Broadway Songs that are controversial?- Page 2

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 7:02pm

"Have a Nice Day" which was cut from La Cage is pretty offensive.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 7:06pm

The Sondheim Celebration Kennedy Center production of SWEENEY directed by Chris Ashley and starring Stokes and Christine Baranski takes the cake as far as controversial stagings of the Judge's "Johanna" go.

Walter Charles performed it nude wearing a long black cape and at the, ahem, climax of the song he climbed a set of stairs and raised his hands sort of intoning a witch burning on the pyre, a simile for his own "burning" desire, with everything exposed as the rest of the set was taken away. I forgot how he ended the song because the image at that moment must have blinded me. Talk about going a little too far...

Come to think of it, I think that Ashley's production of SWEENEY may be the darkest I have ever seen, even more than the Doyle revival. Stokes played Sweeney like a freaking ROBOT though, which made it all even more eerie. I thought that that character choice worked for that particular production and I think Baranski was DIVINE. Hugh Panaro and Celia Keenan Bolger remain my favorite Anthony and Johanna, as well. And Mark Price (soon to be in DOTV!) was excellent as Toby.

P

[ABB2357]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 7:38pm

Three words:

Ready. For. Change.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 7:43pm

ABB you officially have my new favorite avatar on BWW!

WEDDING BELLES UNITE!

P

[ABB2357]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 7:44pm

To Cynthia!

[Fan123]

Posted: 11/19/09 at 5:55am

'Her Face' from Carnival? Interpreted in a certain way, it has Paul being pleased to have found a girl who is (or who seems to be) childlike, helpless and dependent. And then there's the mention of his desire to smash her face (later acted upon). From what I know of the show, Paul switches from a condescending to a more admiring view of Lili by the end. Still a controversial song and show, though.

Performance of the song halfway through this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY-lZsrmjGE

New York Times review mentioning the potential creepiness of the references to Lili as a child: http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9D05EED71131F93AA25750C0A9609C8B63&fta=y

[gypsy101]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 1:10am

Old thread, but I was listening to the Pajama Game tonight for the first time in a while, and I must have mentally blocked the lyric in There Once Was a Man (a song I have problems with already, since it rhymes woman and man even though those words don't rhyme) that is so offensive I figured since it was the 50's it must have been changed by now: "More than an Injun loves his scalps." Injun (or is it spelled injin?). So then I took a quick listen and in both the 1997 studio cast and the 2006 Broadway revival recordings, the line has remained unchanged. I know Harnick updated the lyric about wearing a sling in "The Very Next Man" for Barbara Cook in 2003 (and the song about the rape from Fantasticks was altered), so lyricists updating lyrics isn't unheard of. Why didn't Richard Adler ever rewrite this lyric?

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 2:06am

Already mentioned but Ugg-A-Wug immediately came to mind, especially considering that it was changed for the recent TV broadcast and caused a fuss on the forum here. You could also consider the whiteface Mikado here in Seattle a couple years ago. Broadly speaking, I think you'll find a lot of music written for musicals around the mid-century was draped in the suffocating heteronormativity of the era.

 
If you want something more recent, you could consider the very practical balance Trey and Stone found between upsetting the Mormons and pleasuring them under the table in The Book Of Mormon. It'd be interesting to see an essay that compares and contrasts the overall mushy Life of Pi-esque moral with the more caustic humor that runs throughout.

edit: wow, old thread indeed!

Updated On: 4/21/16 at 02:06 AM

[ChildofEarth]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 6:42am

I can't believe no one has said There! Right There! From Legally Blonde.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 6:59am

As Long as He Needs Me from OLIVER might be interesting for you.  Does it heroize a woman allowing herself to be treated as a doormat, hold up her undying love as a virtue, or is it sympathizing with her condition because many women are, tragically, in that condition?   Besides it being a great song.

Also Cell Block Tango from CHICAGO.  Is it ok to laugh at women who have killed men?  Or is the "controversy" only in that no one sees it as controversial?   How would we feel if they were the six merry women-murderers instead of the six merry men-murderesses?  In other words, how do balance-of-power issues affect our tolerance for laughing at the brutal?  Besides it being a great song.

You may also want to consider The Rape Ballet from THE FANTASTIKS.   

Also, here's a copy of a post I submitted when Audra was criticized for her rape comment during her Porgy acceptance speech:

" "There was rape down by the harbor, little Susie caused a stir, claiming that she'd been assaulted, wonder what got into her?" Mack the Knife, Threepenny Opera.

Was Brecht (here Blitzstein's translation) misogynistic? Was he dehumanizing? Should rape have been excluded as a theme in a work as comically revelatory about the cruelty and immorality of modern life as Threepenny Opera?

Was rape an inappropriate subject for vaudeville? For serious, but nonetheless comic, musical theater? Or was Brecht transformatively addressing cruelty and immorality, both in the demimonde and in the greater world which encompasses all of us and rationalizes exploitation and victimization of others?

The same can be said about "Evita" which makes light of the Perons and "The Producers" which makes light of Hitler. Hopefully, no one thinks that fascism, oppression and genocide should be trivialized. Why should rape be singled out for exclusion as an appropriate subject matter for theater which pushes us to examine life and criminality in jarring, challenging but revolutionarilly provocative terms through the exercise of humor? Or do the humanities provide for a variety of mind-expanding and illuminating ways to address serious subject matters, some of which push us to the limits of our expectations of what is acceptable?

Provocative theater which chooses musical comedy as its medium sometimes "make light" of provocative subjects. By doing so it far from trivializes or legitimizes evil. To the contrary, it shakes us to the core by forcing us to take a raw and uncompromising look at our world at its most oppressive."

RE: Threepenny, you may want to compare Patrick Bateman to Mack the Knife and the musical theatre audience of the 20s Berlin (or 50s New York) to that of almost a hundred years later London and NY.  I haven't seen the American Psycho, but you may want to compare how both shows (adaptations of classics) treat the fact that their protagonists are rapists and murderers.  





 

Updated On: 4/21/16 at 06:59 AM

[quizking101]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 7:07am

"Dance: Ten, Looks: Three" from A CHORUS LINE

In the 1970s, despite all the movement of the sexual revolution, people still found a song about a women getting new "assets" to further her career more offensive than comical.

[theinvisiblegirl2]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 9:48am

Though it isn't included in productions (as far as I know), "The Worse He Treats Me" from Little Shop of Horrors is cringe-worthy in the way that it romanticizes abuse. Yiiikes.

[vfd88]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 10:10am

quizking101 said: ""Dance: Ten, Looks: Three" from A CHORUS LINE

In the 1970s, despite all the movement of the sexual revolution, people still found a song about a women getting new "assets" to further her career more offensive than comical."

Interesting. I always thought of it as being a subversively critical song of the male gaze. As in, how weak-minded must these male audition proctors (or audition proctors of any gender keeping a male audience in mind, therefore condemning the audience and the patriarchal society in general) be if a slight alteration to a woman's physical appearance suddenly makes her more qualified for a job? Especially if it takes her from a "3" to a "10" just like that.

I know it's not actually offensive as it is satire (at least in my opinion), but I nearly crashed my car about two-thirds of the way through my first-ever listen of Hasa Diga Ebowai (sp?). And I'm not even religious!

[sarahb22]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 10:49am

Not exactly a Broadway song, but a musical one: "Abraham" from "Holiday Inn."  Bing Crosby did an ode to Abraham Lincoln in blackface, accompanied by a blackface orchestra and the movie's African-American actress (playing, of course, Bing's sassy black maid) being forced to sing lines like "Who was it set the darkies free?".  In the meantime, the film's blonde female star is also there in blackface and dressed like a pickaninny, rolling her eyes in "comic" exaggeration.  This song is cut whenever they show it on TV, for darn good reason.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 10:49am

for me it's simply a funny song about the fact that some dancers have work done to get jobs.  It happens to be about a dancer who isn't unhappy about having done so.  And as another musical put it, it's her body and her body's nobody's business but her own.

Not every song about a controversial part of life is a prescriptive or anti-prescriptive take on the controversy.  Some songs simply tell us the truth about certain experiences for the characters living them.

[philly03]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 11:05am

Wasn't "The First Man You Remember" from Aspects of Love sort of controversial given that it's promotional performances (and music video) suggest that its a lovers song (sung by Michael Ball - who didn't sing it in the musical), when in the actual musical it is sung between a father and a daughter?

[Broadway Forever2]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 11:09am

ChildofEarth said: "I can't believe no one has said There! Right There! From Legally Blonde.

 

"

you mean gay or european? that song really isn't that controversial. I guess it feeds on stereotypes but I mean it's not really offensive. I've never seen it cut from a high school production.

 

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 12:09pm

Quite a few in American Psycho, If We Get Married the girls sing about love and the wedding day, he sings about killing them. Also Killing Spree from American Psycho.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 3:34pm

Broadway Forever2 said: "you mean gay or european? that song really isn't that controversial. I guess it feeds on stereotypes but I mean it's not really offensive. I've never seen it cut from a high school production."

 

The title of the song is "There! Right There!" I assume so the audience won't look in the program and know the punchline before they get to it (like how the audience didn't laugh when "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" was called "Tits and Ass" in previews). The song is built on stereotypes but I don't really think it's offensive.

[Kad]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 3:43pm

For a song to be controversial, wouldn't it needed to have... caused controversy?

There's a difference between a song that is distasteful or covers touchy subject matter and a song that is actually controversial.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 3:50pm

How about "If You Could See Her" from CABARET. Its final line was supposedly received so poorly out of town that it was changed.

Though not originally so, the song "I'm An Indian Too" is regarded with much controversy whether it should remain in the show as a symbol of history or if it should be cut.

(Forgive me if these were already mentioned I didn't read the whole thread.)

[Valentina3]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 4:50pm

It comes off as a satire because the piece is based in 1920s (though given the time of the actual material was 1960s, I won't be too sure about calling it a satire), "You Are Woman" from Funny girl bothers me a bit.

 

Also there's one line in Grease "Summer Lovin'" which is downright disgusting. While the football team (?) is discussing a guy's summer fling, they ask him - "Tell me more tell me more.. did she put up a fight?" WHAT? 

 

 

[gypsy101]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 5:07pm

Kad said: "For a song to be controversial, wouldn't it needed to have... caused controversy?

There's a difference between a song that is distasteful or covers touchy subject matter and a song that is actually controversial."

 

I think when I did the search last night I typed in "offensive lyrics" but this was the first thread I saw and my browser was being slow, so I decided controversial was apropos.

[Ranger Tom]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 10:00pm

ggersten said: "Much of Damn Yankees:
Six Months
A Little Brains, A Little Talent
The Game

If you want songs that sound sexist but are actually commentary, then I second "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm" and raise you a "somewhere That's Green"
"

In Yankees, you forgot "Goodbye Old Girl."  Beautiful song but have heard folk gasp when it's sung today.

[Ranger Tom]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 10:20pm

Kad said: "For a song to be controversial, wouldn't it needed to have... caused controversy?

There's a difference between a song that is distasteful or covers touchy subject matter and a song that is actually controversial."

Thanks Kad.  Great point.  Most examples in this post seem to be things that weren't controversial when they were first written/produced.  Many may have caused people to be uncomfortable (which is one valid reaction to theater).  Now days, some are looked at with appropriate sensitivity (like It Depends on What You Pay from Fantasticks), some (in my opinion) are a lame PC (There, Right There, from Legally Blonde).  For real controversy, look to examples like "Where Do I Go?" at the end of the first act of Hair.  That's where the 'dreaded" nudity happens.  It was "controversial" for it's time; now, it doesn't even register.