Phantom of the Opera

[rm]

So, since Patty's mother was in town last night, we went to see Phantom of the Opera. Despite the fact that I live here and actually like musical theater a good deal, I'd never seen this.

I have, necessarily, an affection for backstage plots; the time period is of particular interest; the costumes were quite pleasing (oh, the inverted box-pleats on the romantic lead's greatcoat!); the voices were excellent; the show is a technical marvel (stage manager, I salute you); the voices were exceptional; the spoof of Baroque opera almost killed me; other than the two very famous melodies everyone knows from the show I thought it was surprisingly complex musically (and made me want to see some real opera again) and all in all the show had much more energy than I generally expect from a Wednesday night performance of anything so long-running. I had a very good time.

But now that I've said that, OMG, WHUT?

Of course, to call it a two-and-a-half-hour musical about rape vastly understates the bizarreo-world factor of this musical, although it's hardly an inaccurate statement.

At first, I was merely staggered by what this show must do to thirteen-year-old girls. I mean, it's just utterly designed to be seductive to anyone who doesn't want to own their sexuality and is drawn to any sort of narrative of submission, ordeal or apprenticeship. I should have, in fact, been all over this shit. At thirteen, I surely would have been. And the gaggle of girls that age we saw in the bathroom surely were.

But honestly, it's much, much weirder than that. Because is it about Christine's latent desire for the Phantom? or just her latent pity? And she doesn't seem that into her boyfriend other than as someone to rescue her from her own desire for the ordeal. It all seemed a bit Snape/Hermione too, of course, and that was amusing to me, at least until the daddy issues showed up. Snape/Hermione never had daddy issues, at least the Snape/Hermione I read.

And wow, that's a lot of play and a lot of sex and a lot of heaving bosoms (I'm more of a total package sort of person, but I could not stop staring at Christine's chest in this. Oh My God) to not even obliquely mention the opera girl/titilation/whore factor (now sure, part of that is because hi, huge Baz Luhrmann fan here, and also historically aware, but really, the ridiculously uptight ballet mistress that I should totally be cast as? The sexually-repressed conduit of the show's sexuality? What the hell is that about?).

What a completely bizarre and vaguely intellectually offensive show. Man, when this first came out, gender and sexuality scholars must have been like "happy birthday to me" -- what a goldmine of crazy!

Comments

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

LMFAO! This was awesome to read first thing in the morning. And now I want to go see Phantom again.

[aynatonal.livejournal.com]

What that show did to me at 11 was pretty much permanently warp my budding sexuality. No question. I was obsessed. Like, listened to the cast recording every day for three years obsessed. Like carried the libretto around in my backpack for a year and a half obsessed. Like wore a pewter pendant replica of the Phantom's mask faithfully like some people wear a crucifix for six years obsessed. I've pretty much finished working through the repercussions, fortunately, (I gave up my nunlike devotion to the idea of being Christine when I started having sex in college) but yeah, you put your finger directly on the underlying appeal and the lingering effects.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yipes.

My only contact with Phantom was singing the main song from it in school - at which I discovered that long practice with a church choir had given me a better vocal range than most...

Heaving bosoms! Now 100% agency-free!

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

This may be a sign of my own derangement, but I just laughed aloud reading this in a hospital waiting room.

'I mean, it's just utterly designed to be seductive to anyone who doesn't want to own their sexuality and is drawn to any sort of narrative of submission, ordeal or apprenticeship.'

Say hello to my high school circle of friends. Because seriously, the original cast recording of Phantom was a must-own among that group and all of us were a little warped in that regard. Then again, you know, queers and women between 14-18 in a conservative Midwestern town? There is a reason we hid out in the drama department. I swear, we were a boarding program and a Robert Sean Leonard shy of being Dead Poets Society.

Honestly, though, this may be one of the best quick breakdowns of Phantom I've seen in ages.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

The book it's based on is intensely weird with the sexuality, and daddy issues abound, as Christine is only sixteen. But there is something that makes it oddly visceral and more affecting when you're actually watching these characters personified, heaving bosoms and all.

The show's a technical masterpiece, though. Andrew Lloyd Weber before he became the uninspired Stephen King of musical theatre. I suspect I was doing it wrong as a thirteen-year old girl, as I was always more interested in Meg, Madame Giry, and the opera within the opera than any of the sweeping rape romance.

[these-3-remain.livejournal.com]

What a completely bizarre and vaguely intellectually offensive show. Man, when this first came out, gender and sexuality scholars must have been like "happy birthday to me" -- what a goldmine of crazy!

This, exactly! It is a stunning show - and much better on stage than on film - but good lord, it wears on you after awhile. I find Christine to be so very much the Fainting, Screaming, Please-Save-Me, Infantile "Heroine" cliche that I want to smack her, and then smack the idiot that WROTE the part.

But oh, music. And oh, costumes. And oh, set design. And oh, creepy deformed man that lives in the sewers. LOVE IT.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie yesterday. Let's just say I'm glad I'm 41 and NOT 15 or 25.

I found it incredibly seductive and felt for Christine, in a way I hadn't reading the novel or just hearing the music. I always thought her a little useless and flaky.

Any younger and less confident/feminist? I'd be a puddle. Point of No Return left me wanting a cigarette anyway. It wasn't Lecter mindfucking Starling, but it was damn close.

So yeah, what you said.
Not something I'm encouraging my girls toward seeing. Frankly, I'd rather they watch Resident Evil.

[cara-chapel.livejournal.com]

You're quite right about the seductive element. I wish I could see a longer and more fleshed-out analysis from you; you considered the musical from all the elements that I, as a young girl, didn't. I don't think I responded to it entirely as it was intended, though; more than identifying with and wishing to be Christine, I was much more interested in Erik, and identified with him (I have always identified with MALE role models more than female ones). I don't think that identifying with Erik is any healthier for a young woman, mind you. ;-)

There is an ambiguity to the musical that's quite compelling. You can read its text several ways, and while rape/noncon is certainly a prominent interpretation, there is also the idea of the outcast/other/misunderstood genius in the face of prejudice which I found particularly compelling. And the potential of Christine's ambiguous desire is also intriguing, and I worried at that angle a number of times in phanfiction, trying to resolve it without having named it to myself, as you named it here.

I confess I was disappointed when I saw the actual musical; it paled beside the world I'd built in my head. But Erik has never left me; to this day I sympathize with his rejection, need, and bafflement, if I don't enact his violent responses to it.

Maybe this was my adolescent version of Twilight, doing many of the same things to me that I fear Twilight is doing to young women today?

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Ha! I was utterly obsessed with the show at the 13, dog-earing the companion book, singing back and forth with my then-best-friend on the phone every afternoon on the school. Wearing out the cassette and studying the color photos and getting my own half-mask at the costume shop. I dunno though -- we decided Raoul was a wuss and wore a tutu and deely boppers, and that he was mystified as to why Christine was running from him; and meanwhile I was obsessed with the Phantom. Both being him and mastering the completely messed-up makeup to make myself ugly. See, he gets the girl, or something?

Wait, I smell an essay. Especially reading the comments here.

I can't believe you'd never seen it!

[marieoroumania.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was a story about Stockholm Syndrome, and the only character I ever really liked was - what's her name? - Carlotta.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

AH, thank you. For years I've been trying to defend my enjoyment of this musical for all of these reasons - the amazing visuals, the music (which is sadly overplayed but still enjoyable), and the unbelievable WTF of the bizarro world it pulls you into.

I saw the show at 17 and again in my 20s, and it's a very different show from those different viewpoints, as you detail above.

[marieoroumania.livejournal.com]

I had a similar obsession with Little Shop of Horrors when I was 11 and to this day I have all the songs memorized. I have no idea what this might say about who I am today...

[onemildrat.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough I'm flashing back to The Education of Shelby Knox. In that documentary Knox has to navigate between what her town's spiritual elders are telling her about sexuality and what she's seeing with her own eyes. And she's also a big theater kid who dreams about playing Christine and marrying the actor playing Phantom.

Gender analysis aside, I would break down Phantom to this -- the characters don't make sense. What they do from one scene to the next doesn't make sense. One moment the Phantom is declaring war on Christine. The next he's proposing to her in front of everybody. Yes, he's supposed to be a sensitive, passionate artist in conflict with his monstrous side, but he basically swings between one mood to the next whenever the producers need something dramatic. And then there's Christine who has extreme changes of heart literally within the same song.

But, yes, Andrew Lloyd-Webber. I scratch my head when I consider my youthful enthusiasm for him.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. How much do I love that musical! When I was 12-18 I saw it like a MILLION times. I have the book (by Gaston Leroux, also pretty awesome), the score, the soundtrack, and I know ALL the songs.

But you could've figured that out, no? *g*

[threewalls]

I'd heard that Webber wrote Phantom as a vehicle for Sara Brightman, who was his then muse/mistress/protegee. Brightman was definitely Christine in the opening/original cast.

What the hell is that about?).

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's right, you didn't experience the Thatcher-Reagan Era as an adult. Good times!
Not!

[trifles.livejournal.com]

Trufact: There's a Snape/Hermione fic wherein Hogwarts is part of a Tri-Wizard Musical Theatre competition (I AM NOT EVEN JOKING), and Hogwarts gets assigned Phantom. Who ends up being the Phantom and Christine? Guess. And my god, are there daddy issues. It's unbelievable. I made it to chapter 39 or so before my brain started getting too slimy.

[aynatonal.livejournal.com]

Little Shop also has some pretty hinky gender stuff in it, come to think of it.

Re: Heaving bosoms! Now 100% agency-free!

[gement.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yesyes. I had the same drama club.

submission, ordeal, apprenticeship... thanks for these words, RM. Someone of my aquaintance, on first reading my writing, did me the high honor of saying "You do honor porn almost as well as Bujold." Since then I've called it honor porn, and was glad to have any handle for it at all.

Submission, ordeal, apprenticeship. I'll keep those around for when I need words for this thing in my head again.

The book, by the way, is even more so. My favorite bit that got cut is where the Phantom is SO BROKEN-HEARTED over losing Christine that he goes and lies around in his underground lake, trying to give himself pneumonia as the world's most protracted suicide attempt. I am not making this up. Leroux actually said this was his motivation.

[misch.livejournal.com]

I was weaned at the teat of the Original Canadian Cast soundtrack of Phantom!

[misch.livejournal.com]

In the "extra features" section of the DVD of the movie version there is commentary on the appearance of Christine and how in some ways it is about a sexual awakening.

[misch.livejournal.com]

They were married from 1984-1990. And yes, the role of Christine was written specifically for her.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Point of No Return left me wanting a cigarette anyway. It wasn't Lecter mindfucking Starling, but it was damn close.

Jesus christ, yes, THIS. I can't stand the movie, but the stage version of JUST THIS SONG makes me "guh."

[threewalls]

Ah. Thank you for the information. I'd heard something about them a long time ago, but today couldn't find confirmation of anything but Brightman's role in the opening cast.

[maryling.livejournal.com]

Point of No Return left me wanting a cigarette anyway.

Thirded.