A brief diatribe

[matril]

I like musicals. I really do. When they're good. But when they're lousy, they really irritate me. The kind of lousiness that irritates me the most is an appallingly bad story that's white-washed with a bunch of feel-good, vapid songs. These are the sort of stories that, without the musical aspect to disguise their lousiness, would be full of holes and underdeveloped at best, and at worst, altogether bleak. Several Rogers and Hammerstein musicals come to mind. They've been around for a while, and they have bouncy, easy-going songs, so people tend to think they're great classics. But that's not nearly enough to blind me to the dreadful stories. The most wretched one in my view is Carousel, a tale of domestic abuse, deceit and death. Whee! It's fun! It actually presents the idea that a physical attack can feel like a caress. Hmm...I believe that's called ennabling, isn't it? But slap a few songs on it, and it's a happy story. Blech. I was interested to learn that the story upon which the musical was based ends with the abusive man, now dead, going off the hell. Yikes. It's not that I'd necessarily prefer the bleak ending; it's just that if you're going to change the ending, you have to change something else about the story along the way. Otherwise, it's tacked on without anything to back it up.

Same with My Fair Lady. In Pygmalion, Shaw's play, Eliza leaves Henry at the end, and rightly so. She would be miserable with him. But they couldn't have that in a musical; it had to be sweepingly romantic even with two thoroughly mismatched characters. The adaptation doesn't change Henry's behavior throughout the play to anticipate the altered ending; he's still a jerk to her, unappreciative, degrading, downright verbally and emotionally abusive. And yet we're supposed to believe, because he's sung a song or two about his growing feelings for her, that everthing's going to be different? He gives no real indication of that. So what if he's fallen in love with her? That's not enough to change him. He's still an arrogant punk, and she deserves better. It's playing on the entirely false notion that if a jerky man falls hard enough for the right woman, he'll change his ways and be kind and wonderful and perfect. That's garbage. I could write a whole separate rant about that....but anyway, a few songs don't convince me that there's anything happy about such a fabricated pairing at the end of that musical.

I haven't seen Mamma Mia (oh, sorry, forgot the obligatory exclamation point ;P) on stage or on screen, so I can't fully judge it. It looks bouncy and fun. It also looks like the sort of story that makes me want to poke out my eyes. So this girl has never had a father, has no idea who sired her, decides to find out in time for her wedding (because that's the only real purpose of a father, to walk you down the aisle ???) and....the hilarity ensues? Right, because dsyfunctional family relationships are always such a blast!! I may vomit. But don't worry, there's lots of ABBA songs to help you along through the murky, half-baked storyline! Please.

I must emphasize again that I like musicals. Good musicals. For example, Les Misérables has both an excellent story and fantastic songs; it's entertaining, moving and intelligent. (Much better than the movie adaptation of the novel - yech!) It doesn't use fun songs as a way to cover up plot holes or character inconsistencies or general lousiness. Children of Eden is another one of my favorites. Mind you, it has some pretty bizzare theology, but as a tale of parents and children, of generational strife and redemption, it's great. The songs are a part of the story, not a cover-up. I could name more, but my point is, I find lousy musicals all the more annoying because I know it doesn't have to be that way. They can be good; they can be great. Having the ability to keep the audience's feet tapping is not enough for me, because I know a musical can do more than that.

Comments

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Hmmm ... very interesting :). I actually went to see Mamma Mia last night with a friend of mine who wanted to see a fluffy, happy movie and I have to say it came through in spades with that - the plot was ridiculous, but the cast did marvelously with what they had. I suppose I could classify as what George Orwell might have called a good bad musical - very well-done fluff that was basically chewing gum for the brain - the kind of movie that presents life as you sometimes wish it was, which musicals are especially prone to by their nature. Though in justice to what there was of the plot, I should mention that the daughter isn't presented as wanting her father just for the walk down the aisle - in fact, she makes it clear in one scene while having a spat with her mother that one reason she's getting married young (unlike her mother, a free spiritish type who never married) is that she wants to have children who know their father, because growing up not knowing your father is awful and she doesn't want them to experience that. It's actually rather interesting - the mother is presented as thinking her daughter is fine with just one parent and would be traumatized by the sudden appearance of a father, while the daughter is secretly rifling through her mother's old trunks and diaries trying to find the most basic clue about who he is. This isn't to say that you would like it - from the sound of things, it definitely wouldn't be your cup of tea - but I wanted to mention that it at least takes a twenty or thirty-second stab at not being *completely* shallow :).

So, on to musicals I've become acquainted with more than 48 hours ago - how do you like Kander & Ebb? I think they're cynical to the point of exhaustion, but definitely good; certainly nobody experiences any miraculous last-minute transformations in those :). I'd love to see the 1930s movie of Showboat as well - I've only seen clips, but it looks fantastic. I never liked An American in Paris, though - the couple weren't as disparate as Henry Higgins/Eliza, but they never clicked for me. I wonder how My Fair Lady would have ended if Alan Lerner hadn't done the libretto - "older man teaches/falls in love with younger woman" was his staple theme, to the point where, as Mark Steyn put it "He was paying alimony to no less than eight fair ladies."

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Sorry, "No FEWER than". Steyn's grammar is better than that :).

[matril.livejournal.com]

I'd probably be entertained by Mamma Mia, enough to watch it for free on television, maybe while also doing Sodoku puzzles...but not enough to want to spend any money on it. ;)

I had to look up Kander & Ebb; turns out I'm only tangentially familiar with their work. Probably not my thing either...I don't like tacked-on, contrived happy endings, but I'm also not fond of unrelenting bleakness. ;) I was curious enough about Chicago to consider watching the film, but then all the commercials for it came across to me like soft-core porn, and it kind of made me lose all interest. :P I guess I'm really picky.

My main quibble with American in Paris (or as I like to call it, "Gene Kelly Dances. A Lot.") is that the plot is paper-thin, with the holes filled in by a long, long dance sequence. Yawn.

But I am highly amused by the quote about Lerner. It explains a lot. :)