Don’t RENT Garlic Bread
I really, really like garlic bread- and I don’t mean that in a silly, “I’m so random xD” type of way. Garlic bread has always been an escape for me; it was something that nourished me, and most importantly, for the most part, was there.
In every way, garlic bread was always it, even when its grease stained my duvet. Garlic bread… well, garlic bread was always there.
When I eat garlic bread, I, like most other normal people, am stricken with thoughts concerning 2004 film adaption of the Broadway musical (pronounced musical) RENT. You know that movie where everyone has full blown AIDS because it’s the 80s, they’re artists, and live in New York City? That one.
I classify watching RENT and eating garlic bread as a ritualistic, almost primal experience. In between wiping crumbs off my naked, boxer-brief clad thighs and sipping on my grape-infused water made with Dasani flavour drops, I am forced to examine my own complicity in furthering the asinine displays bohemian liberalism perpetuated throughout the film’s plot.
Trust me, I am a huge fan of camp; I’ve watched Mother Dearest at least four times since the new year began, but RENT is where I draw the line.
RENT represents everything I hate about theatre students; a hatred that, up until a re-screening of the film, was a very difficult concept for me to explain. RENT features a plethora of characters who, by and large, could escape the harsh realities of poverty at any point. With the exception of Angel and her boyfriend Collins, the only truly visibly queer characters, every protagonist in this ensemble has an escape rope neatly tucked in bottom of their GoodLife Fitness bags.
And by “escape rope,” I’m not talking about the fucking performance art that Idina Menzel’s character Maureen enacts earnestly to entirely unironic applause during the entire film. “Escape” as in all their parents are implied to be relatively well-off- and blatantly depicted on-screen to be genuinely concerned about their children’s welfare. They don’t just ask how their children are doing, they literally sing about it. I’m 99% sure they sing their concerns it in the movie; I may be mixing up the original Broadway play with the movie- nevertheless, all of these artists can Uber back to the Idaho at any point.
Yet, the cast continues to rebel against paying their NYC rent-owed to their Black landlord-on the basis that they refuse to sell out into the literal gentrification that they’ve cultivated. The characters-specially that annoying fucking filmmaker who gets off on filming people that actually have no choice but to live on the streets and the OTHER amateur home video maker with AIDS and a girlfriend that overdosed-believe that because capitalism commodifies art and they cannot own their art, they are somehow absolved of RENT-paying responsibilities.
Because art.
Fuck okay. This is going on for way too long. I’m not going to write a Tumblr essay- because I’m not being paid for that. I’m not being paid at all.
Think about that.
I’m not the only one not being paid because look around. Thank God I found myself in a position where I am able to somehow devote time to writing this. I can participate in art-HELL-I could participate in the university’s all-white production of RENT if I wanted to.
But not everyone can. Art is a paradox, and I will continue to see the cup as half empty until we finally reach a point where it’s half full.
Anyways, RENT fucking sucks, okay. Theatre kids suck. Not all of them, but like a good meaty chunk.
You’re not outside of the box if you know that returning to the box will always be an option. You’re not outside of anything involving the dominant narrative if you have-what? -an option. Being poor is not fun or artsy or cool; it sucks and it’s a cold reality for too many people. They don’t sing about it because they’re too busy deciding whether to buy tampons or food; and they sure as hell will pay their rent if they manage to even acquire a non-decrepit apartment after credit checks, calls to their references, and the figurative pat-down on their racialized, gendered, and sexual identities.
Fetishizing poverty and ignoring the actuality of AIDS and the hundreds of thousands of millions of trillions of minorities it killed, and then singing about seasons does not a good film make.
Don’t watch RENT. In fact, pirate RENT and don’t watch it, just to stick it to the fucking academy.
While you wait for the torrent to seed, have some garlic bread. :)