Never After: a few thoughts
Sunday I saw Never After. It's cute and bouncy. Much of the music is fun; the orchestra was excellent. It pushed at my definition of 'fairy tale' -- I think it isn't quite one, to me, but instead belongs over in whatever one calls the space Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are in.
A number of things bothered me. A couple of these I can articulate; a few more I'll flail at.
The cast included two black actors (actresses, actually). One was a generic chorus member, the other was the evil fairy -- the only character in the play labeled as a bad guy (other than the dragons). What the director was thinking when casting, I have no idea. I don't recall any other non-caucasian actors -- perhaps I missed someone, but if so I'm fairly sure they didn't have a named role.
The first thing Les does as a bandit after the training montage in which she has nominally learned all sorts of combat skills is pretend to be a damsel in distress to bait an unwary traveler. If that must be the gambit, perhaps the bait could be one of the very merry men in drag (overplaying their stereotype a bit more), and let Les be part of the combat backup team?
After two scenes in which Les strenuously objects to being kissed without her consent, Les's reaction to reaching Somnia and concluding that this is a "kiss the princess to wake her up" scenario contains no concern for how Somnia, who is in no condition to consent, might feel about being kissed, but reads entirely as "eeewww, kissing!"
Gender and class roles, even in their fairytale extremes, aren't challenged at all. Les takes up the gender role that doesn't match her sex, but nobody changes the boundaries of those roles at all. Likewise for peasantry and aristocracy. Perhaps the woman who's out leading the revolution would make a better, or at least more thoughtful, ruler than the one who just wants to go adventuring? But no, she's not royalty, and Les is.
Les doesn't present as a lesbian. She presents as asexual and anti-romance; the person she's fated to fall in love with also happens to be female, which causes her no more or less issue than falling in love with someone male would have. Compare this with the very merry men, who know what they want but are in the closet. (Literally, given a camp constructed of old armoires.) I'm not quite sure why this bothers me -- it's certainly minor at best next to some of the others -- some combination of "sexual preference & identity aren't that simple" and the play billed so enthusiastically as being about a lesbian princess.
There's more, but it gets even less coherent.
Edit: Unlocked per request.
A number of things bothered me. A couple of these I can articulate; a few more I'll flail at.
The cast included two black actors (actresses, actually). One was a generic chorus member, the other was the evil fairy -- the only character in the play labeled as a bad guy (other than the dragons). What the director was thinking when casting, I have no idea. I don't recall any other non-caucasian actors -- perhaps I missed someone, but if so I'm fairly sure they didn't have a named role.
The first thing Les does as a bandit after the training montage in which she has nominally learned all sorts of combat skills is pretend to be a damsel in distress to bait an unwary traveler. If that must be the gambit, perhaps the bait could be one of the very merry men in drag (overplaying their stereotype a bit more), and let Les be part of the combat backup team?
After two scenes in which Les strenuously objects to being kissed without her consent, Les's reaction to reaching Somnia and concluding that this is a "kiss the princess to wake her up" scenario contains no concern for how Somnia, who is in no condition to consent, might feel about being kissed, but reads entirely as "eeewww, kissing!"
Gender and class roles, even in their fairytale extremes, aren't challenged at all. Les takes up the gender role that doesn't match her sex, but nobody changes the boundaries of those roles at all. Likewise for peasantry and aristocracy. Perhaps the woman who's out leading the revolution would make a better, or at least more thoughtful, ruler than the one who just wants to go adventuring? But no, she's not royalty, and Les is.
Les doesn't present as a lesbian. She presents as asexual and anti-romance; the person she's fated to fall in love with also happens to be female, which causes her no more or less issue than falling in love with someone male would have. Compare this with the very merry men, who know what they want but are in the closet. (Literally, given a camp constructed of old armoires.) I'm not quite sure why this bothers me -- it's certainly minor at best next to some of the others -- some combination of "sexual preference & identity aren't that simple" and the play billed so enthusiastically as being about a lesbian princess.
There's more, but it gets even less coherent.
Edit: Unlocked per request.