Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS- Page 2
Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#25Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 11:16am
"Oh, mores HAVE changed...
As for theater in general, how about we embrace language of all kinds, high and low, sacred and vulgar?"
If they've changed so much, then why do you still make the distinction between "high and low," language, and still deem some language "vulgar?" Ultimately, the corrosive, corrupt elites would like to eradicate all such distinctions. Thankfully, good sense still prevails, however precariously. You can talk until you're blue in the face, but vulgar words are vulgar; respectable people don't use them; respectable people are rightfully offended by having to hear them; and respectability and respect for others are concepts that still exist, should always exist, and must always exist if we're to have any kind of a decent civilization.
#26Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 11:19am
But the line as-is isn't part of a rhyme, so it's just a very odd change for something that could have been resolved very simply. ...Though it's hardly out of character for Finn.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#27Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 11:32am
Kad said: "But the line as-is isn't part of a rhyme, so it's just a very odd change for something that could have been resolved very simply. ...Though it's hardly out of character for Finn.
"
I went back and listened to the song again and I'm sure I'm right as to Finn's motivation. His one flaw, IMO, is his willingness to rhyme at the expense of consistent diction and, sometimes, even comprehensibility. (To be clear, I am a die-hard fan; but I still cringe at "It's not genetic; everything can be copacetic" (now "You can still be copacetic", I believe)..)
No, it didn't rhyme before, but he saw his chance and went for it.
I agree with you, however, that "flat as a lake" sounds like a common metaphor when it isn't. And Finn's style in the number in question doesn't really allow for flights of metaphoric fancy.
#28Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 11:40am
After Eight said: "...If (mores) have changed so much, than why do you still make the distinction between "high and low," language, and still deem some language "vulgar?"...."
Because words related to scatology and graphic sex ARE vulgar and deliberately so. And they probably don't belong in a president's State of the Union address (though nothing will surprise me once Trump takes office).
But to ban them from the theater is to deny the art form any sense of verisimilitude. To deny musical characters vulgar behavior and base motivations is to turn them into eunuchs.
Musical theater is too wonderful to tie it down with the restrictions you demand.
#29Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 11:50am
Yes, Finn, it would seem, has a habit of working backward from a word he wants to rhyme (for whatever reason) and not deviating from it. Jesse Green really put this best: "Finn grabs at a rhyme as if it were the last canapé on a tray" and also, importantly in terms of character in relation to lyric, asks: if “hepatitis” did not rhyme, sort of, with “excite us,” would Trina have it?" I think this is an astute criticism of Finn's style. I'm a fan of Finn's body of work and I think his lyrical style results in really truthful idiosyncrasy... but just as often as it results in lyrics that not only bend over backwards, but sometimes turn themselves inside-out to make the rhyme.
He also has developed a habit of fiddling with lyrics to either their detriment or with no improvement at all (such as taking advantage of this need to censor a lyric to turn it into a new rhyming couplet).
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#30Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:10pm
As Henry Higgins says, "We'll have none of your slum prudery here."
This kind of censorship has always been the purview of the ignorant, crass, bourgeois, and unsophisticated. Well-educated, enlightened individuals have no need of it.
#31Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:17pm
Yeah, this all seems a bit unnecessary. Haven't we heard stronger language on the BBC imports they show? And it's just uses of Basic S and Basic F. It's not like there were some infamous line where somebody says "I'm gonna c** in your a**." There's no shock value and no gratuitousness to the language in Falsettos.
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#32Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:19pm
"This kind of censorship has always been the purview of the ignorant, crass, bourgeois, and unsophisticated. Well-educated, enlightened individuals have no need of it."
When it comes to crassness, the elites you doubtless deem "well-educated" (do they ever read à book?) "sophisticated" (in their Machiavellian malice), and "enlightened" (as open-minded as steel traps) blow everyone else out of the water!
#33Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:20pm
darquegk said: "There's no shock value and no gratuitousness to the language in Falsettos."
There is to the likes of AfterEight, who seems to draw the line at anything that ruffles a doily.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#34Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:28pm
"And it's just uses of Basic S and Basic F"
Hilarious. Now they're just "basic." As commonplace and inoffensive as the little birdies tweeting in the trees..
If they're so "basic," why don't you write out the words in their entirety?
#35Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:33pm
Oh, it's always sad when a fictional character strays from their assigned parameters - After Eight has heretofore sounded like a fusty, effete academic; but in this conversation he's coming off more like a Hogarthian charwoman, Madame DeFarge, or some Una Merkel character.
#36Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 12:50pm
Kad said: "Yes, Finn, it would seem, has a habit of working backward from a word he wants to rhyme (for whatever reason) and not deviating from it. Jesse Green really put this best: "Finn grabs at a rhyme as if it were the last canapé on a tray" and also, importantly in terms of character in relation to lyric, asks: if “hepatitis” did not rhyme, sort of, with “excite us,” would Trina have it?" I think this is an astute criticism of Finn's style. I'm a fan of Finn's body of work and I think his lyrical style results in really truthful idiosyncrasy... but just as often as it results in lyrics that not only bend over backwards, but sometimes turn themselves inside-out to make the rhyme.
He also has developed a habit of fiddling with lyrics to either their detriment or with no improvement at all (such as taking advantage of this need to censor a lyric to turn it into a new rhyming couplet).
"
And here I thought I was the only one who had noticed! Yes, Finn allows his lyrics to wander through the rhyme fields, but sometimes the result is fresh and even insightful. On the whole, I can overlook the occasional clunker. If he'd written "flat as a lake" in the first place, we'd all be used to it by now.
#37Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 2:21pm
I don't like the need for censoring/altering certain words and lyrics from the show, but we're also talking about PBS. They have really squeaky clean mouths there, not even their shows on Masterpiece use foul language. Billy Eliot was bleeped every time they swore, which was just annoying when it was on PBS. So as annoying as changing the lyrics is, I'd rather not hear moments of awkward bleeping.
#38Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/6/17 at 3:28pm
FUCK
SHIT
they're just words, Jesus Christ what's the big deal. those people at PBS are a bunch of prudes.
"Contentment, it seems, simply happens. It appears accompanied by no bravos and no tears."
#39Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/7/17 at 7:14am
Not for anything but I just around to watch Buyer & Seller (under Theatre Close-up) from when it was PBS and they aired it with the swearing, with a parental advisory. I guess it depends if it's part of Arts Festival or Great Performances, they won't allow swearing?
"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008
temms
Broadway Star Joined: 7/21/04
#40Falsettos Lyric Changes For PBS
Posted: 1/7/17 at 11:00am
I imagine it's part of a greater give-and-take - it's a show that will already have conservatives up in arms and using it as their latest excuse to try and defund PBS, so it's about mitigation. There's no FCC guideline against a positive portrayal of gay people and families (yet - our new president's best friend Vladimir put a definitive end to that in his country so who knows) but there is one against language, for better or worse. So an organized, well-monied group with objection to the content could use the language to raise a real stink that would otherwise have no teeth. So you lose an s-bomb and an f-bomb and you get to show two men in bed together. People will still complain but there won't be anything specifically against guidelines.
Videos