While I agree completely that Ellen is a pivotal character -- and by that I mean that Kim would not have a reason to shoot herself if Ellen wasn't an impossible obstacle -- there are some very significant reasons why changing the song also changes the nature of her entire character, and also lessens the need for Kim to commit suicide. One might say the new song is about hope. Well, guess what? The whole show is about hope -- from Kim's perspective and from the Engineer's perspective. In fact, we've already heard Ellen hope and "still believe" that one day Chris will confide in her and they'll be happy. Do we need her to reprise that? We don't need to be inundated with more hope from someone we don't particularly NEED to sympathize with. We can... if we want... it's certainly a valid direction to take Ellen in... and it's a lovely song... but to me, it's all much more tragic when Ellen presents herself as a woman who is not going to back down, because let's face it: if someone came along and knocked on your door and claimed to be married to your husband or wife, you'd be like "F you. I don't care who you are or were, now leave."
Simply put, everyone can't be a protagonist in the story. The only antagonist we have is Thuy and he bows out before the first act is done. I've always found it particularly interesting that Ellen, who is completely innocent, becomes an antagonist simply by virtue of being married to the man that Kim loves. She takes an honest position and says: "Look, we'd like to help, but he's my man and that's not going to change. It sucks that I've seen you face to face and you're not just a name I can discard... but tough sh**." It does paint her as a bit of a b*tch, but it also harkens back to the concept of war and media established in Bui-Doi, which is that if we don't see it, we don't care. They're just nameless faceless people... until you discover that they're real. And so Ellen's battle becomes hating this woman even though she's flesh and blood and suffering. It's not her moment to believe that love will triumph, it's a moment to doubt… and question... and hate... and to hate that she hates at all, but she can't help it. We need a character like that to balance out the ones who are not like that at all. It's unrealistic to think that everyone wants to do the right thing without hesitation. In fact, self preservation is usually our first reaction. That's real.
You wouldn't stop and pause and reflect on your life two seconds after confronting your husband's secret first wife. You'd be like "whaaat the eff just happened here, and how do I even begin process this?!" Robbing her of that small moment to play a proper antagonist puts her on the same playing field as Kim, and though in a way they are every much in the same boat, it's too one dimensional to have all your characters with the same motivation. That's just bad storytelling. It's much more powerful to have people coming from all angles. I mean, do we need an American copy of Kim? No. We need someone who is driven by the same cause but reacts differently. Let's look at the characters:
Kim - wants to be reunited with Chris, but most of all is willing to sacrifice everything so that her child will have a better life with his father.
Chris - wanted to give Kim a better life, failed, and eventually tries to find her so he can be reunited with his child.
Engineer - wants to flee to American to make a better life for himself. Helping Kim and Tam is a step which only benefits his endgame, though I prefer to think that he cares... he just doesn't really show it or realize it until it's too late... in that final moment when he picks up Tam and shields him from the sight of his mother's body.
John - wants to do right where they went wrong during the war and help the children left behind
Thuy - wants the bride (Kim) he was promised to maintain his family's honor
Ellen - wants to keep her husband. Period.
Perfect tragedy. What we need is for her to make her intentions clear because she hasn't done that yet. We don't need to know how she met Chris; that was already established in "Please" when John explains to Kim that Chris fell apart after the war. It's also explained to Kim during "Room 317" and by Chris during "Confrontation" when he tells Ellen how he felt during and after the war. We know he was down and giving up, and then he met Ellen and his life began again. We know he's torn about what to do next. We know that John wants them to work this out and he thinks they're doing a piss poor job of it. We know that the Engineer is getting what he wants. We know what Kim wants... and that only leaves Ellen to lay her cards on the table.
Everyone in between Kim and Ellen can do whatever they want, but Ellen is in direct conflict with Kim, and her reaction will ultimately cause Kim to kill herself. If Ellen makes us sympathize with her, the impact of what she's done is not so powerful when Kim pulls that trigger. Because the moment she does, you realize that if only Ellen had received her differently, Kim would not have left in such despair. Think of it like yelling at someone, and you then you sit around thinking negatively about them, stewing in your anger… and then you find out they're dead before you could resolve the argument. You would feel so guilty and wish you'd done things differently. If, however, you held out hope that it's not a big deal and everything will be alright, and the person dies, the guilt factor is not as deep and scarring. This, to me, changes the entire ending for Ellen. I like to think that she walks into that room and sees Kim on the floor and thinks "Oh god, what have I done?" You see, we don't have to sympathize with her BEFORE that moment because it becomes a tragedy for her as well the very moment she sees Kim dying in her husband's arms. When we turn her into someone who is more likeable and more patient instead of considering a very brutally honest ultimatum, we rob Ellen of some of that guilt that she deserves. It also makes Kim's decision less tragic and suddenly needless. I don't want to look at Kim dying on the floor and think "Aww, you should have waited it out to see what happens." I want to recognize that she was willing to pay the ultimate price for her child and that she had no other choice. Thus, Ellen shouldn't be telling us that she's going to wait it out and see what happens, because she believes in Chris… she should be declaring war on Kim's intentions. And that makes it all the more ironic -- that this story should start with Chris wanting to save Kim from a war, and that Kim goes through all this, only to end up in a war of love that results in her death.
One of the reasons they keep toying with this, unfortunately, is probably because of the race-related backlash that always comes from this show. There are always those who detest the story because they feel it depicts the Vietnamese as seedy prostitutes and savages and hustlers, while the Americans are portrayed as pompous do-gooders who don't really care about the Asians, and all the while the Asians need to be "saved" by becoming Americanized. Madama Butterfly is consistently criticized in the same manner. Ellen is tagged as a cold-hearted American b*itch who needs to be given more to sympathize with, simply because there are no white people in the story to sympathize with at all. You have a predominantly Asian cast, you have a soldier who left a knocked up girl behind and then moved on, you have his stone-cold wife, and all the white people have no intention of actually helping in a manner worth celebrating. I think the story is great the way it is because it leaves everyone with their hands tied and no happy ending in sight. So does everyone else I know, whether they're white or Asian or any-American. But the voices of dissent carry louder than the voices of approval.
They should have left "Her or Me/Now That I've Seen Her" alone. They also should have left "The Sacred Bird" alone instead of reprising "This is the Hour" or inserting "Little God of My Heart". Why they do this is truly beyond me. Removing "I Saw Him Once" from Les Mis was another brutal decision that robbed Cosette of her only defining moment.
And now that all that is out of the way, I challenge you all to listen to the new song again and try to figure out where the tune was taken from, because the FIRST time I heard it, I was humming along in perfect unison. I knew every note before she sang it. Either it WAS taken from Martin Guerre, or it's borrowed from another piece. I literally already knew it as she was singing it, but I've never heard it before. It's driving me nuts.
Updated On: 12/24/12 at 01:52 AM
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