Glee 1.07 "Throwdown" and 1.08 "Mash-Up"
Musical theatre, especially film musical theatre, is possibly the most self referential and self-justifying of all art forms. It has an entire sub-genre where entire plotlines centre on putting on a show and where putting on a show is the only way to resist the tuneless, flat-footed forces of evil. The killjoys, the bottom line focused, the sexually repressive, the old guard. By the time the curtain falls on the final production number all must be swept up and away in the conquering tide of popular music and youthful exuberance.
It’s a lie but it works, if it works, because it’s a lie that resonates. I’m low on the spectrum for religious feeling and I don’t want to believe that aliens are out there but I believe in music. I do. But it’s a belief system with a lot of bad faith lurking in its background.
"Be a Clown" is the curtain closer for the Vincente Minnelli movie The Pirate featuring Judy Garland as Manuela, the young ingénue, who dreams of Macoco the Pirate coming to sweep her away from her prosperous sheltered life and arranged marriage to the mayor. Gene Kelly is, Serafin, the traveling circus player who falls for her singing and dancing in a trance state induced by his hypnotism act. The twist is that the Mayor really is Macoco (now retired), is recognized by Serafin and blackmailed into letting Serafin play Macoco to woo Manuela and so on and so on until it ends with the real Macoco exposed and Manuela’s pirate fantasy rejected in favour of a life on the stage. But the final performance is actually a reprise of a number Gene Kelly dances with the Nicholas brothers
It’s almost painful to watch how toned down the choreography had to be so Kelly could keep up with them.
Like there was a reason they used to call Broadway the “Great White Way.”
Glee is very firmly within the musical tradition. It’s updated, not just in the song choice and the dance moves but in the “bite me” extremes of its self-referentiality and its openly gay, jewish icon loving sub plots. But its one constant theme, that singing and dancing make everything better, is totally old school so the whiteness of all its major characters matters. It always matters but in this genre it matters particularly.
It’s clever. In Touchdown it skewers the voice of the great white ally by giving it to Sue Sylvester. It also wears its heart in the musical numbers. Hate on Me had a bricolaged exuberance that almost makes up for the way Amber doesn’t generally get to be Beyonce, only to point out that she doesn’t, in the main storyline. And I’m in it for the dancing more than the singing so wasn’t so bothered by Rachel and Finn getting to be vocal leads in the final number because it was choreographed as an ensemble - the choreography is possibly the most inclusive aspect of the show. More uneasy-making was Mash-Up mashing up hip-hop and Matt Morrision. He’s good, he’s learned the moves, it wasn’t quite the dog walking on its hind legs phenomenon it could have been. More like when Baryishnikov had an obsession with trying to do tap routine homages, sort of technically correct but all the wrong shape, the wrong intonation.
I’m white, this is probably as much as I should say on the issue. On another issue though I’ve moved from being nervous about Glee’s treatment of female characters into pretty much hell yeah territory and it’s mostly down to Jane Lynch with some help from Rachel. The women on this show are a little extreme. But they know it, they know what they want and they go out and get it. When it comes down to it I’m a bad, bad feminist because, as long as it’s funny, I don’t care so much about being othered if it means other people are scared of me. It’s a thing.
It’s a lie but it works, if it works, because it’s a lie that resonates. I’m low on the spectrum for religious feeling and I don’t want to believe that aliens are out there but I believe in music. I do. But it’s a belief system with a lot of bad faith lurking in its background.
"Be a Clown" is the curtain closer for the Vincente Minnelli movie The Pirate featuring Judy Garland as Manuela, the young ingénue, who dreams of Macoco the Pirate coming to sweep her away from her prosperous sheltered life and arranged marriage to the mayor. Gene Kelly is, Serafin, the traveling circus player who falls for her singing and dancing in a trance state induced by his hypnotism act. The twist is that the Mayor really is Macoco (now retired), is recognized by Serafin and blackmailed into letting Serafin play Macoco to woo Manuela and so on and so on until it ends with the real Macoco exposed and Manuela’s pirate fantasy rejected in favour of a life on the stage. But the final performance is actually a reprise of a number Gene Kelly dances with the Nicholas brothers
Click to viewIt’s almost painful to watch how toned down the choreography had to be so Kelly could keep up with them.
Like there was a reason they used to call Broadway the “Great White Way.”
Glee is very firmly within the musical tradition. It’s updated, not just in the song choice and the dance moves but in the “bite me” extremes of its self-referentiality and its openly gay, jewish icon loving sub plots. But its one constant theme, that singing and dancing make everything better, is totally old school so the whiteness of all its major characters matters. It always matters but in this genre it matters particularly.
It’s clever. In Touchdown it skewers the voice of the great white ally by giving it to Sue Sylvester. It also wears its heart in the musical numbers. Hate on Me had a bricolaged exuberance that almost makes up for the way Amber doesn’t generally get to be Beyonce, only to point out that she doesn’t, in the main storyline. And I’m in it for the dancing more than the singing so wasn’t so bothered by Rachel and Finn getting to be vocal leads in the final number because it was choreographed as an ensemble - the choreography is possibly the most inclusive aspect of the show. More uneasy-making was Mash-Up mashing up hip-hop and Matt Morrision. He’s good, he’s learned the moves, it wasn’t quite the dog walking on its hind legs phenomenon it could have been. More like when Baryishnikov had an obsession with trying to do tap routine homages, sort of technically correct but all the wrong shape, the wrong intonation.
I’m white, this is probably as much as I should say on the issue. On another issue though I’ve moved from being nervous about Glee’s treatment of female characters into pretty much hell yeah territory and it’s mostly down to Jane Lynch with some help from Rachel. The women on this show are a little extreme. But they know it, they know what they want and they go out and get it. When it comes down to it I’m a bad, bad feminist because, as long as it’s funny, I don’t care so much about being othered if it means other people are scared of me. It’s a thing.