The Myths of Musicals

Musicals the Myths

I remember from being quite young enjoying musicals, in the early days, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer, then the big screen ones Oklahoma, Sound of Music, South Pacific, not forgetting Singing In The Rain. I used to love these all singing dancing romantic love stories that always ended up with a happy ending. More recently I enjoyed Oliver, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, although these seemed to have a more serious theme, there are many more musicals and the one that first made me think about writing this was Cabaret, again some years ago but which is being revived at present.

My recollection of musicals was that they were happy, full of fun, romance, nice people with a feel good story line and lots of great songs, and everybody lived happily ever after, what I have now realized, even more so after discussion with friends, is that this is not true, that there is death, physical and emotional abuse, rape, even worse some of the main characters and situations are not as nice as we first think. Now most readers will be wondering what on earth I’m talking about, but have you ever really looked at the plots of many of these musicals and really looked at how people in them, despite all the singing and dancing are actually not very nice people.

Let’s see where shall I start, what about my favourite, Singing in the Rain, that’s a good one, well let’s look at it from a slightly different view, the main plot line is the change from the silent movies over to the talkies, the big problem in the film is that the leading actress cannot sing, so the studio goes to great lengths to cover this up, part of this being that they use a young naive woman to do a voice-over for her, her to so-called friends go along with this story, for whatever reason accepting the rude unpleasant manner of the main actress. What’s nice about that plot, because really everyone but the young actress are in it for their own ends, with little thought at first of how distressed it makes her. Admittedly in the end all comes out good, hang on a minute, it’s not really nice to show someone up in front of an audience even if they’re not the nicest person in the world, which is what happened in the end to the original leading lady, some food for thought about a fantastic film.

Which film shall we have a look at now, what about Oliver, we all know the plot, orphan, starts off in the workhouse where he and the other children are abused and starved whilst the staff are enjoying themselves. Our hero then works for an undertaker again he is abused. At long last he ends up in a jolly gang led by a nasty thief who trains the young lads how to steal, we have our heroine Nancy who is a lovely caring person and in a relationship with a nasty thug Bill Sykes, who is quite happy to beat up anybody and everybody who gets in his way. Despite all of this we have all the usual singing and dancing. Just by good luck Oliver is rescued by a kindly old man, I don’t want to give too much detail just in case you’ve never seen the film. Unfortunately Bill Sykes manages to capture him again, what then happens to Nancy as a result is not very nice at all. Nor is what then happens to Bill Sykes and the youngsters, well the good thing is that Oliver lives happily ever after, but hang on a minute what happens to the artful dodger and Fagin, obviously crime must pay because they danced their way off into the sunset. So much for a happy story

Now we can’t do better than Sound of Music, beautiful scenery lovely songs lots of children, romance. Now let’s rewind, Maria is a trainee nun, because she has a mind of her own the nuns decide to send her out into the big wide world to be a nanny. How nice, maybe not, she goes to this home where a naval captain controls his young children with a rod of iron they are taught to respond to commands by whistle, he shows no love to the children. Maria tries her best to befriend the children and they reward her by playing practical jokes on her. This does not put off so she tries to improve their situation, instead of the uniforms they wear she wants to obtain play clothes, but is turned down by the captain, it can’t be because he hasn’t got enough money, he lives in a beautiful big house, so she resorts to cutting the curtains to pieces to make colourful clothes for them, so now the children are happy, now I don’t know any children that would feel happy dressed in flowered curtains. Whilst all of this is going on there is a subplot to do with the changes going on in Germany and Austria. We see some of the not very pleasant threats made to the captain by the Nazis and the transformation of one of the children’s boyfriends into a member of the Hitler youth. Yes a really happy cheerful story, well at least is lots of singing and dancing in it. Again for those that have not seen the film I will not go into too much detail, but will mention the fact that the nuns behave quite inappropriately in various parts of the film. So yes again a much more complex story than the music and songs can truly describe.
What about Carousel, beautiful music and songs, great plot what more could we ask for. Girl falls in love with fairground worker, he gets her pregnant, despite the fact they are not married, together with his accomplice he then attempted robbery, in the process ends up being stabbed then dies, leaving the poor young woman to have to go through having a child as a single person and coping with the situation of bringing the child up in state of poverty. Eventually, about 10 years on it’s brought to his attention, that the young woman is struggling as is his daughter. Now hang on a minute, the film portrays him being in heaven, with his history what’s he doing there, well never mind he’s sent back to try to put things right again, which I suppose he does, the only thing is Mum and daughter are still struggling, maybe not a happy ending then.

The Music Man, well at least this starts off differently to lots of other musicals, in that the male lead is quickly shown to be a conman, fleecing naive people in the towns that he visits and telling absolute lies about his knowledge and skill and how he can help people. As usual lots of singing and dancing, a naive young woman and even more naive township who are totally gullible. They give him the money to create a band, silly young woman falls for his charms and then supports him despite the fact he has lied and cheated and stolen from people who can’t afford the money. As usual I don’t want to spoil the story, but all the lovely songs don’t justify this inappropriate behaviour.

If I now move to a more modern musical, appropriately called Les Miserables as a friend of mine once said “The Glums” again great songs, beautiful settings, what could be better than France, heroes and heroines. Let’s try again, it starts by telling us that one of the lead characters is an ex-prisoner, another character, is a young single mother who has to resort to prostitution to feed her child, but very early on in the story gets killed off, leaving her poor child behind. I know what about the jolly innkeeper and his wife, well I dare not tell you about all the goings-on that occur in their in, what is worse is that they sing about it and are proud of their lifestyle, of cheating and abusing people. Well there are some good bits, in the fight the barricades one of the heroes is killed as is the little boy, plus lots of other people. From start to finish most of the film when you look at it objectively is about doom and despondency, what’s happened to the feelgood factor.

I know let’s go to an even newer film that’s a musical, Mama Mia, the songs of ABBA, beautiful scenery, a pretty young woman looking forward to a forthcoming wedding, what could be better than that. Firstly her mother is a single parent, nothing wrong in that, until she finds her mum’s diary, which explains that she had slept with three different men in a brief time period and therefore doesn’t know who the father is. Again without trying to spoil too much of the plot the young woman invites the three potential dad’s to the wedding. Mother has also invited her two best friends, who turn out to be predatory, embarrassing and causing general chaos in the town. Mums house is falling apart through neglect and the young woman seems to be more interested in the wedding than how she really feels for her fiance. At least on this occasion the end is much happier with lots of singing and dancing, but at no time does it really tell us about good old morality and values, at least nobody gets killed in this one.

I think this is a good time to finish this blog, at least for now, if you start thinking about the real plots of the musicals you may never see them again in the same way, I am sorry if I have destroyed your illusions in the same way I’ve done for me, I will still continue to watch them and admire the scenery, the plots and all the fantastic songs and try to forget about the negativity, I do hope you have enjoyed reading the blog.