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chocolatepotOklahoma is incredibly dark. I mean, I was in it ages ago, I saw "Pore Jud is Dead" dozens of times, but it's always held up as this squeaky-clean uncool musical. For some reason coming back to it really highlighted how incredibly messed up everything to do with Jud is. Also, I've always felt that People Will Say We're In Love feels like it was written for another show and pushed in there to replace a song that wasn't working. Most of the songs in Oklahoma are in the "only work in the context of the plot" mold - Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City, The Farmer and the Cowboy Should Be Friends - but that one actively doesn't work in the context of the show because Curley and Laurie haven't been doing any of the things they're telling each other not to do.
I keep coming back to Grey Gardens, because there are three things that always get to me:
- I alternate listening to the original and rewritten versions, and it's so hard to decide which I like better. I understand why they cut and replaced the songs they did: Marry Well combines Being Bouvier and Tomorrow's Woman, with the grandfather's dictates for proper behavior and Lee and Jackie's predictions of their future lives; Goin' Places conveys Joe and Edie's potential as a team where Better Fall Out of Love emphasizes how their dreams pull them apart; Body Beautiful Beale reminds you that Edie is beautiful and a socialite, but so does the whole rest of the first act, and a few of the lyrics are recycled in Goin' Places; The Girl who has Everything is much more on point as an opener and closer than Toyland and the reprise of Peas in a Pod. I totally get these things. But Better Fall Out of Love and Tomorrow's Woman are great songs and sound more old-fashioned Broadway to me! I love them!
- It boggles my mind that there are people who think, "You know, they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday. I don't know if you know that," (which is also something she said in the documentary; I think all the dialogue from the second act is verbatim from the documentary) is a great line that encapsulates how Edie was always outspoken and different and strong, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the point is oh my god, she thinks the state of her home is equivalent to that. Likewise, her clothing is supposed to be fashion-forward because designers took inspiration from her, but the thing is, she's not tying a cord from the drapes around her waist for a belt because she's fabulous, she's doing it because she literally has nothing else to put on. Same for the skirt that doubles as a cape.
- After I saw How to Succeed In Business ... I speculated on whether Joan (on Mad Men) was specifically subverting Hedy LaRue in addition to being a subversion of the trope in general. Similarly, I have to wonder if the first act of GG is meant to remind you of High Society. Both are about wedding/engagements, set over the course of a single day, around the same time (GG is 1941, HS is 1941), in which engagements fall through and parents are divided. But they end completely differently: in HS, the parents reunite at the end, the engagement that's broken is to the wrong guy and she hooks up with the right one instead, and in GG, the father actually gets a divorce, the mother breaks up the engagement, and the heroine runs away. In HS, "she swims, she sails, she golfs, she rides" vs. GG's "swimming, sunning / Christ, I'm stunning".
I've started watching Deadwood, and I'm surprised how much I'm interested in it. I would have been really turned-off if I'd watched it when it started, but I've gotten used to more explicitness and swearing in tv since then. I get kind of bored during Ian McShane and Timothy Oliphant's parts, but the female characters are great. Trixie may be my favorite, or else Calamity Jane.
I keep coming back to Grey Gardens, because there are three things that always get to me:
- I alternate listening to the original and rewritten versions, and it's so hard to decide which I like better. I understand why they cut and replaced the songs they did: Marry Well combines Being Bouvier and Tomorrow's Woman, with the grandfather's dictates for proper behavior and Lee and Jackie's predictions of their future lives; Goin' Places conveys Joe and Edie's potential as a team where Better Fall Out of Love emphasizes how their dreams pull them apart; Body Beautiful Beale reminds you that Edie is beautiful and a socialite, but so does the whole rest of the first act, and a few of the lyrics are recycled in Goin' Places; The Girl who has Everything is much more on point as an opener and closer than Toyland and the reprise of Peas in a Pod. I totally get these things. But Better Fall Out of Love and Tomorrow's Woman are great songs and sound more old-fashioned Broadway to me! I love them!
- It boggles my mind that there are people who think, "You know, they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday. I don't know if you know that," (which is also something she said in the documentary; I think all the dialogue from the second act is verbatim from the documentary) is a great line that encapsulates how Edie was always outspoken and different and strong, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the point is oh my god, she thinks the state of her home is equivalent to that. Likewise, her clothing is supposed to be fashion-forward because designers took inspiration from her, but the thing is, she's not tying a cord from the drapes around her waist for a belt because she's fabulous, she's doing it because she literally has nothing else to put on. Same for the skirt that doubles as a cape.
- After I saw How to Succeed In Business ... I speculated on whether Joan (on Mad Men) was specifically subverting Hedy LaRue in addition to being a subversion of the trope in general. Similarly, I have to wonder if the first act of GG is meant to remind you of High Society. Both are about wedding/engagements, set over the course of a single day, around the same time (GG is 1941, HS is 1941), in which engagements fall through and parents are divided. But they end completely differently: in HS, the parents reunite at the end, the engagement that's broken is to the wrong guy and she hooks up with the right one instead, and in GG, the father actually gets a divorce, the mother breaks up the engagement, and the heroine runs away. In HS, "she swims, she sails, she golfs, she rides" vs. GG's "swimming, sunning / Christ, I'm stunning".
I've started watching Deadwood, and I'm surprised how much I'm interested in it. I would have been really turned-off if I'd watched it when it started, but I've gotten used to more explicitness and swearing in tv since then. I get kind of bored during Ian McShane and Timothy Oliphant's parts, but the female characters are great. Trixie may be my favorite, or else Calamity Jane.
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Date: 2012-07-29 01:16 am (UTC)He died of one of those heart defects that's undetectable until the person is dead when we were in our early 20s. My mother had thought it was funny to sing "poor Jud is dead" at me after the mall incident (she was there), and the whole thing is just... ugh. So yeah, Oklahoma: incredibly dark.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-29 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-29 03:13 am (UTC)