This is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and the arrival and subsequent excitement over Les Misérables has made it urgent. Because I recall when the stage show was new, when I was in high school and then university in the late 1980s, and how it completely electrified many of the geeks I knew. A lot of the same people who loved Star Wars and Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 and The Princess Bride also loved this rock opera based on a 19th-century Victor Hugo novel, and there doesn’t particularly seem to be a lot of crossover going on here. I’ve also never forgotten seeing an ad in the 1990s — probably in Backstage, the Broadway industry newspaper — announcing auditions for Les Mis’ chorus, which stated that if you can sing Billy Joel and Disney musicals, then you can sing Les Mis. So Les Mis and Disney musicals have been connected in my mind since then, though the geekout over Disney musicals makes more geek-sense to me since they also tend to be fantasy stories… but the more I think about it, the more obvious it is that geeks who love Disney musicals seem to love the musical aspect as much as the fantastical one.
So:
What’s geeky about musical theater? Why does it seem to appeal to the same people who love science fiction and fantasy? What does musical theater have in common with the things we more traditionally think of as “geeky”?
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
I haven’t met this tendency in the UK. Perhaps related to the option (at least in some places in the USA) to do music at school as an alternative to sports?
I didn’t encounter this either growing up-geeky SF fans like me had enough to contend with in adolescence, without admitting to musical tastes that would called your sexual orientation into question-and at my school, that would have been tantamount to suicide. I am, however, in middle age now, and grew up in considerably less enlightened times-maybe this is a new thing, for the ”Glee” generation?
Outsider stuff?
Personally, I didn’t see that as a kid. Everyone I knew who liked musicals (like some classmates who were obsessed with Annie) also did their best to express their contempt for my science fiction reading material.
This hasn’t been my experience.
But geeks can take a lot when it comes to corn and cheese served up with their fantasies. And when it comes to cheesiness, there isn’t much that can deliver like two people singing at each other.
I was and am a girl who likes SF, fantasy and musicals. And I agree, it was the complete lack of any irony while engaging in high emotion, ideas or adventure (and, lets face it, healthy amounts of cheese) that connects these things together for me. As John Green says, nerds (nd geeks) get to like things unironically, and there is no room for irony in the emotional sweep of most musicals (there are, of course, exceptions to this rule…’Hairspray’ jumps to mind)
Of course, I also like country music for the same reason, so take that for what it’s worth.
What Jean said, only I’m also a fan of folk music, not so much country, for the same reason.
I’ve been thinking about your comment for the past few hours. Some of the best “geeky” entertainment is unironic. Star Trek and Star Wars are pretty straightforward, even in their 21st-century incarnations. But Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are full of irony. New Who is dark enough that it’s surprising to see an episode where everybody lives. And musicals have been ironic since Sondheim started writing them, if not earlier. These days, people aren’t startled even when a musical is written by the South Park team. But the best musicals, and the best fantasy and science fiction, still tend to have a childlike sense of wonder in spite of the snark, which is one of the main reasons I love them.
Here’s a rambling theory:
A lot of things that are considered geeky are associated with childhood. Comic books and cartoons have often been marketed to children. Doctor Who is described pretty frequently as a children’s show, and George Lucas sometimes defends Jar Jar Binks by saying that the Star Wars movies are for children. And a lot of high fantasy stories resemble fairy tales.
So people don’t want to be considered geeks, especially in high school, because they might be considered childish and weak. This makes no sense, but most things in high school make no sense.
I think musicals are considered geeky by association. They’re also enjoyed by “unmanly” people, like women and homosexuals. And maybe there’s also a reminder of childhood: Being in a musical is a lot like playing dress-up.
The common thread is that anyone who enjoys these activities is seen as an outcast and a weakling. But, as always, the outsiders get the best music and movies, and the rest of the world has no idea what it’s missing.
Rambling or not, that’s as good a theory as any!
I’m a geek who hates musicals, but if there is some connection, it’s that enjoyment of these things requires not being self-conscious about it.
I was never a Les Mis person. But I adored Chess. And I enjoyed Phantom (which is actually crap, but when I was a teen it worked for me) and Joseph & the Technicolour Dreamcoat, and Jesus Christ: Superstar, which is really a Judas passion play. and once I grew up, I spent a bit of my late 20s as a serious Renthead.
The most recent musical to take hold of me was The Drowsy Chaperone. And to be honest, I think that it points out the issue…all of the musicals I know that really took hold of me, and my friends, are about rejection and obsession. This is finally clarified in Chaperone, in which they just take an obsessed agoraphobic fan boy and sit him on the stage to tell you about the play in staggeringly geeky footnotes and asides.
Jesus Christ Superstar was the first big-production musical I ever saw live. I had already been watching the film at Easter time on local tv (the CBS affiliate, which had JCS, and the ABC affiliate, which had Godspell, would alternate showing them in the late-night slots the Saturdays before Palm Sunday and Easter, and our parents would let us stay up and watch them), so I was already into it when my 10th birthday rolled around. Mom was surprised when I told her that for my present I wanted tickets to the touring production of JCS that was playing in Chicago. So, I was a musical geek early!
I really recommend the 2000 filmed version with Jérôme Pradon as Judas. It blew me away. I had always liked JCS, but that one made me fall in in love with it. ALW says that it’s the best version of a filmed stage musical (as opposed to a movie of a musical, if you know what I mean) he has ever seen.
i think it sort of breaks down to Geeks admire and get enthusiastic about creativity and things that show an intense inner life — or a connection of an inner life to a wider world. most musicals have people *doing* things as well… i think this also relates to the geek creativity of things like the awesome TARDIS dress in today’s DWTOTD… it takes them outside of themselves.
Your answer is pretty close to my answer. I was going to say ‘introversion and imagination.’
My guess is Disney.
Musicals were popular entertainment on broadway, and the dominant form of movie for a long time. Disney retained the musical formula long after the rest of hollywood abandoned that formula. Musical numbers became an homage/parody on the Spielberg/WB collaborations like Animaniacs and Histeria.
Given the popularity of cartoons (amongst other beloved childhood entertainment) amongst geeks, appreciation of the form carried over, minus the backlash against the form’s relative mainstream popularity and “effeminate” connotations.
For what it’s worth, my mother is a big fan of Les Mis and Andrew Lloyd Webber, so a fair bit of that’s rubbed off on me, despite a bit of a backlash on my part towards the “Disney formula” musical.
I’ve seen Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Cats (in 80’s New York, even!). Les Miserables I didn’t get into for years.
All the words you used in your review to describe why you love Les Miz — “love honor duty tragedy sacrifice comedy drama despair hope romance revolution” — can also be applied to Star Wars. And while SW isn’t sung-through, John Williams’ ever-present epic sweeping orchestral score pretty much sings the story at you. (As I’m thinking of similarities, I’m realizing now that the opening fanfare of Les Miz grabs me just as much as the opening notes to Star Wars does: ta da! trumpets! action! what’s going on? you are there!! And the ending of Les Miz, with soaring, triumphant music and practically the whole ensemble cast facing the audience, also echoes the endings of most SW films.) So, some connections there. It isn’t so hard to see why a Star Wars geek (this one, at least) might like Les Miserables too.
Apparently someone on YouTube sees the connection as well.
I don’t know about this one. I’ve been a total geek for most of my life, and have pretty much zero interest in Musical theater, or any kind of musical anything. I love music, I quite like theater, and I obviously love movies. I just don’t like them all combined into one.
I also don’t know too many geeks like me that do. Then again, it really doesn’t come up in conversation that often.
I do plan on seeing it when it comes out for home viewing. If only out of curiosity.
I consider myself a geek. Most of my friends consider themselves geeks. None of us like musical theater.
Use this data as you will. :)
I suppose it has to do with the fantasy nature. Neither musical theater, Tolkien, or Star Wars are grounded in reality as we know it. Even relatively grounded musicals like Les Miserables require you to suspend disbelief over the basic premise that people can spontaneously break into song. The non-geek audience have always taken the view that things should be realistic, and have trouble accepting flights of fancy. Related question: Why is musical theater considered gay?
This makes me want to ask the geeks in this thread who don’t like musical theater: why not? Willingness to accept unreality is necessary for SF and fantasy; is “people singing” just one step too far? Is the music just not to your taste?
I also wonder if there are folks out there who think they hate musicals but gave Les Miz a shot and were surprised to find they liked it. I’ve read interviews of Tom Hooper saying he himself has a problem with musical films — the whole “switching from speaking to singing” thing, and the lip-syncing thing — which is why he insisted on live singing and kept the through-sung nature of the work, with the mindset that this is a world where people communicate almost entirely through song (rather than constantly switching from speech to music). Does that perspective help musical skeptics suspend disbelief?