Lowbrow Answer: MusicalsDoes anybody else think it's incredibly coincidental that every time somebody starts singing, the entire population of the town seems to suddenly know the choreography? How do all the people know the words? I don't know about you, but my hometown was full of pregnant teenagers, soccer moms, corporate dads, mediocre schools, and fat people. Not singing and dancing flash mobs that always seem to show up right on cue.
The worst part about musicals is the people that are in them. They're all either failed singers, failed actors, or failed dancers. But because they can kinda do all three, they get to be on Broadway. And what's with all the recent trend of movie-based musicals. "The Lion King," "Shrek the Musical"; when's it going to stop? I'm excited for "Requiem for a Dream: The Musical."
Middlebrow Answer: BalletI'm not sure if you know this, but ballet is fucking awesome. It's lyrical yet powerful; soft but aggressive. Kinda like my dong. I'm convinced that dancers are the best athletes in the world. They run, jump, bounce, spring, and move just as much as any other sport, except they have to look pretty doing it. And some ballets are up to three hours long. I'd like to see Kobe Bryant survive in Swan Lake.
Of course, ballet does have eating issues. There aren't many female dancers who aren't either Anorexic, Bulimic, or both, and that blows. I'm not up for anything that prevents women from the pleasures of eating buffalo wings or ice cream sundaes. Plus, boobs are awesome. And ballerinas aren't allowed to have those, either. Booooooo.
Highbrow Answer: OperaName me two operas other than "Carmen" and "La Boheme." Go.
No? Nothing? The mere fact that you just failed that quiz demonstrates the highbrow nature of opera. This shit isn't for the proles. It's for the educated elite who understand and appreciate the beauty of a well-performed libretto and a brilliantly conceived score. If you aren't one of those people, you can go outside and play with your basketball until we're finished watching "La Fille du Regiment."
Opera has been around since the 14th century, which means it's older than, like, God. It was originally performed for Kings and the high court, while normal theater was often relegated to the filthy masses. Opera is like the Intel Pentium Processor: everybody's heard of it, but nobody knows what the hell it does. Except the highbrow, like me and Sigmund Freud and Pavarotti.
But the problem with picking Opera as highbrow is that typically the subject matter is all low-brow. Petty romantic intrigues, killing people for bullshit reasons. It's about as trashy as soap operas (one pays homage to the other for good reason). So while it is highbrow in some ways, I'd also argue that it can be pretty lowbrow. I too hate musicals. Passionately.
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ReplyDelete1. The worst thing about musicals are the belting show voices not the people themselves.
2. Soap operas mimic operas (not the other way around as suggested by Dana)for multiple story lines playing out simultaneously. But, I agree with Dana in that they were written to appeal to the masses and did not become for the "educated elite" until the "proles" became culturally ignorant!!
YES to the overall post. But Luciano Pavarotti himself is definitely lowbrow, however you cut it. He started with a great voice and descended into hamming it up for the peanut gallery!
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