Miss Saigon????

I saw Miss Saigon recently and I thought it was an amazing show, but something bothered me towards the end. This has probably been discussed before, but I want to hear other peoples' opinions on this. Throughout Act 2, especially towards the end, I had mixed feelings about Chris.
When he's fighting with Ellen he says something along the lines of how he only fell in love with Kim because he was in Saigon and she was the only good thing he could find or something along those lines. And then he chooses Ellen over Kim and decides to leave her and their SON in Bangkok. That really made me hate Chris.
I also felt Chris and Kim's relationship was almost too fast. What if Kim didn't even really love Chris but she thought she did because no one else had been nice to her like that? She's naive. Of course when he asks to take her to America she's gonna say yes, she doesn't know any better. Was Kim manipulated by Chris? It seems like he just CHOSE that Kim was going to be his love after singing a song about it. And going back to Chris leaving Kim and Tam in Bangkok, it was him who decided he was gonna take Kim to America, he's the one who came up with the idea, not Kim, so isn't it his responsibility to take her?
Before I saw the show, I never thought that Chris "abandoned" Kim. I just thought that he had no choice and was dragged to the helicopter by force. When I watched the Manila version of the show on YouTube, Chris was punched by John, who dragged him to the helicopter. But in the Broadway revival, Chris willingly goes with John to the helicopter which really bothers me. And then he screams Kim's name in the helicopter?
So am I the only one bothered by this or does everyone that sees the show hate/have mixed feelings about Chris? Did they write his character like this on purpose and want the audience to have mixed feelings or was this unintentional?

I have seen many versions of Miss Saigon (from original Broadway to revival West End and Broadway and others in between (touring and local productions) and that scene in the helicopter to me has always been John forcing Chris to get on the helicopter, while Chris is yelling Kim's name.

Also he is married to Ellen, while to Kim it is a pretend marriage I see how he is staying with Ellen. Chris loved Kim while he was in Saigon and even years after. I think in the show Chris sings for 3 years he felt lost back in the US. Then he said it's time to move on and he met Ellen. Ellen also helped Chris move on after the sadness after the war.

youwillbefound2 said: "he chooses Ellen over Kim and decides to leave her and their SON in Bangkok."

If I recall correctly, Chris and Ellen "discuss" (sing about) a few different options, including moving to Bangkok and sending Tam to an "American" school. Ellen also indicates that, if it was only Tam they were dealing with, they would take him back to the States, but she's understandably uncomfortable with the idea of bringing Kim to the States as well. It's a very difficult situation for all involved and I don't think it's accurate to say that Chris "decides to leave [Kim] and their SON in Bankok".

youwillbefound2 said: "I also felt Chris and Kim's relationship was almost too fast"

You're not wrong about this one, but it's fairly common practice in musical theatre to launch a grand passion within the scope of one or two songs. For example, in Phantom of the Opera, Raoul is quite smitten after seeing Christine sing one song and by the next morning he's in love. Similarly, in Les Miserables, Marius basically just sees Cosette and instantaneously declares his love for her. Time in musical theatre is often compressed.


youwillbefound2 said: "Before I saw the show, I never thought that Chris "abandoned" Kim. I just thought that he had no choice and was dragged to the helicopter by force. When I watched the Manila version of the show on YouTube, Chris was punched by John, who dragged him to the helicopter. But in the Broadway revival, Chris willingly goes with John to the helicopter which really bothers me. And then he screams Kim's name in the helicopter?"

I believe John threatens Chris with physical force (and a gun?) to get him into the helicopter. I don't have the lyrics to "Kim's Nightmare/The Fall of Saigon" in front of me at the moment, but I think there's a passage about the ambassador ordering all Americans onto the chopper immediately as it will be the last transport out. Chris does not go on board willingly and this is why he screams in anguish, "Kim! I'm sorry Kim!".

Updated On: 6/27/17 at 02:30 PM

youwillbefound2 said:
But I'm still confused about this: Did Chris EVER love Kim or was it like he said, how he was in Saigon and didn't know who he was and she was the only good thing he found there. "

Chris slept with her for a week after paying for her. He may have liked her. He may have enjoyed her physically. But to expect a lifelong love to come from that scenario is very naive.

People fall in love under extreme situations....this is the only kind thing EITHER of them experienced (at least during the war), so it certainly SEEMS like love - and who's to say it isnt? You also have to remember, they are very young and out of their element.

Well, one can argue that Chris is certainly written more sympathetically than his Madama Butterfly counterpart. In the opera, they make it very clear that Pinkerton is mostly using Cio-Cio. I find both pieces equally sad, but for drastically different reasons. And that's because of how both works' core relationships are displayed.

youwillbefound2 said: "When he's fighting with Ellen he says something along the lines of how he only fell in love with Kim because he was in Saigon and she was the only good thing he could find or something along those lines. And then he chooses Ellen over Kim and decides to leave her and their SON in Bangkok. That really made me hate Chris.
"

And then he chooses Ellen over Kim...? What time frame are you referring to? At the time of Ellen learning about Kim, Chris does not decide anything. At the time Chris left Saigon, he could not have known he would have a son. He didn't decide much of anything there either. In the three years in between, he had no clue if Kim survived - or if she did, where she was. He (mostly) moved on with his life, and that doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to have done under those circumstances.

dramamama611 said: "People fall in love under extreme situations....this is the only kind thing EITHER of them experienced (at least during the war), so it certainly SEEMS like love - and who's to say it isnt? You also have to remember, they are very young and out of their element."

I agree, just like in real life, people jump into relationships, sharing their whole life and body with the other person form the moment they meet. Especially in this situation, with the tragedy of war, it can be even more intense. They can't really know eachother well (I always say you start to really know a person after about 2 years). So the "butterflies/falling in love" part usually lasts for a few months, and then changes into to something else/or not. Kim and Chris never had this chance, it only lasted for a week/few weeks, so in their minds their "connection" stayed in that first phase. Stress, trauma, being very young and falling in love, the short time period, all play parts in the way they handled it.

I've always looked at MISS SAIGON with a realistic eye. No doubt Kim and Chris' love was very real and very raw at the time. Like someone mentioned before, people fall in love in the worst kind of circumstances. You can love two different people for very different reasons and the person you end up marrying is rarely the person you'd consider your soulmate.

I'd compare Kim and Chris' love to June and Nick's love in HANDMAIDS TALE. June has a husband in Canada but she's stuck in Gilead under the most oppressive regime so she clings to any sense of normality which happens to be Nick. Doesn't mean she doesn't love her husband any less it just means she fell in love with someone to cope with a horrific situation.

In terms of what happens after the curtain closes I always assumed it was fairly obvious. Chris obviously buries Kim and takes Tam back to the US to raise him with Ellen. I imagine Ellen and Chris knew each other before the war, and Ellen having feelings before they even got married, but nothing ever happened between them. Ellen knew the men coming home would be damaged so she resigned herself to wait for Chris to get better. After a year, when he finally decides it's time to move on, there's a woman willing to accept his trauma and love him unconditionally so of course he'd jump at it.