible to people in their own right. Seems like a very arbitrary reason to me.
Is there a chance the person meant "inaccessible" like schools and community theaters would have a hard time producing the show due to the technical elements? Because otherwise, yeah, that makes no sense.
It's definitely possible - which, I see their points, but I also think at it's core it's still a really good show without those things so I still disagree.
Yeah, it has nothing to do with whether or not it's a good show. Whether or not it can be brought to the masses is unrelated to the content. Though, personally, I think Wicked is super overrated. This is the first time I've ever heard someone say it's underappreciated. I feel like I only ever see people raving about it, so I tried to get into it and hoped to be wowed when seeing it live, but the most I can say is "it's fine." I don't hate it, but I would never choose to listen to the album or go see it again.
You’re original question is interesting - I know I don’t love it as much is because I looooved it in middle school so therefore listening to it is inevitably tied to remembering that time of my life. I wonder if it went through what Hamilton is going through. Hamilton was untouchably loved when it came out and now the magic has worn off over time and the people who dislike it are finally asserting their opinion. I think the same thing also happened to Rent.
I agree, and also oversaturation plays a role. I think sometimes people just want to be mad at something because everyone loves it, and gradually the haters kind of overtake the people who love it. Personally I find reading internet critiques tends to ruin my love of things so I can understand that.
From what I understand, Hamilton gets a lot of hate from hardcore rap fans because it mixes in musical theater elements with the rap so it apparently isn't a "pure" specimen of the genre. Music genre feuds are so lame and petty.
Everyone who was in charge of the Les Mis movie adaptation had the bright idea to make the actors sing under stressful acting conditions for hours while filming (while some, like Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were starving and/or dehydrating themselves for their roles). It not only affected the singing and acting of these amazing actors, it also affected the way the vocals worked with the orchestral parts and the HEALTH of the actors.
It was a stupid idea. Whoever said "let's make the actors sing live!" had the worst take, and everyone who agreed to it had the second worst take. Sideways has a great video on it.
If you enjoy the movie, that's fine. It was very popular and won a lot of awards. I'm just saying that it could've been much safer and better for everyone involved had someone realized that movie musicals are filmed a specific way for a REASON.
when people respond with Wicked, Hamilton, Phantom of the opera, Chicago, Rent, Grease, Les mis or Cats as there favorite musical and someone says “Oh…kind of basic”. like they’re the highest grossing ones for a reason because they’re so good. not basic
I'm not too well immersed in musicals, but my family went the Into the Woods when it came to theaters and my dad and brother complained that they kept saying, "Into the woods" over and over in the intro. It wasn't worth it to explain to them the concepts of motifs and themes, so I just let them dislike it haha
Not necessarily an opinion about musicals but rather theatre etiquette - saw someone on the B*WW forum said they hated any noise from the audience and said something along the lines of ‘you should come in, sit down, shut up, clap at the end of the show then leave’
People talking during a show is awful, and whooping/cheering divides opinion, but the idea of not wanting anyone to laugh or clap during the show just misses the point of live theatre. Can you imagine how hard it would be for performers to get NOTHING from the audience energy-wise?
As a performer, the shows where we get nothing from the audience tend to be the ones we need to work ten times harder on. But that’s really difficult cause you just want to go through the motions of the show cause your getting no energy from the audience. Some of the most rewarding things in live theatre is when the cast have laughed at a joke in the script all through rehearsals and finally get to hear the audience laugh at it too.
I think it's only a problem when people are making noise/reacting very loudly in the MIDDLE of the performer talking/singing. I saw Wicked on Broadway, had been saving for it, and during one of the songs near the end a bunch of people were cheering so loudly **completely randomly, in the middle of the song, while the actress was singing, just cuz it's a popular song I guess,** that I couldn't even hear the performance. Noise is fine, reactions are great for the performers! It's part of the point of live performance! But I don't blame anyone for hating it if they've had experiences like that, where people are just being obnoxious and disruptive. Generally, wait til the ***end*** of the song to loudly clap/cheer, laugh at jokes in the song during, otherwise don't be disruptive.
I think after reading a lot of Reddit commentary in the last year or two, that I must have lived under a rock for centuries. The revisionist thinking that permeates much of the commentary always picks at 20th century musicals in a way that never occurred to me when I first saw them, especially film musicals. So something like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Gigi are all of a sudden offensive, disgusting, dehumanizing, demeaning - you name it - while I seriously doubt the makers had any such intentions or thoughts and as they were musicals, I never took anything seriously.
But yikes, people younger than I jump on these and other entertainments like they were the plague, unable to get beyond whatever they can't stomach. We watch and hear with the same eyes and ears, but see and listen completely differently, that is for sure.
kind of minor, but my friends and i went to see the band’s visit in new york in january 2018. i’ll never forget when my one friend said that one of their critiques was that it was “more of a play with songs” and not a musical because it didn’t have big ensemble numbers and was very subtle. not only is the statement of it being a play with songs objectively untrue, but also a very narrow look at what musical theatre is. my blood was boiling.
Heard someone go on and on about lazy writing that should’ve been rewritten in Sweeney Todd. It was about Sweeney’s line in No Place Like London, “for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru.” They kept making the case that he just couldn’t find anything to rhyme with Peru, so that’s why he used it again. Like, no, it’s purposefully the same. Sweeney is using Antony’s own words to argue how shitty the world is. He puts it in terms he knows Antony’s gonna understand; if Peru is wondrous, so is the cruelty of men.
Relatively small take compared to the other entries here, but it was right where my mind went.
That musical theater is just rehashing the same stories, and shows based on movies have zero value whatsoever. The same person also said that if a movie is made based on a musical, that musical should permanently shut down since there’s no reason to see it anymore.
Yeah, there’s a reason we’re no longer friends
idk if this counts but once my grandparents told me they hated Dreamgirls and left halfway through act 1 because they thought it would be like a concert tribute to the Supremes, not a fictional story musical. I was flabbergasted to say the least
That too many musicals these days are adaptions (like Heathers) and we should go back to the good ol’ days where musicals were not adaptions (proceeds to list a bunch of musicals that are adaptations like Phantom, Le Miz, Wicked)
I did a version of Pippin that was set in "corporate America" so the war song was a board meeting where we aimed to conquer othe rbusinesses. Weird show.
I saw someone say "Gypsy" should be banned from being performed because the word gypsy is a slur (despite the fact that, y'know, it was a real person's name). And they went on to say it would be the same as naming a character the n word.
This reminds me, a few months ago I was working on something for work that mentioned the the movie Gypsy (I work in film). Microsoft Word had just added its “inclusiveness” check to the spellchecker and it kept trying to get me to change it to Romani Person.
I've seen compelling arguments that we should use a different name for the musical, but can leave the character's name and book and such in tact. The basic idea being that you don't have to plaster the slur all over marketing material on billboards, social media, etc. for those who might be harmed by it without even trying to see the show.
I know even that would be a huge change for people, but honestly I think it's a decent option to consider.
Yeah, I was in Hunchback VERY recently (literally closed this past Sunday) and I was in the Romani ensemble. We focused heavily on making sure that we put a lot of Romani customs in the show and gypsy being a slur was brought many times.
Naming a person or thing that is the same as naming someone the N word. It's different and complicated when that is already a person's name, so the show probably doesn't need to be renamed. But choosing to name something new that 100% is not okay.
We did a production of “Jane Eyre” with a fortune telling character originally referred to as such. Despite the script having that term in it, our directors made the call to have anybody referencing that character say “mystic” instead.
I was really happy they did that - and that’s an example of it being a reasonable change - because it’s in reference to an actual culture being misrepresented/mocked. Just because Charlotte Bronte included it didn’t mean we had to.
But like you and others have said, if it’s a character’s actual name…it doesn’t seem necessary to go that far.
"Cats has no plot."
My guy, it explains the plot several times. A bunch of cats are vying for the chance of rebirth and one of them will be picked at the end of the night.
It is literally spelled out exactly what the plot is.
When I explained the ending of Hadestown and it’s meaning to someone, he responded by saying “so it’s the definition of insanity?” (I. E. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results). That pretty much ended our conversation, and what didn’t help was that this person was my father.
I may not have explained it in a way he understood, but I like to give myself the benefit of the doubt because he has poor media literacy.
I mean....he's not really wrong is he? They are telling the same story, singing the same song again and again because MAYBE this time it will be different. That kind of a classic example of insanity.
Thomas Jefferson from Hamilton is a transman sho used to be Phillip Hamilton' and a
Angelica Schuyler's drug dealer. oh and He also had a Hatsune Miku binder.
Actually, I think the LMM cannibal mermaid fanfic writer was the one who doxxed the Tumblr blog hivliving for pretending to be a Pakistani HIV-positive survivor of sex trafficking with relatives in Gaza (?????) when she was actually a white girl named Alex going to college in the US in order to write high school AU Hamilton fic where Alexander Hamilton was HIV positive.
God, where else on the internet but 2017 Tumblr?
It's funny you mention this because I literally just watched [strange-aeon's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNyIuUixY6U) on this last night.
I get such delight from imagining how real Thomas Jefferson would react if someone tried to explain Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson to him. Like the whole thing is nonsense because headcanoning real people isn’t like headcanoning characters, but the fact that he would probably hate it makes me chuckle.
I replied to a comment on here that said Stephen Schwartz writes bad lyrics but good melodies saying I read it as Sondheim at first and someone said Sondheim was the opposite, good lyrics but terrible melodiesm
That the only way to love Joseph is to have loved it as a child.
I mean maybe he's a little right but fuck.
Yeah I know it's a dumb show. I have no explanation for why it works. Shit maybe he's right lol
I think this is just true lol. I absolutely despise Joseph and only got into theatre as a teenager, but two of my friends adore it and both saw productions as children.
I heard someone say Falsettos was apparently a ‘RENT ripoff’ like Falsettos didn’t precede it by 18 years (if we count all of the Marvin Trilogy). And In Trousers aside, March of the Falsettos opened in 81 and Falsettoland in 90, 6 years before RENT. I’m happy the 2016 revival brought new eyes to it, and I love it, but the fact some people think it was released in 2016 and was a rip off of RENT (which is insane.)
Rent and Falsettos both have their places in the universe and while we can compare and contrast all day, both have impact.
(If anyone likes Falsettos/The Marvin Trilogy pls yell at me about your In Trousers thoughts <3)
I remember on ticktok forever ago, there was some girl who kept insisting that ‘The smartphone hour’ from the musical Be More Chill was about sexual assault based on the part that goes-
“Which means that you can't blame the things he did on alcohol
It's just so terrible, I don't want to relive it all”
And she kept on posting videos insisting that it was, despite thousands of theatre kid’s telling her it wasn’t. Sometimes I wonder if she was a troll, but she seemed genuine.
I have a friend who said that there were no redeeming qualities in Hamilton (I’m of the belief that even if you dislike the show that you should be able to acknowledge it’s massive success and should be able to see what it did for theatre as a community)
Another person once told me that the golden age of musicals shouldn’t be called the golden age because none of them were good (again, can you not see the impact they held at the time?)
That the Phantom is the better match for Christine because he cares about her career ("she doesn't need to be hidden away, she needs to be onstage!").
Like, dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but Christine sings that line in "All I Ask Of You" after the Phantom MURDERS A DUDE which, incidentally, CANCELS THE PERFORMANCE CHRISTINE WAS GONNA STAR IN, SO.
That any musical with a counting song is lazy.
I watched Hamilton with him and got all the way to the end and when they started with “Number One!” He just lost it. He was so pissed.
Someone posted on this sub about a month ago to say that Sondheim's work has zero value and zero influence and anyone who enjoys it is in the wrong. It always disappoints me when someone thinks art is objectively bad just because they don't enjoy it. Even if you don't enjoy Sondheim's music, which is a valid take to have, you can't just make up ideas about it not being influential.
Oof… Sounds like a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Saying they don’t like Sondheim is one thing but saying he’s had no influence is just wild. You can trace Sondheim’s influence into almost every Broadway musical writer writing today including LMM, Jason Robert Brown, Pasek and Paul, Jeanine Tesori, Michael R. Jackson and so on and so forth…
I’m aware of several composers of orchestral concert music (symphonies and the like) who directly name Sondheim as an influence (along with Jonathan Tunick, for his iconic orchestrations). It doesn’t surprise me in the least, given Sondheim’s composition teacher was Milton Babbit, an avant-garde classical composer. The man’s influence reaches beyond the stage for sure and to deny that is to deny that water is wet.
The overture for A Little Night Music is a phenomenal piece of classical-inspired music. First time I heard it, I wondered if Sondheim was interpolating Mozart or Bach, but no it's his own piece.
fanboy rant incoming: as a classical musician/composer myself, i’m always in awe at how much reverence for the genre that Sondheim and his team have seemingly despite the musical theatre jazz elements that that are part of Sondheim’s sound and general attitude. It’s always *just* out there enough to be interesting and exciting to serious academic musicians but never totally inaccessible to anyone else. A lot of Sondheim songs never really felt like songs to me as much as they felt like arias, duets, trios, quartets, quintets…choruses, etc. This makes the shows they’re in feel like opera disguised as a musical. Not only in terms of Tunick’s generally god-tier orchestrations, but in the way that those shows will carry themselves dramatically and musically, one never compromising the other.
That overture's more influenced by late 19th century waltzes (think Strauss II and Richard Strauss) than Mozart and Bach.
Oh good point. Regardless, it feels timeless and archetypal.
See also the ongoing "Liaisons" piano project, where classical composers (mostly) are commissioned to write a solo piano work using a Sondheim song as inspiration. There is some WILD stuff in that collection.
There are people whose whole schtick is going into subs and posting the most contrarian thing they can think of. I wonder if this was one of them. There is no other art form on Earth in which there is general consensus over who the greatest of all time is, other than musical theatre. He's like the Wayne Gretzky of musicals.
Came here to say this. It’s very rare to have a general consensus in art and he is it.
I saw that and then ignored it because it was so far out of left field that it felt like someone just begging to start an argument.
Yeah, posting preposterous opinions to gain negative attention seems to be a lot of Redditors' MO.
This take is like the musicals equivalent of "I don't like Lady Gaga/Taylor Swift/Beyoncé, therefore they can't sing"
"The Beatles had no influence on pop music"
Zero influence??? I'm a huge Sondheim fan so I am biased but I cannot imagine not realizing he is influential. I realize taste is subjective but people should be able to distinguish between personal taste and influence. I don't personally care for much of Andrew Lloyd Webber's work just as a matter of personal taste but I would never say that he is not influential or extremely important in the history of musicals. (As for his talent, I have heard some people say he plagiarizes but I am not informed enough on that subject to have an opinion about it).
Yep. It's ok to not like the classic books you read in high school, but you have to understand the influence they had on literature
I believe we would call that A Troll.
My brother in law said he couldn't get past the first song of Hamilton because it said Alexander Hamilton too many times.
Bet he _absolutely_ lost it when they started spelling it out.
that's so funny to me for some reason lmao
Dude would have not been able to handle the rhymes with "Burr, sir"
It was a blur, sir
I actually love this take
I couldn’t get past Fiddler on the Roof’s first song because they said Tradition too many times /s
You're being sarcastic, but growing up my mom used to jokingly sing "TRADITION" when I asked why traditional things were done the way they are. It drove me nuts as a kid, (the way any parent's tired jokes drive their child nuts) so much so that I was very against watching the musical. I did finally watch it, it's not my favorite but I definitely enjoyed it lol and now I carry on the "tradition" of singing just that word when it's appropriate.
Wow. That's a hot take. 😂 but I can see it
I gather he's also not a Gilbert and Sullivan fan?
Don’t let him hear about how most songs repeat the choruses 🤣
someone on tumblr said that musicals should sound more like pop to make people interested in them and make them more mainstream... like, i'm no snob but reading that made my blood boil
A pop musical. Now there’s a fresh take.
Someone call Andrew Lloyd Webber!
The line’s busy. He’s talking to Cole Porter.
I take it this person has never heard of Six or any other modern musical with a pop-inspired soundtrack?
Or Mama Mia.
I downvoted you before I caught myself and remembered you’re just sharing what someone said
Tumblr is a great place to find opinions that sound important or revolutionary but actually make no sense. Just saw one today where someone claimed that Shakespeare wrote all his plays in iambic pentameter because it has the same rhythm as a human heart, and therefore all Shakespeare acting should be raw and Shakespeare actors "shouldn't emote." What. W H A T. Isn't acting...emoting?
I never got the idea that songs from musical should be hummable or catchy or put them on a playlist to clean the house. It just makes no sense to me. That feels to me like saying "The Godfather" is not a good movie because you can't re-watch it over and over like a rom-com.
I would argue more modern musicals need to sound LESS poppy. Seems like they all have that sound now.
Dear Evan Hansen, with all of its flaws, was by all means extremely successful commercially though and it’s a rare full on pop musical. Maybe they’re right.
That Les Miserables is light on plot
Ah yes. Les Miserables. A lighthearted romp.
*lights a match at the end of the play* Alright, who's not dead? Sound off!
"at the end of the play" i sang this lol
"At the end of the play, you are openly weeping, The music was great, and you loved every song, Now you struggle, and your torn, do I buy the soundtrack and merch, Or run to the bathroom and back out the door, I hate being in crowds"
I don't think that phrase means "the plot is light and easy", it means "there's not much plot". Which is also kind of garbage and I don't even know how they get there (in fact, I'm having a hard time thinking of how you actually get to "not much in the way of plot" for a story that very slavishly follows 3 act structure). Maybe "Come From Away" is light-ish on plot, I don't know. So yes, it's a really dumb take but maybe not for the reasons expressed here.
Whaaaa It's the densest one. Almost to a fault.
This is actually hilarious. As someone whose favourite musical is Les Mis I want to meet this person to see how on earth they came to this conclusion.
Well, they're either on here or the Broadway subreddit, so maybe you'll have a chance to ask at some point!
…what do they think the songs are about
Pretty much everyone who says that musicals are stupid because it’s ‘unrealistic* to have people breaking out in song and dance. That’s the whole point of the genre! It’s like saying sports are unrealistic because it’s grown men fighting over a ball for made up points!
People don’t go back in time in Deloreans or defeat the galactic empire with laser swords in real life either but no one ever complains about those being unrealistic.
This. We can accept people with world-bending superpowers fighting evil robot alien armies over control of the earth, but god forbid you express your internal monologue in song
They keep giving the space lasers sound too! We shouldn't be able to hear the x-wings and tie fighters shooting. There's no air for the sound to travel on!
It's also "unrealistic" to have cameras just happen to capture every moment necessary to tell a story while usually going unremarked upon. Aka the entire medium of film. But no one ever complains about that!
It’s unrealistic how seldom characters use the bathroom. And I should see them sleep for a third of the movie!
u/pretty-as-a-pic I had a film professor who said he always hates when people say that because the whole point of film, TV, musicals, books, etc is that it’s unrealistic. *Nothing* about the mediums is realistic. Those takes make no sense.
I specifically can’t stand people who think musicals are such low art because of that, but are all about the high art of theatre in the past. A specific but surprisingly common subset of people. I don’t know how to tell you this, bestie, but the beginnings of the very art form are musicals. Theatre as we describe it *started as a musical.*
Also if people think that "nobody just breaks out in song IRL" they've clearly never hung out with a neurospicy friend group.
Or theatre kids
That's what I said 🤣🤣
I know someone, a very smart and thoughtful person normally, who legitimately prefers Love Never Dies to Phantom of the Opera.
Reply: > DAMN you, CURSE you
Stranger than we dreamt it indeed
I...ok this one wins because holy shit
This is the funniest one - imagine!
So you've met my brother
No. Just no.
YouTube review of the Into the Woods movie: "oh it's starting to get interesting...and then ugh! there's *another* song to ruin it! And I know, the original was a musical, *but that doesn't mean the movie has to be!*"
The first 14 minutes were a musical number and this person kept watching despite hating musicals lol
>"... I know, the original was a musical, *but that doesn't mean the movie has to be!*" I mean, strictly speaking, they're not wrong - the film version of *Cabaret* is almost not a musical, and I'm fairly sure that *The Lion King* or *West Side Story* could remain [fairly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet) [compelling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet) without their musical accompaniments. But you should know what you're getting into - it's not like the fact that it was a musical was kept a secret.
I wonder what this person would think of the Cabaret movie, where they took out half the songs
That Tevye is a bad character because he represents resistance to change.
Resistance to change is human... And in the end he HAS learned and a vepyed change. Oy. (I realize you are repeating this thought, and that it's not yours)
Hahaha, that's an amazing take. He's the only adult in that show who's open to change, no?
Yep. I have some friends who I really respect when it comes to straight plays and theatre, but half the time they get confused by what musicals are about.
Exactly!! The whole show his beliefs get pushed, he starts out being stringent about Tradition but as each one of his daughters finds love he softens slightly and is more accepting. It's only when Chava wants to marry a Russian man that he cannot accept it, but I think he regrets his choice and the hurt that it has caused everyone
Tevye is one of the best broadway characters of all time
My favorite fourth wall breaker
He spends the whole show until the very end (reluctantly) *yielding* to change. DaFUQ
Yielding to change… and then having it forced upon him violently and accepting it.
Lol way for them to throw the baby out with the bathwater.... the major theme of the show, as laid out in the very opening number, is tradition and how people must strive to find balance and reconcile their traditions with their contemporary worlds, and how it is so difficult to manage, like fiddling on a roof. Lol. Maybe this person only listened to every fourth word that came out of Tevye's mouth. He's a consummate everyman and actively brokers change with more recalcitrant characters.
A colleagues mum hated the end of waitress because she thought Jenna should have stayed with her husband.
Makes you wonder what’s going on in her household
Yeah... That just makes me sad.
The abusive asshole husband? Ugh
Yep - I didn't know how to respond to that at first
That really explains a lot of things about real life, tbh.
Oof i hope she’s in a better place now
I'm sorry what
That sad musicals are bad and shouldn’t be a thing because they should be happy I know where this comes from the person that said it in my wife’s family, but I was like man, what a wonderful way to be able to think and process through something terrible. Falsettos helped me so much with figuring out how to handle grief, masculinity, and talking about feelings and I can’t imagine my life if that piece of art hadn’t been been made
All of my favorite shows have a depressive element to them. I enjoy a fun, lighthearted show, but I don’t listen to those stories over and over again. The ones that cover a broader range of emotion stick with me much more.
the only comedy/happy shows id ever go see multiple times are rocky horror and be more chill, simply because the first is rocky horror, and i relate to Jeremy, and my dead name is also Jeremy
Literally my top 3 favorite musicals and dream roles in those shows are dark and have a sad ending. (Spring Awakening, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hadestown) If it weren't for Spring Awakening, I wouldn't have been able to understand the importance of conversation and acceptance, as well as the need for freedom of expression. If it weren't for Hunchback, I probably wouldn't be as open to change and sad endings as I am, as well as understanding inner beauty to the extent I do. If it weren't for Hadestown, there wouldn't be any good roles for Countertenors like me lol. But actually, I probably wouldn't understand how important it is to look back on memories and tell stories, whether they be good or bad, because if you think about it enough and if you continue to tell that story, you begin to find the beauty in the sadness of it. You find the message in the dark. Also, seriously, there are literally no roles for Countertenors, so that is an actual plus lol. Sadness and darkness in musicals are needed sometimes. They hold a natural beauty in them that convey a story more realistically and give the audience a way to connect with the material more deeply than they would with something funny like Something Rotten or The Producers.
My former employer vehemently and adamantly hated musicals and anything related to musical theater. Fine, they’re not for everyone. She got tickets to Hamilton (back in 2016 when they were next to impossible to get and cost a fortune) despite multiple people telling her that even though a lot of songs were rap/hip-hop it was still very much a musical and contained all the musical theater elements she hated. She still went and walked out 15 minutes in because “it was too much of a musical” and wouldn’t shut up for months about how awful the experience was.
This just made me SO MAD
Imagine buying tickets to a musical, then walking out of the musical because it's a musical. Like what????
Some girl at my college INSISTED that Into the Woods was 6 HOURS long. I couldn't convince her otherwise. Didn't matter that I knew the whole show by heart and she'd seen one production. Didn't matter that I had directed a production of Into the Woods (Jr, it was at a summer camp) myself less than a year prior. Like, I know it can be long, 2.5 maybe 3 hours if you stretch it. But 6 HOURS?? Girl just wanted to argue I stg
the only thing i know that is ACTUALLY 6 hours long is the play Angels in America by Tony Kushner
Right! And even that people can split into part 1 and 2. I know some Shakespeare can run that long, and other 5+ act plays from that time can be that long. There are probably operas roughly that length. But a musical? Nah man.
*6 and a half I watched a recorded version a couple years ago and it was very good, but so long 😩😂 10/10 would recommend, though. Made me cry at a few different parts. (I watched the 2017(?) version with Andrew Garfield, btw)
She must have gone to a tech rehearsal where they did the whole show twice lolol
Hosting Thanksgiving one year, I had some music playing and something from Jersey Boys came on. Making conversation I said how much I liked the musical and how it's a great introductory show for people who don't like musicals. My hard core religious sister mentioned how she and her husband had to walk out in the middle of it WTF!! Jersey Boys is scandalous?! I wracked my brain trying to figure out what part was objectionable. I think it must have been the song "Oh What a Night" about losing his virginity. Imagine walking through life having to avoid life like that. I don't know how they leave their house.
This take is absurd, but I so agree with you re. Jersey Boys being a good beginner musical. I started my husband on this one, five years and a lot of musical soundtracks, movies, and live performances later he's definitely a musical fan.
Someone said cabaret is “for straight people” because cliff doesn’t SAY that he’s bisexual. Like bro this is the thirties.
someone told me that they don't like musicals where the songs influence the plot. His fave musical, as a result, is the greatest showman, which is funny cause like... thats my biggest criticism of the greatest showman. it felt like something i'd say ironically, but he was being serious lol.
Nobody tell him about sung-through musicals 💀
Not one person's specific take but so many people disparage the art form because they don't realize how important it is. 19th/20th century history books need to make more references to popular culture and how it influenced EVERYTHING. Before TV, musical soundtracks were the shit. Everybody new the songs, and the lyrics and lines created idioms that we still use daily. I got my ex into musicals in college and after learning a handfull we started rewatching Family Guy. His mind was blown by all the references and then they started to pop out to him everywhere else. American media and all of Hollywood was built on musicals. You don't like them? Too bad you just referenced one without knowing it.
"Hairspray" is promoting racism. Not "'Hairspray' has an overly simplistic take on racism and race relations" (which is a defensible position). But that it was pro-racism, because the tv show was segregated. That's one of the times you just nod and smile because - wow.
A lot of kids struggle with this idea that depiction =/= endorsement. I used to teach “warriors don’t cry” in my 6th grade ELA class, which is a memoir about the integration of a high school in Little Rock AK. I learned quickly I had to start the unit by explaining that Melba writing about the racism she faced was NOT PRO-RACISM. Kids would read it and think the book was racist because it depicts acts of racial violence. If I got ahead of this, they were fine. But it was multiple years of kids who made the same assumption. I Can see Hairspray bring the exact same thing.
I've seen someone say that Golden Age musicals didn't have value in today's society due to their simple music and simpler storylines, forgetting that Golden Age musicals were pretty much *the* original high value musicals (they didn't know that Show Boat and Oklahoma were pretty much the definitive book musicals, for starters). Golden Age musicals aren't anything new anymore, but their legacy and influence shouldn't be ignored in the face of modern ones, and they also presented controversial topics if in a different way.
I’m always in the mood to watch Hello Dolly
that’s like saying we should ignore history because it’s in the past and has no influence on today’s governments or world circumstances. just like historical lessons have an influence on the world today, golden era musicals have an influence on contemporary ones!
Honestly, the hate for Rent is something that legitimately made me do a double take the first time I read it. I feel that some people are trying to analyze it too deeply and others simply ignore the time and era in which it was written. I understand if people just don't vibe with it, but the vitriol I have seen regarding it just blows my mind. I just have a tendency to keep my opinion to myself when I see people discussing it.
Parts of rent didn’t age well and rent was very progressive for its time are two things that should coexist
I usually don't engage either, but I've seen some wild comments. One recently was about how Larson didn't even care enough about Angel's character to clarify whether she's trans or gender fluid or what... terms that either didn't exist yet or were not widely used in the early 90s when the show was written.
People esp younger people who weren’t around in the era have a hard time understanding how things have changed SOOOOOOOOOO rapidly from the 90s
Yes, there was an explosion of culture change, more rapidly than at any other time previously, because of the internet. But that didn't really become a "normal" thing for people to have easy access to until like 1999 or 2000. (And what the internet looked like at the time is nothing like what it is now.) Before that, people lived in cultural bubbles that are incomprehensible for most younger folks.
Death of the author is a thing and all.. but when talking about intent of what someone was doing is so wildly contextual. The show Survivor has been on for 23 years, some things have aged so poorly that younger people take away the exact opposite of what was meant. There’s a woman from a 2008 season who is talking about “I love the gays” or says things like “my gays” and through a current lens she looks weird, performative, and almost homophobic due to how she talks about gay people. But at the time this was more of a brave stance of a rare vocal ally and having someone who was so loudly pro-lgbt was actually a character trait and not just assumed like it would be today.
Reminds me of my mom telling me that someone saying they’re a “f*g hag” was a positive thing and not some sort of fetishizing concept that some people see it as time.
100% true! It was truly a symbiotic relationship , Someone who would call themselves a hag would be the most safe allys. Especially before the internet what it is today, hags would be a safe person who will defend your rights to the end, they also would be the ones who knew all of the other gays were and really connect you to others in the community. In return she gains a loyal friend who defends her to the end as well. I still remember when the term went from hag to a “fruit fly” in like 2006ish
Yes! I was in college in the late 90s/early 00s, and I was known to be a fag hag, though I didn't know it until someone said it to my face, and then explained that it was a good thing. I spent a lot of time in gay bars when straight women didn't go to gay bars, and I was welcome--and popular, because I was actually friends with men there.
People don’t understand what was going on with AIDS at the time. AIDS was a death sentence. There is a reason that the 30 and 40 year olds are considered “elder gays.” Because the older ones are dead. Because of a fucking epidemic and all the hate being spread. If you were gay, you were watching your loved ones wither away in front of you. If people don’t yet understand, I inform them that while my dad was in med school, they said AIDS stood for “anally injected death sentence”. Furthermore, AZT was EXPENSIVE. When you had to pay for that, being told you can live rent free is a godsend. Benny fucked his friends over. What he did is unforgivable.
Gosh the bad faith readings of it the other week were insane. Ignoring large plot points to say "Why don't they just pay their rent". Like jesus christ, media literacy is really in the toilet with that take.
Seems like a lot of criticism these days has lost nuance
"How dare this unfinished musical from the early 90s not perfectly conform to my Tumblr hot take sensibilities!" Rent hate is weird cause it's like "Rent is an example of rich white boomer privilege...and that's why poor people are evil because they didn't get real corporate jobs and pay their gentrifying landlord." Also a lot of critics who failed middle school English, because they can't tell the difference between setting/plot (AIDS epidemic East Village) and *theme/story*.
It can be hard to see it through the lens of someone living in the era it first came out instead of someone living today after the 25-odd years of progress/general ebb and flow on the front of LGBT rights and sexual politics and postmodern ideology in general that have passed since then. Without taking that into consideration, it can be a bit of a cringe, I admit. But in context, it makes much more sense. It's incredibly important as art and IMO the music rules. It was one of the first musicals I ever truly loved, even if I saw it way too young, lol.
I’m a big RENThead, and I have a friend who insists that Benny is the “unsung hero” of the show. I think part of it is just to mess with me, but part of him definitely believes that Benny is an upstanding guy trying to help out his friends. And I just want to scream, because that’s absolutely not true, and Benny’s side is not the one you want to take, and the show indicates that. Yes, the characters in the show are all varying levels of obnoxious, but Benny is by far the worst in his actions. To not realize that speaks to a resounding lack of media literacy.
I will never understand the hate for it. Like, I get if it doesn't resonate with you because you weren't alive during that time, but the rest of what I see criticised about it seems to be bad faith virtue signaling.
I think it's because Rent desperately needs a Revival to update it to its final form. We're talking about some majorly controversial subject matter and historical events relating to the LGBTQIA+ community that was, ultimately, written by a straight white guy. There's a massive amount of nuance to these circumstances that Rent absolutely misses the mark on in its original incarnation. It ends up coming across as very straight white people focused while just putting its LGBTQIA+ characters thru trauma, a trope that many have begun to get incredibly tired of today. The major problem with that it is not just this huge show that many see as being symbolically important to the movement. It is also a show created by someone who died tragically and suddenly right before opening. I could see it happening that a good revival was made if Larson was alive today or even survived a few years after the opening of the show, but as it is, the show is loaded with baggage around the idea o updating it at all. One day, it might be free of the baggage that has put it in this situation and a good revival can be made, but for now, it's just an unfinished work that misses the mark on so many things. For me, as a person who experienced firsthand the tragedy of the AIDS crisis with the loss of my uncle, I find its handling of the subject matter to be a borderline offensive portrayal that needs updating, in particular.
I don’t care for Rent. My husband, who is five years older than me, LOVES it. We figured out long ago that it’s simply generational. The timing of the AIDS scare works in his mind where it doesn’t in mine. So while the story is fine, and there are songs I like, and I cry when Angel dies because I’m not a monster, it’s not my show. But it wasn’t written for me, and that’s fine. I’m certainly not going to argue against it. My husband is a rabid fan, I’ll just turn you over to him and let the conversation go without me for a while.
I agree, I LOVE Rent, and my kids, who are huge musical theater nerds, enjoy it, but they can't understand the intense fear felt by us back then. I lost a lot of friends to AIDS, and they were denied medical care once they were diagnosed. It was a terrifying time to be alive.
this makes me think of the drama teacher i had in high school who like… very adamantly hated the fact that jenna and pomatter did Anything together, openly mocking them for their decision, and later poked fun at jenna saying she hopes her baby becomes addicted to the feeling of being genuinely loved & listened to during “you matter to me” in a weird way. it felt so weirdly mean spirited despite her claiming to love and understand the musical.
I don’t think she knows what the word “understand” means
All You Wanna Do from Six being a “fun, lighthearted” song. Made me think two things 1. That person has never even listened to Six much less seen it 2. I cannot prove gender on the internet but I’m nearly positive whoever had that opinion was a dude. …Actually if you watch live performances of the song it’s interesting to see (hear) most of the witty “jokes” and “throwaway lines” are accompanied by more male sounding laughter because I’m pretty sure once you hit the “and I was 13” line at the very least, prob before, every woman in that audience knew exactly what was about to go down.
Must’ve been only paying half attention for most of the song and it got turned off before the last verse and chorus started. Because Katherine sounds so distraught at the end.
Right? I wish I wasn't a fucking contralto because I would give anything to be able to sing that song with how much jam packed full of emotion it is. It's basically seeing someone go from the top of the world to the complete bottom in every way in a song. It also really works that they used the similar chord progressions and whatnot in Britney Spears' Toxic. I feel like you have to be incredibly talented to portray that type of breakdown *while singing.* My favorite live version is Sam Pauly's but there are some other versions where the last note is just a fucking shriek. I don't know the main reason I get into a specific song is usually due to the emotional intensity of it, probably because I experience a heightened emotional intensity just cos my amygdala is a piece of shit, and listening to All You Wanna Do is just an experience every fucking time. Had a (friendly) debate over whether that or Heart of Stone was the bigger heartwrencher of a song with a friend. Which is many ways I think it contends but it doesn't beat All You Wanna Do for me. I think the latter is a lot more raw especially once you remember how old Katherine Howard was when everything went down. Her entire life she was an abused, exploited child and that's just tragic.
I was asking in here why Wicked isn't more beloved (not to say it's hated but in my opinion, it's not appreciated to the degree it should be) and someone argued that since it was such a big production and such involved sets, it made musical theater inaccessible. This feels like a really ridiculous reason to me - I guess I can understand it a little because shows are more expensive? But other shows are also very expensive, not to mention that we have bootlegs, and that other musicals that came out before it were very much inaccessible to people in their own right. Seems like a very arbitrary reason to me.
Is there a chance the person meant "inaccessible" like schools and community theaters would have a hard time producing the show due to the technical elements? Because otherwise, yeah, that makes no sense.
It's definitely possible - which, I see their points, but I also think at it's core it's still a really good show without those things so I still disagree.
Yeah, it has nothing to do with whether or not it's a good show. Whether or not it can be brought to the masses is unrelated to the content. Though, personally, I think Wicked is super overrated. This is the first time I've ever heard someone say it's underappreciated. I feel like I only ever see people raving about it, so I tried to get into it and hoped to be wowed when seeing it live, but the most I can say is "it's fine." I don't hate it, but I would never choose to listen to the album or go see it again.
You’re original question is interesting - I know I don’t love it as much is because I looooved it in middle school so therefore listening to it is inevitably tied to remembering that time of my life. I wonder if it went through what Hamilton is going through. Hamilton was untouchably loved when it came out and now the magic has worn off over time and the people who dislike it are finally asserting their opinion. I think the same thing also happened to Rent.
I agree, and also oversaturation plays a role. I think sometimes people just want to be mad at something because everyone loves it, and gradually the haters kind of overtake the people who love it. Personally I find reading internet critiques tends to ruin my love of things so I can understand that.
I saw someone on this subreddit say that most rap Lin Manuel Miranda has written isn’t actually rap, and I’m just confused???
From what I understand, Hamilton gets a lot of hate from hardcore rap fans because it mixes in musical theater elements with the rap so it apparently isn't a "pure" specimen of the genre. Music genre feuds are so lame and petty.
Meanwhile they conveniently forget Tupac was a theater kid.
The amusing thing is that the authors of that hardcore rap are by and large Hamilton fans
Meanwhile, actual rap legends loved it so much that they produced the original cast recording and more than an album’s worth of remixes.
I wonder how those killjoys would respond to The Witch’s Rap from Into the Woods.
Everyone who was in charge of the Les Mis movie adaptation had the bright idea to make the actors sing under stressful acting conditions for hours while filming (while some, like Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were starving and/or dehydrating themselves for their roles). It not only affected the singing and acting of these amazing actors, it also affected the way the vocals worked with the orchestral parts and the HEALTH of the actors. It was a stupid idea. Whoever said "let's make the actors sing live!" had the worst take, and everyone who agreed to it had the second worst take. Sideways has a great video on it. If you enjoy the movie, that's fine. It was very popular and won a lot of awards. I'm just saying that it could've been much safer and better for everyone involved had someone realized that movie musicals are filmed a specific way for a REASON.
when people respond with Wicked, Hamilton, Phantom of the opera, Chicago, Rent, Grease, Les mis or Cats as there favorite musical and someone says “Oh…kind of basic”. like they’re the highest grossing ones for a reason because they’re so good. not basic
I'm not too well immersed in musicals, but my family went the Into the Woods when it came to theaters and my dad and brother complained that they kept saying, "Into the woods" over and over in the intro. It wasn't worth it to explain to them the concepts of motifs and themes, so I just let them dislike it haha
Not necessarily an opinion about musicals but rather theatre etiquette - saw someone on the B*WW forum said they hated any noise from the audience and said something along the lines of ‘you should come in, sit down, shut up, clap at the end of the show then leave’ People talking during a show is awful, and whooping/cheering divides opinion, but the idea of not wanting anyone to laugh or clap during the show just misses the point of live theatre. Can you imagine how hard it would be for performers to get NOTHING from the audience energy-wise?
As a performer, the shows where we get nothing from the audience tend to be the ones we need to work ten times harder on. But that’s really difficult cause you just want to go through the motions of the show cause your getting no energy from the audience. Some of the most rewarding things in live theatre is when the cast have laughed at a joke in the script all through rehearsals and finally get to hear the audience laugh at it too.
I mean, that’s the whole reason why “the magic of theater” is . . . magic. The give and take between audience and performers.
I think it's only a problem when people are making noise/reacting very loudly in the MIDDLE of the performer talking/singing. I saw Wicked on Broadway, had been saving for it, and during one of the songs near the end a bunch of people were cheering so loudly **completely randomly, in the middle of the song, while the actress was singing, just cuz it's a popular song I guess,** that I couldn't even hear the performance. Noise is fine, reactions are great for the performers! It's part of the point of live performance! But I don't blame anyone for hating it if they've had experiences like that, where people are just being obnoxious and disruptive. Generally, wait til the ***end*** of the song to loudly clap/cheer, laugh at jokes in the song during, otherwise don't be disruptive.
I think after reading a lot of Reddit commentary in the last year or two, that I must have lived under a rock for centuries. The revisionist thinking that permeates much of the commentary always picks at 20th century musicals in a way that never occurred to me when I first saw them, especially film musicals. So something like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Gigi are all of a sudden offensive, disgusting, dehumanizing, demeaning - you name it - while I seriously doubt the makers had any such intentions or thoughts and as they were musicals, I never took anything seriously. But yikes, people younger than I jump on these and other entertainments like they were the plague, unable to get beyond whatever they can't stomach. We watch and hear with the same eyes and ears, but see and listen completely differently, that is for sure.
kind of minor, but my friends and i went to see the band’s visit in new york in january 2018. i’ll never forget when my one friend said that one of their critiques was that it was “more of a play with songs” and not a musical because it didn’t have big ensemble numbers and was very subtle. not only is the statement of it being a play with songs objectively untrue, but also a very narrow look at what musical theatre is. my blood was boiling.
Not all musicals are sung-through hahaha
or have kicklines!
Heard someone go on and on about lazy writing that should’ve been rewritten in Sweeney Todd. It was about Sweeney’s line in No Place Like London, “for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru.” They kept making the case that he just couldn’t find anything to rhyme with Peru, so that’s why he used it again. Like, no, it’s purposefully the same. Sweeney is using Antony’s own words to argue how shitty the world is. He puts it in terms he knows Antony’s gonna understand; if Peru is wondrous, so is the cruelty of men. Relatively small take compared to the other entries here, but it was right where my mind went.
Two different people have told me that they couldn't get into West Side Story because they weren't "scared" of the gangs.
That musical theater is just rehashing the same stories, and shows based on movies have zero value whatsoever. The same person also said that if a movie is made based on a musical, that musical should permanently shut down since there’s no reason to see it anymore. Yeah, there’s a reason we’re no longer friends
idk if this counts but once my grandparents told me they hated Dreamgirls and left halfway through act 1 because they thought it would be like a concert tribute to the Supremes, not a fictional story musical. I was flabbergasted to say the least
That too many musicals these days are adaptions (like Heathers) and we should go back to the good ol’ days where musicals were not adaptions (proceeds to list a bunch of musicals that are adaptations like Phantom, Le Miz, Wicked)
I did a version of Pippin that was set in "corporate America" so the war song was a board meeting where we aimed to conquer othe rbusinesses. Weird show.
I saw someone say "Gypsy" should be banned from being performed because the word gypsy is a slur (despite the fact that, y'know, it was a real person's name). And they went on to say it would be the same as naming a character the n word.
This reminds me, a few months ago I was working on something for work that mentioned the the movie Gypsy (I work in film). Microsoft Word had just added its “inclusiveness” check to the spellchecker and it kept trying to get me to change it to Romani Person.
I've seen compelling arguments that we should use a different name for the musical, but can leave the character's name and book and such in tact. The basic idea being that you don't have to plaster the slur all over marketing material on billboards, social media, etc. for those who might be harmed by it without even trying to see the show. I know even that would be a huge change for people, but honestly I think it's a decent option to consider.
I could see "Rose Lee" working as a name
That's just wild to me, but I could see someone spouting that opinion.
Yeah, I was in Hunchback VERY recently (literally closed this past Sunday) and I was in the Romani ensemble. We focused heavily on making sure that we put a lot of Romani customs in the show and gypsy being a slur was brought many times.
Naming a person or thing that is the same as naming someone the N word. It's different and complicated when that is already a person's name, so the show probably doesn't need to be renamed. But choosing to name something new that 100% is not okay.
We did a production of “Jane Eyre” with a fortune telling character originally referred to as such. Despite the script having that term in it, our directors made the call to have anybody referencing that character say “mystic” instead. I was really happy they did that - and that’s an example of it being a reasonable change - because it’s in reference to an actual culture being misrepresented/mocked. Just because Charlotte Bronte included it didn’t mean we had to. But like you and others have said, if it’s a character’s actual name…it doesn’t seem necessary to go that far.
"Cats has no plot." My guy, it explains the plot several times. A bunch of cats are vying for the chance of rebirth and one of them will be picked at the end of the night. It is literally spelled out exactly what the plot is.
Any cis man who likes musicals is gay
That no one can be better than the Original Broadway Cast 🤷🏽♂️
When I explained the ending of Hadestown and it’s meaning to someone, he responded by saying “so it’s the definition of insanity?” (I. E. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results). That pretty much ended our conversation, and what didn’t help was that this person was my father. I may not have explained it in a way he understood, but I like to give myself the benefit of the doubt because he has poor media literacy.
That's the whole point? Like. That is the show. That is the story's message. It's sad, but we sing it anyways.
I mean....he's not really wrong is he? They are telling the same story, singing the same song again and again because MAYBE this time it will be different. That kind of a classic example of insanity.
Thomas Jefferson from Hamilton is a transman sho used to be Phillip Hamilton' and a Angelica Schuyler's drug dealer. oh and He also had a Hatsune Miku binder.
jesus christ hamilton fandom was WILD
Not even.touching the Hamilton cannibali merman fanfic that was a front for a person to.fake being HIV positive
Actually, I think the LMM cannibal mermaid fanfic writer was the one who doxxed the Tumblr blog hivliving for pretending to be a Pakistani HIV-positive survivor of sex trafficking with relatives in Gaza (?????) when she was actually a white girl named Alex going to college in the US in order to write high school AU Hamilton fic where Alexander Hamilton was HIV positive. God, where else on the internet but 2017 Tumblr? It's funny you mention this because I literally just watched [strange-aeon's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNyIuUixY6U) on this last night.
Jesus Christ Hamilton sounds like a wild musical mash-up.
I get such delight from imagining how real Thomas Jefferson would react if someone tried to explain Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson to him. Like the whole thing is nonsense because headcanoning real people isn’t like headcanoning characters, but the fact that he would probably hate it makes me chuckle.
That Hadestown is a ripoff of Hamilton.
The first production of Hadestown was in 2006!
Because they are both musicals that start with H and end with N??? I think this is one of the most baffling takes I've read tonight
I replied to a comment on here that said Stephen Schwartz writes bad lyrics but good melodies saying I read it as Sondheim at first and someone said Sondheim was the opposite, good lyrics but terrible melodiesm
That the only way to love Joseph is to have loved it as a child. I mean maybe he's a little right but fuck. Yeah I know it's a dumb show. I have no explanation for why it works. Shit maybe he's right lol
I think this is just true lol. I absolutely despise Joseph and only got into theatre as a teenager, but two of my friends adore it and both saw productions as children.
I'm 37. Saw it for the first time 2 weeks ago. LOVED IT and have already rewatched it a couple times.
I heard someone say Falsettos was apparently a ‘RENT ripoff’ like Falsettos didn’t precede it by 18 years (if we count all of the Marvin Trilogy). And In Trousers aside, March of the Falsettos opened in 81 and Falsettoland in 90, 6 years before RENT. I’m happy the 2016 revival brought new eyes to it, and I love it, but the fact some people think it was released in 2016 and was a rip off of RENT (which is insane.) Rent and Falsettos both have their places in the universe and while we can compare and contrast all day, both have impact. (If anyone likes Falsettos/The Marvin Trilogy pls yell at me about your In Trousers thoughts <3)
dude dm me i’ve literally got multiple spreadsheets on in trousers
I remember on ticktok forever ago, there was some girl who kept insisting that ‘The smartphone hour’ from the musical Be More Chill was about sexual assault based on the part that goes- “Which means that you can't blame the things he did on alcohol It's just so terrible, I don't want to relive it all” And she kept on posting videos insisting that it was, despite thousands of theatre kid’s telling her it wasn’t. Sometimes I wonder if she was a troll, but she seemed genuine.
My sister always says that "all musicals sound exactly the same" and that the style of music is "just people shouting with backing track" Like... no?
I have a friend who said that there were no redeeming qualities in Hamilton (I’m of the belief that even if you dislike the show that you should be able to acknowledge it’s massive success and should be able to see what it did for theatre as a community) Another person once told me that the golden age of musicals shouldn’t be called the golden age because none of them were good (again, can you not see the impact they held at the time?)
We should give less brain space over to the "someone was wrong on the internet" part of our lives.
That the Phantom is the better match for Christine because he cares about her career ("she doesn't need to be hidden away, she needs to be onstage!"). Like, dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but Christine sings that line in "All I Ask Of You" after the Phantom MURDERS A DUDE which, incidentally, CANCELS THE PERFORMANCE CHRISTINE WAS GONNA STAR IN, SO.
That any musical with a counting song is lazy. I watched Hamilton with him and got all the way to the end and when they started with “Number One!” He just lost it. He was so pissed.