![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amelialourdesI can't remember the last time that I felt this angry leaving a theater. I go to shows that I love and I rave about it. I go to a show that was mediocre and I shrug my shoulders and move on to the next. But I can't remember the last time I left the theater feeling offended by it.
Bring It On: The Musical has been hyped here for weeks. Their flag advertisements litter the streets, Lin Manuel Miranda (the show's co-composer and co-lyricist) has been hard at work on the production, Universal Studios hosted a Bring It On day to support it. Tom Kitt and Jeff Whitty of Next to Normal and Avenue Q fame contributed. So where did they all go wrong? Let me tell you.
1. It's not Bring It On. Bring It On was a fun film from 2000 that had memorable characters, cheers, and an interesting plot. Bring It On: The Musical didn't have any of those. I feel like they used the title to draw people in because they may have heard of or watched the film. But if you're going to go in and expect to see bits and pieces of the movie? Don't. I'm not a fan of movies that are turned into musicals, myself. But when you use the title, you go in with expectations to see perhaps something resembling the movie. You don't change the names of the characters and the entire story and call it Bring It On. Just call it something else. Say that it has cheerleading in it. People will probably compare it to Bring It On but trust me, since this didn't resemble the movie? They won't.
2. The movie was fun. It had a plot that worked. This did not. White girl from a white school is sent to another district where things are strange and weird to her. Why is it strange and weird? Because there are black kids. Ahhhhhhh! Oh noes! That's how we know we're now in the ghetto. The school has minorities and there's a metal detector. They have metal detectors in schools where there's white kids too, BTW. They're black kids. They talk black. They rap. They have better dance moves. They're black. I get it. Really? REALLY? AND to top it off, I am expected to know that the black girl is poor just because she works at a fast food establishment ... oh, or I just assume she's poor because she's black and she's also poor because she goes to the all black school.
REALLY????????????????????????????????????????
Oh and the rich girl is rich because she's white. Yep. That's how we make that distinction. So the white girl has a nice room and she has a computer with video chat. There's nothing to indicate to me that the black girl doesn't have the same thing at her place.
This poor black girl, rich white girl idea? It follows me into #3.
3. Stereotypes.
Not only was the black girl poor and the white girl rich but did you know that the fat girl has self-esteem problems because she's fat? I never would've guessed. It's one thing to put a girl who's overweight into a cast of skinny people. It's another to make her the focus of your show in a negative way. Yes, we laugh at the fat girl because she's the mascot. Of course she's going to be the mascot. That's so original. We also somehow make her the hero because there's a boy who is actually interested in the "junk in her trunk" which only made me think he's interested in her as a fetish because he didn't say a damn thing about her personality. And you (the audience) applauded for her when she managed to toss her up into the air? The idea being, "Oh my god. How did they do that? She's so fat! How did she get up there? Let's applaud that feat of gravity." I flipped all of you off at that same moment.
Black gay guy is overly feminine! Been there. Done that. But let's applaud their originality for his sass anyway because he was so funny. You can't tell whether or not you're laughing AT him or with him and AT him is a major, major problem. Not only that but you didn't even allow a gay kiss to happen. You covered. it. up. Literally. With pom poms. If your idea was to create an environment of diversity, why did you let the two straight characters kiss and the gay ones hide behind a pom pom? That's fair. Oh, wait. It isn't.
Hispanic guy raps. Black guy raps. Because they're minorities so they can do that.
May I also mention that there are no Asian people in the entire cast? I'm sure they thought they had minorities covered when they hired the black people. Hey, my people are good at the dancing, rapping and singing, I'm having a hard time believing that no young Asian kid auditioned for a part in this.
Young, dumb, blonde. Really? We're going to be promoting illiteracy and laughing at the girl who can't read the word "redistrict" and fails Home EC and can't maintain a 1.5 GPA? It's not funny. Maybe she should be hitting the books and hiring a tutor rather than be concerned about a cheerleading competition. Just a thought. Everyone knows that our school system here sucks now, right? Should this really be funny? Because I'm thinking, no.
4. Plot. White girl plans to take over other white girl's squad and win. Other white girl moves to another district, gets the black kids together to form a squad, all to beat the girl who took over her squad with the white kids. Yep, that's it. You can thank me now. If they were going for personal growth? I didn't see it. Oh, wait. Because there was none. The girl was a nice person at the beginning of the play and she's the same person at the end of it. Either way? The white kids are still white and privileged. I'm not seeing the conflict or how complex this situation is because it's not. It's tepid, at best.
5. Music and Lyrics. If I'm going to a musical, I wanna run out of the theater humming or tapping my foot or eager for a soundtrack. Here? Nothing. Lin-Manuel, I see you all over this with the complex rapping. I even saw the exact set-up you used for In the Heights during one of the sequences. You know the move, where everyone comes together in the middle and one person is singing and the spotlight's on them? And was that almost the same exact song? I think it was!
Lin-Manuel's one of the most creative, original lyricists in musical theater but what ... was this.
Too. Many. Ballads. Because it's soft and slow doesn't mean that I'm going to care about it more. In fact, I'm tuning out because you didn't give me a reason to care. I have no personal investment in this character yet. A ballad isn't going to endear them to me.
6. The staging. This isn't a Pepsi commercial. I shouldn't be invested in the flashing lights and screens. I shouldn't be wowed by that. This is musical theater. I know you're pandering to the MTV generation whose attention spans lasts all of 5 seconds but if you give kids something fun and interesting? Trust me, they'll stick around, and it doesn't have to include the television screens. I could think of one scene where those screens were helpful. Other than that? Gimmick. It's not used well. It's just not. Bring back sets and get rid of them.
And this isn't included on the list but I had genuine concern for those performers. Someone's going to break a neck up there with the complicated cheer moves. The cheerleading part was the part that appealed to me. I like cheerleading. I liked Bring It On: The Movie. Bring It On: The Musical? You've got some work ahead of you or quit right now and give the stage to someone else.
The most redeeming part of the evening was seeing the glorious Karen Olivo in the flesh and new obsession Grant Gustin hanging out outside. And that's about all that was enjoyable about this experience.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 03:30 pm (UTC)Sounds sucky. Oy. Oh dear. :(
no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 06:03 pm (UTC)It was awful, awful, awful. So glad I didn't waste any money on it.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-14 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-14 10:06 pm (UTC)