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View Full Version : What Laws Apply In The Land Of Musicals?


Seil
06-16-2010, 02:26 AM
So I was watching Les Miseranimals (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyLSQUvlSTA) a while back, and I was like "This is the best animated retelling of classic theater featuring anthropomorphic talking animals that I've ever seen!" Then I looked into the actual play, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPZSZgUOWrk&feature=related) and I thought it was pretty neat.

Recently, TBS was showing Rent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5sjJdxprx8), where in one of the first songs they throw flaming garbage into the streets from the upper floors of a condemned apartment building. I was thinking "Man, that's a fire hazard!"

Sweeny Todd sings about brutally murdering people. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vgp1jAabsk&feature=related) That's against the law.

West Side story had gang fights. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8R9GiLImSw)

Guys and Dolls had illegal gambling. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlQXvrWC_A)

I guess when you're in a musical, the laws don't apply to you as long as you're singing. Is that about right?

bluestarultor
06-16-2010, 02:37 AM
You have to remember those are all musicals about their subject matter (although I can't speak for Guys and Dolls).

Well, minus Rent. I'm not quite sure if that one is actually about anything. It's kind of there for its own sake. Or maybe living irresponsibly, since everyone is on drugs, doesn't pay rent or bills, won't get a job, and has AIDS.

On the other hand, you have The Sound of Music, wherein the worst anyone tries to do is escape the Nazis.

katiuska
06-16-2010, 03:13 AM
So I was watching Les Miseranimals (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyLSQUvlSTA) a while back, and I was like "This is the best animated retelling of classic theater featuring anthropomorphic talking animals that I've ever seen!" Then I looked into the actual play, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPZSZgUOWrk&feature=related) and I thought it was pretty neat.

Recently, TBS was showing Rent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5sjJdxprx8), where in one of the first songs they throw flaming garbage into the streets from the upper floors of a condemned apartment building. I was thinking "Man, that's a fire hazard!"

Those are rent notices, and yeah, I thought that was weird. In the stage version, it's just the two guys burning stuff in their fire pit. I think the director just thought it would look cool that way.

Sweeny Todd sings about brutally murdering people. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vgp1jAabsk&feature=related) That's against the law.

West Side story had gang fights. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8R9GiLImSw)

Guys and Dolls had illegal gambling. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlQXvrWC_A)

I guess when you're in a musical, the laws don't apply to you as long as you're singing. Is that about right?

All of those things are illegal in the context of the musicals, they just happen not to get caught.

krogothwolf
06-16-2010, 10:50 AM
They do illegal things all the time in movies and plays, they just don't always sing it, so I'm not sure I really understand what you're getting an Seil? Are you complaining that they sing about Illegal stuff, that they do it? or that they get away with it? Or just wondering why Musical's are similar to ever other form of entertainment in that they decide laws are stupid.

Lumenskir
06-16-2010, 11:06 AM
so I'm not sure I really understand what you're getting an Seil?
seilthread.gif

For something more substantial about musicals, I've always kind of wondered what the proper etiquette was for audience suspension of disbelief as to whether the songs were actually 'real' or not. Mostly because various people I know keep trying to watch Glee around me as if I'll become a fan through osmosis, but mostly I just keep noticing how sloppy it is on the sliding "This song is actually happening or not" scale. You'll have one episode where they sing for practice (real), then a song later where the paralyzed kid can walk while singing (dream). Heck, there was one time when the gay one started singing, then an entire stage appeared in his room, but after the song ended his dad told him he could sing well, so where the fuck do you throw that one?

Personally, I prefer my musicals to stick to one side. All the songs in Pennies From Heaven and Chicago and whatnot are the manifestations of a character, not real, acceptable. Everyone in Singing in the Rain and Sound of Music spontaneously bursts into song around other people who act like it's perfectly normal, but at least they keep it consistent.

Seil
06-16-2010, 11:24 AM
I'm just interested in a universe where an entire throng of strangers join you in complicated song and dance routines in the middle of the afternoon before they get on with the rest of their day, and no one considers it odd.

It just seems that - in a world like that - there's something to be said about what's not allowed, seeing as how you can sing and dance in the middle of the street during rush hour, or whatever.

Meister
06-16-2010, 11:52 AM
I think you might be taking the commonly accepted conventions of musical theater quite too literally. I'm not an expert by any means but I'm pretty sure the idea is just telling a story with songs rather than depict a world where society has developed such that singing and dancing is the natural way to communicate.

(Actually, I think there's an idea. Anyone up for co-writing a musical set among whales or bees? We could make literally hundreds of cents.)

krogothwolf
06-16-2010, 11:57 AM
(Actually, I think there's an idea. Anyone up for co-writing a musical set among whales or bees? We could make literally hundreds of cents.)

I am so game for this! It could be a Whale vs Dolphin war musical! The Whales could be persecuting the dolphins and invading their territory to exterminate them. We could have Whale commando's singing about exterminating the dolphins.

Seil
06-16-2010, 11:58 AM
...I don't think bee-themed movies do very well. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16SMpTXpuuY)

Karrrrrrrrrrrresche
06-16-2010, 12:03 PM
If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts, repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax."

Meister
06-16-2010, 12:03 PM
Well they clearly aren't communicating by coordinated waggle dance enough. :crossarms:

e: I watched Repo! - The Genetic Opera the other day and right at the start there's a scene where a character sings his song while hiding from the cops, who are sneaking around just a few feet away. But they do spot him once he hits a louder part which I thought was a nice touch.

bluestarultor
06-16-2010, 01:12 PM
I like the approach taken by Forever After, where all of it is real, but it's caused by whatever magic followed the princess from her own world.

Like, it's played for laughs, and it's played more straight. The prince gets run over by a bicycle race trying to sing to the princess, but then not five minutes later, there's a huge musical number with hundreds of people who all whip out in song and dance and have a really great time doing it.

Seil
06-16-2010, 01:28 PM
Blues, you mean this song? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErdIFoMGRo)

I happen to like the dance scene in Clerks II, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz7GkFu6bDA) which is a blatant health code violation because it has them dancing on top of the counter.

bluestarultor
06-16-2010, 01:38 PM
Yes.

Rejected Again
06-16-2010, 01:51 PM
Just saw Avenue Q in March. Brilliant.

POS Industries
06-16-2010, 02:01 PM
Guys and Dolls had illegal gambling. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlQXvrWC_A)
Did you somehow watch a production of it that didn't have Lieutenant Brannigan spending the entire play trying to bust them for it? Or the entire point of the story where the gambling ring set up in the back of the mission while everyone was out because they thought the cops would never look there?

I mean the entire point was that the laws very much applied and they were criminals.

Premmy
06-18-2010, 04:00 PM
seilthread.gif

For something more substantial about musicals, I've always kind of wondered what the proper etiquette was for audience suspension of disbelief as to whether the songs were actually 'real' or not. Mostly because various people I know keep trying to watch Glee around me as if I'll become a fan through osmosis, but mostly I just keep noticing how sloppy it is on the sliding "This song is actually happening or not" scale. You'll have one episode where they sing for practice (real), then a song later where the paralyzed kid can walk while singing (dream). Heck, there was one time when the gay one started singing, then an entire stage appeared in his room, but after the song ended his dad told him he could sing well, so where the fuck do you throw that one?

Personally, I prefer my musicals to stick to one side. All the songs in Pennies From Heaven and Chicago and whatnot are the manifestations of a character, not real, acceptable. Everyone in Singing in the Rain and Sound of Music spontaneously bursts into song around other people who act like it's perfectly normal, but at least they keep it consistent.
^
This.

The problem mostly pops up in musicals about music. Musicals about, say cowboys, we know the score, Musicals about Musicians, Dancers, or,the ultimate act of Masturbation, Musicals about Musicals are just there to confuse you.

Seil
06-18-2010, 04:10 PM
Musicals about Musicals are just there to confuse you.

Musicals about musicals about musicals?

I'm reminded of a quote from Penny Arcade "It was like some fucked up Escher drawing," the eternal musical mindfuck.

Yumil
06-18-2010, 04:29 PM
South Park:Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was the greatest musical of our time...there I said it.
They were consistent with their songs too:)

katiuska
06-18-2010, 05:23 PM
Did you somehow watch a production of it that didn't have Lieutenant Brannigan spending the entire play trying to bust them for it? Or the entire point of the story where the gambling ring set up in the back of the mission while everyone was out because they thought the cops would never look there?

I mean the entire point was that the laws very much applied and they were criminals.

Yeah, I was tempted to get into this in detail, but I think I lost interest.

I think you might be taking the commonly accepted conventions of musical theater quite too literally. I'm not an expert by any means but I'm pretty sure the idea is just telling a story with songs rather than depict a world where society has developed such that singing and dancing is the natural way to communicate.

This. Songs are a mode by which characters can express themselves and negotiate interactions. By default, they are not literally singing any more than an anime character literally acquires massive physical deformity for the duration of a super-deformed shot. It's an abstraction that reflects in the inner state of a character.

Comments on the singing become a sort of 4th wall joke. I can see why inconsistency might get someone, but it doesn't bother me if different songs exist in different "states." Like, Adelaide is a showgirl, so when she performs, Adelaide is really singing. When she goes back to her medical textbook afterward, following a disappointing conversation with Nathan, the song she sings is just the musical's way of conveying her problem to the audience. I'm fine with that.

Though I do believe that life would be improved immensely if people really did spontaneously burst into song and dance numbers. As a corollary, a lot of fictional works would be infinitely better if they were also musicals.

Token
06-18-2010, 07:33 PM
Not to be that guy.... (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MusicalWorldHypotheses)

I'd just like to point out that spontaneous singing is fantastic to do in real life. Obviously, other people won't be able to sing along for the most part, but when you're a choir/stage kid, it just becomes sort of natural. I have seen entire arguments done in impromptu song. God I love my friends.