The other day, Chris and I were at the video store. Two young women were following behind us, looking at the New Releases. They stopped at Dreamgirls.
Girl 1: Did you ever see this one?
Girl 2: Nah. I don't really get these movies with their random* singing and dancing.
Girl 1: Yeah, like in High School Musical.
Chris had to hold me back from explaining to them the glories of the movie musical, and why HSM is not necessarily representative of the genre as a whole. Because I am That Dork In the Video Store.
* Note to world: I know that I am as much a perpetrator of this crime as anyone, but can we please taper back on the usage of the word "random"? Or can we start thinking critically about our usage of the word? I'm also troubled by the tendency to use the word "chill" as an adjective, as in the sentence "He's totally chill."
6 comments:
What is so wrong with random songs? I don't know about you but my life is a musical (much to the confusion of students).
I confess that I often don't "get" musicals either. In terms of the ease of suspension of disbelief, musicals rank lower than fantasy/science fiction films, I think---especially if the singing is accompanied by spontaneous choreographed (an oxymoron if ever there was one) group dancing.
There are exceptions, of course, when the story is good, and sometimes the songs are so good that they redeem the disbelief issues.
The Sound of Music is an example of good story and song; "I Could Have Danced All Night" was enough to redeem My Fair Lady in its entirety (although I haven't seen it since high school). I enjoyed the songs in Hairspray, but probably wouldn't watch it again. I've never finished the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, though I enjoyed a local stage production of it.
Anyway, you probably weren't asking for my opinion, were you?
first, Fiddler on the roof is brilliant from beginning to end.
now, you know I'm a huge musical theater fan. The problem in some cases with ppl who blanketly criticize musical theater is too little exposure to the best of the genre. and the other thing is, it is a genre, to be taken on its own terms, in the context of its own history. It's like opera in that regard. you can't fault an opera for not having lots of plot twists, you know?
Anyway. I can tell you now, these words will never come out of my kid's mouth. she's 3 and she's already got a list of favorite musicals. And they're good ones!
I agree. It should be "funny" or "spooky", but not "random".
Not that I watch musicals. Unless Bill and Ted is a musical.
I just want to say that no one's life is complete until they have seen _Seven Bride's for Seven Brothers_.
There, I've said it.
My college roommate and I forced a guy friend of ours to watch it with us once, and he swore he hated it but kept singing the man song all the time!
Oh, and "I could have danced all night"? Not a suspension-of-belief moment-- I had many, many, many real life experiences in high school... and perhaps college... where I danced around in my room after a party like that ;)
My life is also a musical! Complete with terrible dancing. One of my friends once said that spending time with me was like being in a Disney movie. I think that everyone lives in a musical but is secretly afraid to burst into spontaneous song and dance. Long live the revolution!
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