How to watch Glee: Two Parts Camp, One Part Reality

This past year as I've made connections with the TV critical community and have read a lot of TV criticism (as a byproduct of being considered for the AV Club's TV Club), I've found it very amusing to watch critics try to make sense of something like Glee. Co-produced by Ryan Murphy, known for his past successes with Nip/Tuck and the cult hit Popular, Glee is a show that's impossible to ignore. The show has high ratings, accolades, and drives water cooler talk among both the young and the not-so-young.

The show is, at times, undeniably original, bold, entertaining, and capable of being brilliant. At the same time, it's a melodramatic mess. There are great problems with continuity with characters blatantly changing to fit whatever the episode's theme of the week is.

To an extent, I watch Glee the same way I watched the 1960's Batman TV series. The show was universally defined by anyone writing about it as "Camp." "Camp" has always been one of those words that is difficult to define and it's equally puzzling to understand why I like watching it.

Let me take a shot at it:
I might have been laughing at the over-the-top nature of the content but that doesn't mean I'd classify the show as a comedy. Laughing at an awful movie like the robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 doesn't make me want to applaud the filmmakers. The humor was unintentional because neither I nor the filmmakers intended for the film turn out so badly.

Batman fails completely as a crime drama, but it's creators also know that the show fails towards that end. But the key is that Batman isn't aimed at us. It's aimed at kids and as my 8-year-old self can attest, it succeeds at convincing kids that it is a convincing drama. Because the show's standards of good/bad aren't specifically aligned towards me, there's no point in judging the work and I am free to watch with detached amusement.

Likewise, Glee invites the more educated viewers to detach themselves from the inconsistencies of the show as well. This isn't uncommon. It's just like how we're supposed to ignore how entirely unlikely it is for so many murders to occur in a small seaside town of 8,000 in "Murder She Wrote" (let alone how the town could avoid not becoming hollowed out by plummeting property values) or how Adrian and friends are always finding themselves bumping into murderers outside of their line of work (i.e. Randy's dentist is a murder, Julie's class speaker is a murderer, Adrian goes to his college reunion and finds his good friend married a murderer, etc.) on "Monk."

Glee's lack of consistency falls somewhere between camp and parody. It's creators are certainly aware that these characters have flaws, so we should detach ourselves from the exercise of complaining every week of how inconsistent the characters are. That would be like complaining about "Friends" upon discovering that Joey Tribbiani is really an actor named Matt LeBlanc.

Glee also has one other element that we're supposed to realize is not to be taken at face value: The reasons that characters on Glee break out into song are thinly plausible at best. But when you think about it, since the musical genre evolved past the backstage dramas of the 1930's (i.e. 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933), characters have never had any valid reason to spontaneously break out into song. Audiences have just been conditioned to accept that as a convention of MGM musicals (I previously wrote a very good blog post about this). Glee is just not shy about exposing these same conventions. Much like Austin Powers overpiles the dry witticisms after he kills someone and makes the audience more aware of the convention's ridiculousness, Glee has fun with the conventions of musicals. It's half-parody. It's also a good excuse for some musical numbers.

So, to watch Glee take the continuity and the song transitions with a grain of salt. The rest is legitimately good, wholesome narrative. It might be confusing to sort out at first but try it.

FAQ: Do musicals today follow the same conventions as they used to?

I had a friend who asked me yesterday if musicals followed the same conventions as they used to.

First, a brief history:

Musicals are a genre which means there are certain stylistic conventions that have been cemented over time. In contrast, political films are not a film genre. There might be a number of films that have appeared over history about politics, but they have nothing in common with each other. Part of the reason that musicals are a genre with consistent patterns is because the vast majority of the successful musicals since the dawn of the sound era were all produced under one roof: MGM Studios. From the late '30s to the '50s, the genre's top directors-- Charles Arthur, Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, and Vincente Minnelli-- all worked under a branch of production at MGM under producer Arthur Freed and they likely had the same loose guidelines to follow. Additionally, many musicals that made their mark in the movies (i.e. Brigadoon, Kismet, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Hello Dolly, Oklahoma, The Music Man) made their way from Broadway so those Broadway conventions filtered in to most adaptations. Even when conventions weren't borrowed, the directors faced the same challenges in bringing a Broadway production to the silver screen and deciding which versions to keep.

One of the primary conventions of a musical film is the idea of integration (remember folks, you'll have a quiz on those bold words) which is when characters would spontaneously erupt in song and dance as if it was as natural to them as speaking. It's a somewhat silly concept and one that sometimes gets parodied.

Audiences would have found it equally absurd if not for the fact that audiences were gradually weaned off earlier versions of the musical in which the characters were singing in situations that made sense. This is called the backstage musical. In MGM's early Broadway Melody series, and the Busby Berkley productions at Warner Brothers, the plot centered around performers on a stage, so that whenever their characters were singing, it would make sense within the confines of the plot.

One could see evidence of the gradual transition in a film like "Meet me in St. Louis" in which some of the musical numbers make sense within the context of the plot (Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien singing "Under the Bamboo Tree" to entertain house guests) and some don't ("The Boy Next Door" or "The Trolley Song" are completely unnatural). More interestingly, "Meet me in Saint Louis" has numbers which fall into grey area: In the opening of the film, Judy Garland strolls in singing "Meet me in Saint Louis" and she is joined by her older sister on the piano, before their father storms in and tells them to "turn off that racket." This scene could be taking place outside the context of reality, but when we see the dad (a character who sings no musical numbers over the course of the production) interrupting them, we see the scene differently: it's just two girls getting carried away as they are humming a tune.

Now, the question about whether musicals follow the same conventions as they did before:

The question might have less to do about whether directors have a need to follow conventions as whether or not the makers of modern-day musicals face the same challenges of getting audiences on board as filmmakers did back then (which they did).

The fact that Hollywood didn't really make any musicals for most of the '70s, '80s or '90s is pretty good evidence that modern-day audiences were clearly not familiar and eagerly accepting of musicals at the time. West Side Story, for example, is appreciated by a lot of people, but at the same time, the idea of gangsters being proficient in ballet has been parodied on Family Guy, SNL, and pretty much everywhere else. In order to bring back the musical, Hollywood has had to gradually revert from the integrated musical to the backstage musical. High School Musical and Dreamgirls have had backstage plots, and some of the Broadway-to-movie films that have recently come out on this latest wave (e.g. Rent, The Producers) might have been more acceptable as integrated films because they were integrated musicals on Broadway and didn't tamper too much with the source material. It's also telling that neither of those two films got great reviews anyway.

When a musical does fully embrace an integrated formula like Moulan Rouge, in 2001, it does tend to come out as over the top. Although the sheer ambition of the film was enough to get the film an Oscar nomination and there's a certain class of people who hail the film as genius, the critical reaction and reaction from many moviegoers at the time was fairly polarized (short of going back in time and asking people what they thought of the film right as they walked out of the first screening, I know it's hard to prove that, but that's very much the way I remember it) .

Chicago was able to win an Oscar for best picture as a musical and the unofficial headline in Hollywood was "The musical has officially been revived" (Read the first paragraph of Roger Ebert's 2003 Oscar predictions for supporting evidence: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030316/OSCARS/33010302/1023). Perhaps, Chicago is credited with reinventing the musical because it was able to find a way to make a convincing musical that would go over with audiences while preserving the fun of the integrated musical: Setting the musical numbers in the mind of a character.

Recently, because more musicals have been released in the last few years and the average American moviegoer might be more movie-literate, integrated musicals have done a little better. This past year, Across the Universe and Hairspray (another Broadway holdover) were both greeted fairly well. It could be that filmmakers are gradually learning what works and what doesn't from the few musicals to be released before they started directing their projects.

Help! We've been attacked!

BEST WEBSITES OF 2008

An article recently surfaced which caught my friend's attention and he asked me to comment on it. The article is http://www.nypress.com/21/17/news&columns/feature3.cfm

Here's my response:
I think this guy has 8 or 9 articles that he merged into one and makes a lot of generalizations which don't generally hold true. You have to read it, however, like a big textbook and agree with some and disagree with some. If the guy wanted to make sense, he should have stated that his article was targeting a specific type of blogger rather than everyone except for himself. For example, I loved Bobby and Darjeerling Limited and promoted the hell out of them, which are two movies he likes.
I also think Premiere was a great magazine (which is ironic because the author hates it) and I mourn its death as much as the next guy. I actually don’t particularly want to be a “blogger” and really want to be in the print media anyway. This started out as a way to promote my stuff so that I might get hired in the print media, and I would gladly seize doing this at once, if it meant that someone in the print media who I am a fan of, could keep their job.
I think it's very sloppy to imply that Ebert has never contributed much. Yes, Ebert the TV critic just does thumbs up or thumbs down, but in writing he has great insights and he is constantly stressing to his readers in his Q and A not to pay too much attention to stars. I agree that a lot of criticism boils down to "Is the film good or bad" but that's mostly in the world of print media, anyway, because print media caters to what the everyday Joe wants to know which is "should I see this movie?” But the internet sites have the advantage along with more in-depth journals and academic literature of analysis.
He might be right that historical context is missing from the great majority of film criticism. I think that's one of the most important things you gain from studying movies is understanding history (and not film history but actual history) better. There are courses in most film curriculums that focus on movies and society, however.

Here is his list of ten things which film bloggers and other critics make the mistake of doing:
1)“The Three Amigos” Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro are Mexico’s greatest filmmakers while Julian Hernandez is ignored.

Yeah, sorry never heard of Hernandez. Just like every member of the public I can’t know of every person who’s ever picked up a movie camera and made a film. I’m not making a conscious decision to denounce him. If you want to promote Hernandez, fine, great. Point taken. You might also have a point that as amateurs we don’t have access to someone like Hernandez, but that’s hardly a new discovery.


2) Gus Van Sant is the new Visconti when he’s really the new Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger

Gus Van Sant isn’t that much of an auteur, I personally don’t care for him, but more to the point, he’s not the central point of a lot of discussions. In terms of a couple of his films I know of, Finding Forrester was primarily a Sean Connery vehicle and Good Will Hunting’s autuers, at least in the eyes of the public, were writer-actors Damon and Affleck who initiated the project. So to me, you might call me in agreement with you. I don’t really know who Visconti and Fagin are, sorry.

3) Documentaries ought to be partisan rather than reportorial or observational.

I think that people tend to place partisan labels on a documentary that the documentarians don’t see themselves. I also feel that Armond White shows his blog himself, person is biased against the “liberal elite” or whatever. When he writes. “but it is the shame of middle-class and middlebrow conformity that critics follow each other when praising movies that disrespect religion, rail about the current administration or feed into a sense of nihilism that only people privileged with condos and professional tenure can afford,” he clearly can’t avoid his own partisan biases either, which I think is worse when he’s trying to suppress other people’s right to voice their own opinions.

Nevertheless, I think the view of most critics is that documentaries come in all shapes in sizes: A documentary can be partisan or non-partisan, so long as it doesn’t try to pass itself as the wrong category. The current beating the HBO film “Recount” is taking, is an illustration of that point, since it’s far less observational than it claims. I think Michael Moore, which I imagine White is referring to since a discussion about documentaries can’t possibly exclude the most influential and commercially successful one of the decade, is fairly handled by critics. Most critics advise their audiences to take Moore with a grain of salt, knowing he has a clear partisan bent.

4) Chicago, Moulin Rouge and Dreamgirls equal the great MGM musicals.

Well, I am somewhat of an expert on musicals so I can answer this. First off, there’s hardly any agreement on whether Chicago or Moulan Rouge is the true second coming of the musical. There’s plenty of people who hate Chicago and like Moulan Rouge and plenty who feel the opposite. Dreamgirls is generally considered as a respectable follow-up by Condon to Chicago, treated adequately by the awards season: A proverbial “6th nominee” that feel just short of making the final five. I don’t think much of the literature on Chicago and Moulan Rouge as the revival of the musical is saying that Chicago and Moulan Rouge equal the high point of MGM but they revived the musical and made it marketable again as evidenced by the fact that after 2002, the genre was able to be marketable and Broadway adaptations (Rent, Producers, Dreamgirls), remakes (Hairspray) and all sorts of experimental films (Across the Universe and Sweeny Todd) were able to make it to theaters. If you look at the AFI list of top 25 musicals recently released, Chicago and Moulan Rouge were on their but towards the bottom, behind the great MGM musicals.


5) Paul Verhoeven’s social satire Showgirls was camp while Cronenberg’s campy melodramas are profound.

I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t think Cronenberg’s melodramas are profound. He does a good job at creating tension and makes a good thriller (are you referring to History of Violence and Eastern Promises?) but I don’t know by what criteria you call them campy. Showgirls was rated X and I was like 11 when it came out, so I didn’t see it unfortunately. Should I catch it on DVD or so, so I can enter into the conversation?

6) Brokeback Mountain was a breakthrough while all other gay-themed movies were ignored.
No, anyone who follows the Oscars is aware that Transamerica and Capote were honored well-enough. This might have been a complaint perhaps a decade ago when Ian McKellan from Gods and Monsters lost to Hillary Swank.

7) Todd Haynes’ academic dullness is anything but.
Again, I don’t think people are analyzing Todd Haynes in an auteur sense. I think people saw merit in Far From Heaven and I’m Not There (although I’m Not There had fairly mixed reactions).

8) Dogma was a legitimate film movement.
I think you mean “Dogme 95” but nonetheless, I think there’s a great deal of filmmakers who find Von Trier’s films insulting and nonsensical, and surely the general public feels antagonized by him even more. Whether it’s a legitimate film movement is not really for us to judge. That’s like judging whether you have a legitimate article. It’s an article you wrote, but does it say good or bad things, well that’s the debate. I think Dogme 95 creates more constraints on the filmmaking than its worth (he had to break some of his own rules to make Dogville), but at the same time, I think some of his ideas have some merit and some don’t. I also think it’s clearly worth studying the movement’s context in history just as you say.

9) Only non-pop Asian cinema from J-horror to Hou Hsiao Hsien counts, while Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow are rejected. 10) Mumblecore matters.
Don’t know much about Asian cinema, so I won’t respond. Don’t know what mumblecore is.

Musical Parody IV: Meet Me in St. Louis

This is another musical parody in which I try to analyze the subtext of what the characters in musicals really communicate when they're singing to each other. Today I will guide you through the musical numbers of Meet Me in St. Louis

Background: Meet Me in St. Louis was a very famous MGM Musical from 1944 that was influenced by the need to make films honoring homespun-Americana to help with the war effort from World War II. It starred Judy Garland and was said to be the film that allowed her to be seen as a grown-up for the first time (they might have overdone it). It also led to the marriage of Judy Garland and the film's director Vincente Minelli and their offspring Liza Minelli continues to fill the tabloids to this very day, carrying on the Judy Garland tradition of marital dysfunction.


Here are the musical numbers:
Meet Me in St. Louis-
The Smith Family: This movie sponsored by the St. Louis chamber of commerce. Come visit our magnificent city

The Boy Next Door-
Esther Smith: Hi, I'm Judy Garland and I'm all grown-up now. Oh, all the lost time I now have to make up for, missing my teenage years and all. I'm so boy crazy and so sexually repressed by our Victorian societal norms. Boys, boys, boys, look at that boy next door.

Skip to my Lou-
Alonzo: Skip to my, Skip to my, Skip to my Lou
Rose: Alonzo, what's that your singing? Let's make a musical number out of it
Alonzo: It's not even an original song
Rose: Oh don't worry, it's in the public domain and our producer left us short on songs. We'll just throw in some original lyrics on the side and haphazard choreography
Alonzo: Okey dokey
Everyone: Skip to my, Skip to my, Skip to my Lou
Esther: Boys, Boys, Boys! Oooh, look there's Harry and Charlie and Jonny

I Was Drunk Last Night Dear Mother/Under the Bamboo Tree-
Tootie-I'm much less restrained than my syblings. The audience is bound to grow tired of these stiffs and like me more
Esther-You're right, which is why you have to get out of this picture immediately
Tootie-Awww, come on, I might be up for an oscar if I sing another one of these cutsey songs
Esther-OK, but only if I join in.

Over the Bannister-
John-Golly gee, Esther, you're awfully pretty.
Esther-I know we live in this Victorian-like society where we're not supposed to kiss after the 16th date, but we're only a bannister away. It's not really that big. Come on over on the other side of it, and let's get to know each other on a more physical level.
John-Huh? I've never been in the same room alone with a girl before, so I have no idea what you're saying to me. Anyway, I better go, it's getting late.
Esther-Darn!

The Trolly Song-
Citizens of St. Louis-Wow, our city is so great now that we have this exciting public transportation! St. Louis, Missourri is always a great place where new inventions like public transportation are brought to the forefrount. Come visit this great city!
Esther-Oh, trolleys are all good and all, but i'm too depressed to think about anything. My crush Jonny isn't here. Maybe, I'll marry the director of this picture, Vincente Minelli. He is always spending so much time looking at me through his camera, he must be interested in me, and I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that it's his job to film me. I'm so misguided.
Citizens of St. Louis-Weee! This new technology is splendid. Clang, clang, clang. Ding, ding, ding.
Jonny-Hey guys, I missed the train, let me on!
Esther-Oh yay! Jonny is here! Wait up girls, I'm not depressed anymore, Judy Garland is here and is ready to save this lame musical number. I can clang-clang-clang and ding-ding-ding with the best of them.

You and I:
Mrs Smith: I think you screwed over the family but perhaps the economics faciliating our need to move are more complicated than I understand as a woman, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt
Mr. Smith: Thank you
The Smith Kids: Ok, we'll forgive you too


Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas-
Tootie-I don't want to move
Esther-Well, it's Christmas time, let's just enjoy that. Christmas makes everything better

Meet me in St. Louis (reprise):
Once again this musical has been sponsored by the city of St. Louis. Not as big of a city as New York makes little girls cry and destroys families. St. Louis is a wholesome place where Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien sing and dance around happily

Musical Parody III: Singing in the Rain

Here's a guide to the subtext of the musical numbers of Singing in the Rain:
Fit as a Fiddle:
Cosmo and Don: We're two sexually verile men coming up through the industry. Lock up your daughters

All I Do is Dream of You:
Girls: We're naughty girls. As naughty as the Breen Code will allow us to be. Hopefully we'll get better jobs, someday.

Make'em Laugh:
Cosmo: Don, you've gotta sell out. High art is overrated. Take this movie. It probably won't win any oscars, but audiences will eat it up.
The Academy: Right, you are. This film is crap. We won't even nominate it.
The American Film Institute years later: On the contrary, this picture is brilliant. We'll put it #10 on our best pictures list.
Other film critics' organizations: Yes, we love it too.
Cosmo: See my point?

Beautiful Girl:
Singer: I sing well, but I'm old school and soon to be replaced by hipper and more current guys like Gene Kelly over there.


You Were Meant for Me:
Kathy: I like you, Don.
Don Lockwood: Aw shucks, I feel the same way about you too Kathy. But I'm so shy (but not really, based on all my other scenes) that I don't know how to say that outside the confines of a movie set.

Moses Supposes:
Voice Teacher: Ok, pupils, let's go over our pronounciation.
Don Lockwood: How about we don't and say we did.
Voice Teacher: Excuse me?
Don Lockwood: You heard me, old man. I don't need your stupid voice lessons. I'm Gene Kelly and all the ladies love me.
Cosmo: And I'm Donald O'Connor and I'm funny as hell.
Don Lockwood: Yeah, that's right. We don't need you. Now get the hell out of here before I bury you under a pile of your own teaching implements.

Singing in the Rain:
Don Lockwood: I'm so happy. I'm so in love with Kathy, I don't feel the need to tap dance with my usual technical precision to prove to the world how great I am. I'm just going to jump around in puddles. Weee!

Good Morning:
Kathy and Don: We're so happy because not only are we physically compatible, but we also work well together professionally. We're so in love. Being in love is great!
Cosmo: What about me? I feel like a third wheel.
Don: Oh, don't worry, you're the comic relief, and that's just as important. Besides, by being on our side, you're bound to have a happier ending than Lina Lamont.
Cosmo: Good point. Let's sing and dance.

Would You:
Kathy Seldom: Once again, I'm Debbie Reynolds and I can sing.

Broadway Rhythm:
MGM Musical Director Arthur Freed: Just in case people aren't really liking this picture, we'll throw in a long ballet number like the one that won American in Paris the Academy Award last year.
Gene Kelly: Sounds good to me. I'm an attention-whore so if people are staring at me for 14 straight minutes, I can't complain.
Arthur Freed: Also, this film is self-referential. We want to pay a homage to the broadway roots of the musical.
Broadway: That sounds confusing but thanks

You Are My Lucky Star:
Don Lockwood: Sorry, I was an idiot. Maybe, if I jump back into movie musical mode and sing a little bit, you'll forgive me?
Kathy Seldom: Wow Gene, you're finally singing in tune! I'm impressed! Of course, I forgive you.

Musical Parody II: American in Paris

Here's your guide to what the subtext of all the musical numbers from American in Paris are
(note: I still am a big fan of this film, even if it appears I'm not):

Background: American in Paris was a Vincente Minelli musical which represented the height of MGM's Golden Era of Musicals winning the best picture award at the Oscars in 1951. It starred Gene Kelly and was notable for its all-Gerswhin format, the comic grouchiness of Oscar Levant as the piano player, the newly discovered Leslie Caron, and the unconventional narrative technique of ending a movie on a ballet number rather than through anything happening with the plot.

By Strauss:
Henri: I'm a musical snob. I can't appreciate American art forms like jazz and that's why, audience, you should root for Jerry to get the girl
Jerry: I'm singing along, but this whole bashing-of-American-music number was the Frenchman's idea

I've Got Rhythm:
Jerry: Hey kids, I've got great news! I'm either going to get laid or someone wants to buy my pictures! I don't know which but it's a win-win situation either way! Let's celebrate!

Our Love is Here to Stay:
Jerry: You're beautiful, I'm in love with you. Let's get together.
Lise: What the hell are you doing? I'm in the middle of dancing with someone else
Jerry: I'm sorry, maybe you weren't notified. I'm Gene Kelley, the star of this film and every other MGM film and I hold all the clout here. I even was the one who cast you. So let's get together
Lise: Um, well I appreciate all that, but i don't really like you

Tra-La-La:
Jerry: Adam, I'm in love!
Adam: Shut up, I'm trying to play the piano, here.
Jerry: Adam, I'm in love, Tra-la-la.
Adam: That's just lame, now go away.
Jerry: Hey, do I need to remind you, I'm Gene Kelly?
Adam: Ok, fine, let's just get this song over with.

Our Love is Here to Stay (reprise):
Jerry: Let's try this again. You're beautiful, I'm in love with you. Let's get together.
Lise: Oh, you're THAT Gene Kelley. Fine, whatever, let's get together.
Jerry: That's better.

Stairway to Paradise:
Henri: OK, audience, I've decided to stop becoming a musical stiff and in order to win you over, I've decided to adopt your American music. Then again, I'm butchering this Gerswhin number with my French accent, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing

's Wonderful:
Henri: I'm such a fool in love
Jerry: I'm such a fool in love
Adam: Not only are you fools, you're both complete idiots because you don't know you're singing about the same girl, but at least it moves the plot along. I'll just tuck away, so you two can discover this on your own.

The American in Paris Ballet:
[Lise decides to go with Henri]
Audience: Wow, I thought she'd end up with Gene Kelly because that's how these movies usually end, but Henri's a good guy too, I'm satisfied.
Jerry: Hey, what the hell is going on? I'm Gene Kelly. I'm beautiful and my dancing's unbeatable. This movie's not supposed to end without me getting the girl. I refuse to let this happen. I'm going to keep dancing until something's done about this ending.
[Dances for 13 minutes]
Henri and Lise: Ok, you win.
Audience: That was wierd and didn't make sense.
Critics: Ending a movie on a nonsensical ballet number. Brilliant!