#1
Posted: 5/19/07 at 1:07am
It's good to know someone is paying attention ...
Excerpt from nytheatre.com
For full review: http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/lega3922.htm
It's possible to watch all of this foolishness without thinking hard about what it actually signifies, I suppose, and if you're able to do so then Legally Blonde may feel like harmless fun. I found it impossible not to focus, constantly, on the insidious messages being transmitted: that rich white people can do or have whatever they want, as long as they have enough cash and dress well; that blue collar workers live in trailers, are ignorant, and are fit only to wed one another; that gay people all dress a certain way (gay men are elegant and effete; lesbians are sloppy and mannish—the one lesbian character in the story bears this out); that women can succeed only through their looks and sex appeal; that gay people are oversexed; that brown people are interchangeable figures of derision (I haven't mentioned yet that in Act I there's a law student named Sandeep Padamadan and in Act II there's a gay poolboy named Nikos "Something"-tacos (sorry, his full name isn't in the Playbill); both are played by an actor named Manuel Herrera and both their names get big laughs when they're first uttered because foreign names are so darned funny, aren't they?)
A great many people are responsible for Legally Blonde, including Jerry Mitchell, the show's director/choreographer, who supplies little in the way of exciting dancing here; book writer Heather Hach and score authors Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin; and no fewer than 16 producers: all of them should be ashamed of themselves for letting this show, which could have been either authentic fluff or provocative satire, instead reflect so complacently the dire status quo of our America first/Me first post-Bush policy.
Excerpt from nytheatre.com
For full review: http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/lega3922.htm
It's possible to watch all of this foolishness without thinking hard about what it actually signifies, I suppose, and if you're able to do so then Legally Blonde may feel like harmless fun. I found it impossible not to focus, constantly, on the insidious messages being transmitted: that rich white people can do or have whatever they want, as long as they have enough cash and dress well; that blue collar workers live in trailers, are ignorant, and are fit only to wed one another; that gay people all dress a certain way (gay men are elegant and effete; lesbians are sloppy and mannish—the one lesbian character in the story bears this out); that women can succeed only through their looks and sex appeal; that gay people are oversexed; that brown people are interchangeable figures of derision (I haven't mentioned yet that in Act I there's a law student named Sandeep Padamadan and in Act II there's a gay poolboy named Nikos "Something"-tacos (sorry, his full name isn't in the Playbill); both are played by an actor named Manuel Herrera and both their names get big laughs when they're first uttered because foreign names are so darned funny, aren't they?)
A great many people are responsible for Legally Blonde, including Jerry Mitchell, the show's director/choreographer, who supplies little in the way of exciting dancing here; book writer Heather Hach and score authors Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin; and no fewer than 16 producers: all of them should be ashamed of themselves for letting this show, which could have been either authentic fluff or provocative satire, instead reflect so complacently the dire status quo of our America first/Me first post-Bush policy.
