#1
Posted: 11/26/05 at 4:10pm
This is random, but kind of an off shoot to the thread about why people hate musicals, and something that's always bugged me.
A common complaint about musicals from musical haterz is that they are corny. I really don't understand this mentality. Sure, musicals from the 40s, like anything else from the 40s, are cheesy. But My Fair Lady or West Side Story have more bite and cheek than any episode of The War at Home. Here's a random sampling of lyrics from Gwen Stefani, a supposedly edgy pop artist:
It's hard to remember how it felt before
Now I found the love of my life
Passes things, get more comfortable
Everything is going right
And after all the obstacles
It's good to see you now with someone else
And it's such a miracle that you and me are still good friends
After all that we've been through
I know we're cool
I know we're cool
The fact that I hate that song aside... my friends, this 80s pastiche is supposed to be edgy. I would probably say edgy is more like Eminem or some random song about random female genitalia or body parts involved in the act of excretion. Which is sort of my point. Our idea of edgy is either 40 year olds drawing phrases and ideas out of current youth culture or shocking things that don't really SAY anything. And this is ruling out most of what dominates the air waves, which is almost unexcusably cheesy and fake. Don't even get me started on rock music. Maybe note the song The Reason, or ANYTHING by Linkin Park?
Culture is completely washed up in nostalgia or cuteness, cute ideas about life. Everything is cutesy. EVERYTHING. It drives me up the wall. And musicals are cutesy too, there's no denying that. Except quite a few of them are decidedly not cutesy, and where they are cutesy it is not cloying. I'm not a big fan of cutesy, or cheap attempts to evoke our feelings, which is why I don't get into certain types of musicals. Sometimes I'll get into it (I'm not ashamed to admit I like Wicked) but I just thought I'd stand up and say one of the reasons I like musical theater so much is because it is one of the few places where you can find plenty of non-cuteness and that popular culture is, in fact, the thing that is overwhelmingly corny. And that's the end of my rant :P
A common complaint about musicals from musical haterz is that they are corny. I really don't understand this mentality. Sure, musicals from the 40s, like anything else from the 40s, are cheesy. But My Fair Lady or West Side Story have more bite and cheek than any episode of The War at Home. Here's a random sampling of lyrics from Gwen Stefani, a supposedly edgy pop artist:
It's hard to remember how it felt before
Now I found the love of my life
Passes things, get more comfortable
Everything is going right
And after all the obstacles
It's good to see you now with someone else
And it's such a miracle that you and me are still good friends
After all that we've been through
I know we're cool
I know we're cool
The fact that I hate that song aside... my friends, this 80s pastiche is supposed to be edgy. I would probably say edgy is more like Eminem or some random song about random female genitalia or body parts involved in the act of excretion. Which is sort of my point. Our idea of edgy is either 40 year olds drawing phrases and ideas out of current youth culture or shocking things that don't really SAY anything. And this is ruling out most of what dominates the air waves, which is almost unexcusably cheesy and fake. Don't even get me started on rock music. Maybe note the song The Reason, or ANYTHING by Linkin Park?
Culture is completely washed up in nostalgia or cuteness, cute ideas about life. Everything is cutesy. EVERYTHING. It drives me up the wall. And musicals are cutesy too, there's no denying that. Except quite a few of them are decidedly not cutesy, and where they are cutesy it is not cloying. I'm not a big fan of cutesy, or cheap attempts to evoke our feelings, which is why I don't get into certain types of musicals. Sometimes I'll get into it (I'm not ashamed to admit I like Wicked) but I just thought I'd stand up and say one of the reasons I like musical theater so much is because it is one of the few places where you can find plenty of non-cuteness and that popular culture is, in fact, the thing that is overwhelmingly corny. And that's the end of my rant :P
yr ronin,
joey
joey
