Rent: Overrated or Revolutionary?- Page 3

[Kringas]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 9:40am

Very good point, Mr. Midwest.

And thanks, Urban.

Updated On: 8/28/05 at 09:40 AM

[TennesseeTwang]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 10:13am

Excellent points Urban. They echo an aritcle I read months ago in which a colleague and friend of Jonathan Larson's said the he feels that Jonathan was a great artist waiting to happen but that at the time of his premature death, he wasn't quite there.


It was a story about the tragedy of great potential lost, not great art achieved.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 1:55pm

"Very good point, Mr. Midwest."

Thanks, sweetie.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 3:55pm

I think Rent was revolutionary in that it appealed to many people that weren't typical musical theater fans. You never walk into a performance of The Music Man and see kids with green mohawks and body piercings singing along with every word. It's like the gateway drug to theater addiction.

It can be considered overrated when people who don't know other theater say that it's the best show ever without having the knowledge/experience to back it up.

Kringas, I've always thought Susan Schulman is grasping at straws in many aspects of her argument. When I think of "heroic figures" in Rent, I think of Angel helping Collins after he's beat up, and Maureen and Johanne finding Mimi in the park and bringing her back to the loft. What's so heroic about Roger, Mark and Mimi that you think their efforts are so much greater than the others?

"It's constructed like a Benetton ad: There's the homeless Puerto Rican drag queen who's HIV-positive, the black upper-class lesbian, the straight white guy from the suburbs who's HIV-negative. And they're all presented as equal; they're all bohemians. This is a standard conceit of a dominant culture: to look at people who have different levels of social power and equalize them in a false way that removes the specificity of their experience."

She needs to meet my friends if she thinks diversity has to be contrived.

Updated On: 8/28/05 at 03:55 PM

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:08pm

I just feel it was powerful and made a big impact when it first opened. But now it's almost like "What's the point?"

And you have to admit, the audiences these days are getting younger and younger. Was the point of RENT really intended for tweens? No.

And I hate how every kid thinks they can relate to these characters, and want to believe they've been through the same things. UGH.

[TennesseeTwang]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:12pm

Somehow, I think all these points are going to find their way into many critics' reviews.

[freeadmission]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:21pm

"If you want Musicals and Broadway to have an even stronger place in culture and you don't go see or at least buy a ticket for RENT (or THE PRODUCERS movie) then you are not doing something that you could be doing to help support musicals in general and the possibility of future musical movies being made."

This is an interesting point, MrMidwest, but I think it is flawed. While I enjoy musicals to a great degree it is because I see them as one of the best artistic mediums. If somone made a movie musical of a show I consider to be artistically bad, I wouldn't see it simply out of principal. I couldn't care less for musicals as a whole if all of them became bad. By supporting a bad movie musical I am supporting bad art and thereby encouraging the musical PTB to create more shoddy art, since it's what the public seems to want. Supporting a bad musical for the sake of musicals everywhere is contradictory.

This is not to say that RENT or The Producers are bad art. I'm merely pointing out what I think is a flaw in your arguement.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:28pm

"If somone made a movie musical of a show I consider to be artistically bad, I wouldn't see it simply out of principal. I couldn't care less for musicals as a whole if all of them became bad. By supporting a bad movie musical I am supporting bad art and thereby encouraging the musical PTB to create more shoddy art, since it's what the public seems to want. Supporting a bad musical for the sake of musicals everywhere is contradictory."

Well, of course there are variables to every situation, but overall I think what I say is valid. There are only so many musicals that haven't been made into movies that would have the possibility of being considered to be made into movies (Such as Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, Aida, Wicked, Hairspray, Sweeney Todd, etc). Most of them, I personally, wouldn't consider bad. It's not like if you support a not so good musical and it's successful someone is suddenly going to write all the music and the story for a sequel; at least it seems unlikely in most cases. Hollywood would probably just adapt other musicals, and by and large, hopefully they would be good ones. Every genre has bad movies, but at least musicals would be more at the forefront with more of a possibility of good ones being made if there was more of demand for them.

Updated On: 8/28/05 at 04:28 PM

[freeadmission]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:30pm

Fair enough.

But that sequel comment scared me. Just the idea of it! *shudders*

Sequal makers should be shot, but I'll stop threadjacking now.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:34pm

You mean you're not excited at the prospect of a Grease 3? :-P

[freeadmission]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:38pm

I didn't even like the FIRST one enought to desire a SEQUEL, let along a . . . what the heck do you call a third? LOL

[TennesseeTwang]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 4:38pm

Or Annie 2. What was that sequel called? Daddy Warbucks?

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 5:23pm

Annie Warbucks

[Marquise]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 6:59pm

yeah a classic piece of sh!t.
but i do <3 me some pfeiffer and "cool rider"

[I<3Idina]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 7:09pm

DUUDE the rent movie iz gonna b amaaazing cuz Idinaz in it. and she is perfect in every way. and she wuz elphie in wicked. and she wuz amazing

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 7:12pm

Nice avatar, Marquise.

[TheHumanTorch]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 7:28pm

i would call it revolutionary in that it brought me, and many of my friends to love broadway... it also is my favorite show, mostly because i love the music, and i connect with the music as opposed to many other "classic" shows.

However, it can be very overrated at times, it has many obvious flaws, and people who take it as "like the best musical everrrr" are a little bit naive or inexposed to other classic shows.

but, i think calling it a load of crap is also a large overstatement, and some of these flaws kind of make the show what it is, and make it the Rent experience so many of us love...

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 8/28/05 at 9:29pm

Grease 2 is fuuuun.

[Urban]

Posted: 8/29/05 at 3:03am

Wonderful quote TennesseeTwang, it summed up my feelings nicely!

I also have a firm guilty pleasure for Grease 2