LizzieMaine
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I don't agree with all this musical bashing! I do think the Sound of Music is dreadful, but West Side Story is one of the greatest films ever made. (Mind you, I recently listed my all time top-ten films and my daughter pointed out I must be the only person whose top-ten includes two films starring Russ Tamblyn: West Side Story and The Haunting).
A few years back, I used to work alongside another big fan of musicals. We used to sing to each other all the time - which was rather perplexing for the rest of the company. As he once pointed out to me What's the chance of two straight, middle-aged men, both loving musicals, and sharing a desk?
It's interesting how that stereotype developed -- in the twenties and thirties, musicals were popular with all sexes and orientations. Broadway musicals in the twenties were a particular favorite of the "Tired Business Man," and every chorus girl knew to watch out for the boys in the Baldheaded Row. Likewise in the thirties, everybody loved Busby Berkeley films, or Eddie Cantor's annual extravaganzas, or Astaire and Rogers: many women daydreamed about being with a man like Astaire, and many men daydreamed about being, even in a small way, a man like Astaire.
I don't think the musicals = A Gay Male Thing trope really made it into popular culture until the early sixties or so, and it was permanently cemented by Susan Sontag's writings on camp, thus ensuring that no "proper man" would admit to liking musicals for fear of being painted with the lavender brush. That being so, a Golden Era man would likely have enjoyed at least some musicals very much.
As for my own tastes, I really don't care for the R&H/Sondheim/Lloyd-Webber style of production simply because they take themselves way, way, way too seriously. I don't like music in general that takes itself too seriously -- which rules out practically everything of the rock era, as far as I'm concerned. Modern musicians -- and modern musicals -- go out of their way to impress the audience with how profound and artistic and dead-weight Meaningful they are, the ultimate Emo art form before Emo was even invented.
Nertz to that overwrought caterwauling. Give me Ethel Merman and dancing elephants and music that refuses to take itself the least bit seriously.
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