SMASH wins at Creative Arts Emmys tonight! Also Tony Upset!

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 8:32pm

Nigel Lythgoe tweets:

@dizzyfeet At the creative Emmy's #SYTYCD didn't win choreography. 'Smash' did.

Looks like Joshua Bergasse has himself an Emmy for Choreography!

Smash - Routines: National Pastime / Let's Be Bad / Never Met A Wolf - NBC

ALSO

Tony Awards wins for Best Variety Award for Art Direction for Variety/Non-Fiction, AND...Award for Original Music//Lyrics goes to It's Not Just For Gays Anymore! (Beating Smash!)

Updated On: 9/15/12 at 08:32 PM

[ACL2006]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 10:20pm

congrats to Bergasse. Love his choreography!!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 10:24pm

Great. Maybe next year we'll get another homophobic song at the Tonys.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 10:47pm

Do we need a discussion about how satire works, Jordan? Perhaps that should have its own thread.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 10:51pm

No but I really appreciate the offer. Next time I find something stereotypically offensive I'll be sure to send you a PM to ask your permission before I make my own conclusions on how I feel.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 11:06pm

So let me see if I understand, Jordan: you are entitled to denounce a number you find homophobic, but I'm not entitled to think you should pull that stick out of your ass? Seems like a double standard to me.

"It's Not Just for Gays Any More" mocks homophobic stereotypes, especially heterosexual perceptions of Broadway as a "For Gays Only" zone. And to that it added several famously heterosexual stars to extol the virtues of live theater.

Furthermore, the fact that the number was sung by one of the most famously open gay men in America made it clear that what was presented was satire and not some secretly homophobic agenda. Context, Jordan, context.

Our capacity for humor has always been one of the best aspects of gay culture. Let's don't give that up just because we've made a little headway on the road to equal rights.

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 9/15/12 at 11:31pm

MEMPHIS won also...

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Miniseries, Movie or Special
Memphis (Great Performances) (PBS ) – Steven Cimino, Technical Director; Paul J. Cangialosi, Camera; John Pinto, Camera; Chuck Goslin, Camera; Barry Frischer, Camera; Jeff Latonero, Camera; Len Wechsler, Camera; Susan Noll, Video Control; J.M. Hurley, Video Control

[James2]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 12:09am

I wasn't too interested in this portion of the Emmys (was upset "Phineas & Ferb" didn't get any Best Song nominations), but I do find myself disappointed "Futurama" lost Best Animated Program to "Penguins of Madagascar" yet very happy Maurice LaMarche won the Voice Acting award.

Still hoping "Parks and Rec" and "Boardwalk Empire" can win big on next week's show.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 12:28am

I felt that the song had the opposite effect, and just made theatre look really gay.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 1:40am

"and just made theatre look really gay"
Doth the point of the song.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 8:26am

I felt that the song had the opposite effect, and just made theatre look really gay.

Again, satire and irony are not literal forms of speech. I don't think the number ever intended to suggest that Broadway was any less gay than it had ever been. That was the joke.

Updated On: 9/16/12 at 08:26 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 8:52am

No more stereotypical than this was in 1934. Nor more homophobic than this was misogynistic.

===

What do you go for?
Go she a show for?
Tell the truth:
YOU GO TO SEE THOSE GLORIOUS DAMES!

You spend your dough for
Bouquets that grow for
ALL THOSE CUTE AND CUNNING,
YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL DAMES!

Oh, DAMES are temporary flames to you.
DAMES--you don't recall their names, do you?

But their caresses--
And home addresses!--
Linger in your mem'ry of those beautiful
DAMES!




Busby Berkeley 'Dames'

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 8:58am

And congratulations to the winners.

[rjm516]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 12:28pm

I'm pretty sure the Tonys song won because Smash (and other quality) songs canceled each other out. Also people, I don't think anyone on this (or any) board needs a lesson in how satire or humor works. Something attempting to be satirical, ironic, and/or humorous can still fail in that attempt and be offensive.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 12:50pm

Don't worry, Jordan. I thought the song was obnoxious, too. Then again, that's how I feel about NPH in general.

[Plum]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 1:18pm

Oh, it was perfectly clear to me that the Tonys opener was a satire. It was also perfectly clear that said satire was tired and hackneyed. Smash makes me want to bang my head against a wall, but "Let Me Be Your Star" was, in the pilot, genuinely damn good - that was what fooled me into thinking the show had potential. :P

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 2:02pm

Oh, it was perfectly clear to me that the Tonys opener was a satire. It was also perfectly clear that said satire was tired and hackneyed

That's how I felt, too. Just because someone doesn't swoon and flip over that song doesn't mean they don't get it. I guess I could think that it's great that we've come so far that even the gay people can perpetuate old stereotypes via jokes, but even remember commenting that during this year's awards NPH went for the "theatre is soooo gay" joke really early.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 7:35pm

Whether "Not Just for Gays" should have won over one of the SMASH entries is a different question.

But you who are swooning over "homosexual stereotypes" are surely old enough to recall that it wasn't so long ago when we gays weren't mentioned at all, especially not at stuffy events like the Tony Awards.

And the actual lyrics of the song mostly mock heterosexual stereotypes, i.e., those types and attributes that ignorant straight people assume to be proof of "straightness".

It's true that NPH's purple-and-yellow outfit at the end played into stereotypes, but it was so over the top even Aryan Nation types in Montana had to recognize it as a spoof. (Yes, the whole compound watches the Tonys religiously.)

With all due respect, ladies, ya'll were working overtime to get offended at that number.





Updated On: 9/16/12 at 07:35 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 7:44pm

No offense, but if you try to marginalize how someone feels about something by telling them they work too hard at being offended it tends to imply that the respect you think is due is little to none. Especially when no one actually said they were offended (dislike or disapproval of something doesn't automatically mean one has taken offense)


Updated On: 9/16/12 at 07:44 PM

[kyl3fong2]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 8:49pm

@Plum---While I do agree that the writing and storylines on Smash Season 1 was inconsistent and lackluster, the one aspect of the show that had me coming back for more week after week was the original songs. There was not a single one of those songs that I did not enjoy.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 9:00pm

No offense taken, Phyllis, and I've been here too long to expect respect. But I think the original post...

Great. Maybe next year we'll get another homophobic song at the Tonys.

...implies that offense was taken and does so rather clearly. Here, BTW, are the lyrics of the song, taken from the net with numerous corrections by me, so caveat emptor:

If you’ve seen a show
Then you already know
How magical theater can be
It's a two-hour, live-action, barely affordable,
un-lip-synced vision of “Glee“
So, this song goes out to the rest of you
Those who've never seen theater before.
Because Broadway has never been broader
It’s not just for gays anymore!

If you feel like someone that this world excludes
It's no Longer only for dudes who like dudes
Attention every breeder
Your invited to the theater
It's not just for gays anymore!

The glamor of Broadway is beckoning straights,
The people who marry in all 50 states
We’re asking every hetero
to get to know us better. Oh,
It's not just for gays anymore!

It's for fine, upstanding Christians
who know all the song from Grease
It's for sober-minded businessman
Who yearn for some release.

So, put down your Playboy and go make a plan
To pick up a Playbill and feel like a man
There’s so much to discover
With your different-gendered lover
It's not just for gays
The gays and the Jews
And cousins in from out of town you have to amuse
And the sad, embittered malcontents who write the reviews
And also foreign tourists
And the groups of senior citizens
And well-to-do suburbanites
And liberal intellectuals--
Though that group is really only Jews and homosexuals--
I've lost my train of thought
Oh yes, it's not just for gays anymore!

We’ve got swarms of Mormons, showgirls, sailors, dancing boys and nuns
Plus a spider racing death-defying, budget over-runs!

So, people from Red states, and people from Blue
A big Broadway rainbow is waiting for you
Come in and be inspired
There's no sodomy required
Oh it's not just for gays
It's not just for gays
We'd be twice as proud to have you if you go both ways
Broadway is not just for gays anymore!

****

I'd love to know what is homophobic, offensive or otherwise objectionable about the above. Pal Joey gave us an old lyric that implies the only reason to see women in the theater is because of their sex appeal. That seems far more objectifying than anything in the lyrics above.

(I can fill in the solo bits in the middle of the lyric if somebody really needs them.)

Updated On: 9/17/12 at 09:00 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 9:08pm

I'm a bit confused how a song written for the 2011 Tonys is winning only now.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 9:14pm

I think the deadline for the year is before the Emmys air.

ETA: Yup. The year for the Emmys runs June 1 - May 31.
Emmys Updated On: 9/16/12 at 09:14 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/16/12 at 10:20pm

I thought it was funny because theatre is so totally gay.

[tazber]

Posted: 9/17/12 at 12:05am

Homophobic, satire, whatever....who cares?

The song sucked.

Updated On: 9/17/12 at 12:05 AM