Joker: Folie à Deux is resulting in some wild takes. Like one guy claiming that the movie didn’t work because musicals are…supposed to be happy? News to me, a performance theatre major who has two tattoos for musicals. I always thought they could be whatever they wanted to be.
A film critic, writer, and actor got on X to make a commentary on the film. He wrote “Musicals are usually happy. You can’t take a dark film about despair like that and add singing to it.” Well, what he got in response was a sea of former theatre kids and musical nerds correcting him. Myself included, I could not let this injustice slide!
The idea that musicals are funny and bubbly isn’t uncommon. People who don’t know what they are talking about misunderstand musicals constantly. They watched Singin’ In the Rain one time and said “got it.”
The reality is that musicals are like any other art form. All different genres apply to musicals and you can’t exactly slap one label on them and claim that’s that. They vary and it is what makes being a fan of musicals so thrilling.
This man learned the hard way that musical fans are not going to let someone say they’re “usually” happy without pointing out just how wrong they are. And nothing has made me quite as happy as a musical fan than watching a bunch of theatre geeks proudly explaining how musicals work. We have been going through it.
Many made it clear that musicals are sad
Imagine tweeting about how musicals are usually happy and getting ratioed into oblivion. That’s what happened. Some pointed out that the idea that a musical is happy has long since passed. “Musical tragedy has been the majority since the 1980s.”
Another happily pointed out that Les Misérables literally translates to “The Miserables” and that musical is far from happy. “There is a musical literally called ‘The Miserables’ and it’s one of the most popular musicals of all time.”
Maybe he JUST watched Mamma Mia!?
This entire movie is frustrating
From Todd Phillips acting like he knew what a musical was to this man putting a blanket statement over the entire art form, it’s been hard to say the least. My all time favorite musical is Spring Awakening. And before you say “he said ‘usually,'” I struggled to think of a happy musical when prompted.
People think song and dance and equate it to a happy story. That’s rarely the case with musicals and I hate that we are having two separate arguments over what musicals should be/are because of Joker: Folie à Deux.
To clarify: The songs in a musical operate as a way for a character to express how they feel about a situation that the spoken word can’t convey for them. You know, the exact thing Phillips said his movie was doing while saying it “wasn’t” a musical. Point two: Musicals can be (and often are) depressing and have darker themes. The words musical and happiness are not mutually exclusive.
So go on and watch some depressing musicals, do it for the theatre geeks in your life. Trust me, we’ve been through it because of this movie.
Published: Oct 7, 2024 05:20 pm