Naked Boys Singing
Jul. 23rd, 2012 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendyzskiis streaming on Netflix, and you should watch it.
As the opening number says, there is a whole hell of a lot of 'Gratuitous Nudity", and at the beginning you really do pretty much stare at their dicks. At least I did. There is a lot of bouncy choreography and they,...well, they bounce.
But somewhere along the line (For me it was the cantata where all the words were various terms for male genetalia) you get over that to one degree or another. There is a lot of using physical nakedness as a metaphor for other kinds of nakedness - social, emotional, etc. One particular piece has a character singing about how he has moved on from a lover's death (or possible suicide - it's left unclear), and as he's going through the process he's dressing. It was very moving - he starts off naked in his grief and then as he talks about time passing, friends who have married or moved, etc he's putting on an item of clothing. It's a great metaphor for the healing process. Then he gets to the part where he's met a great guy and has found love again, he's putting his jacket on. A very simple but very effective metaphor.
Granted, there are a lot of hilarious bits - the one where they sing about the embarrassment of trying not to get a boner in the high school locker room, and "I'm the Naked Maid" are hilarious. The performers are alternately funny and touching, and there are some amazing dancers in the company.
But I kept going back to the use of clothing. In many scenes only the background dancers are clothed, so I'd argue that in this case clothing is not "costume" but "set piece". Still other numbers use clothing being put on or taken off to express a specific point, in which case it's more like a "prop" than a costume piece. It certainly makes you think more about clothing.
And by the closing number, you've stopped staring and started watching, and experiencing. I think all good art takes the audience on a journey, and that the reaction of the audience is a key part of the equation. On that basis, I'd certainly argue that this show, while a bit heavy-handed, succeeds in what it sets out to do - to make you giggle but to also make you think about what it means to be naked.
As the opening number says, there is a whole hell of a lot of 'Gratuitous Nudity", and at the beginning you really do pretty much stare at their dicks. At least I did. There is a lot of bouncy choreography and they,...well, they bounce.
But somewhere along the line (For me it was the cantata where all the words were various terms for male genetalia) you get over that to one degree or another. There is a lot of using physical nakedness as a metaphor for other kinds of nakedness - social, emotional, etc. One particular piece has a character singing about how he has moved on from a lover's death (or possible suicide - it's left unclear), and as he's going through the process he's dressing. It was very moving - he starts off naked in his grief and then as he talks about time passing, friends who have married or moved, etc he's putting on an item of clothing. It's a great metaphor for the healing process. Then he gets to the part where he's met a great guy and has found love again, he's putting his jacket on. A very simple but very effective metaphor.
Granted, there are a lot of hilarious bits - the one where they sing about the embarrassment of trying not to get a boner in the high school locker room, and "I'm the Naked Maid" are hilarious. The performers are alternately funny and touching, and there are some amazing dancers in the company.
But I kept going back to the use of clothing. In many scenes only the background dancers are clothed, so I'd argue that in this case clothing is not "costume" but "set piece". Still other numbers use clothing being put on or taken off to express a specific point, in which case it's more like a "prop" than a costume piece. It certainly makes you think more about clothing.
And by the closing number, you've stopped staring and started watching, and experiencing. I think all good art takes the audience on a journey, and that the reaction of the audience is a key part of the equation. On that basis, I'd certainly argue that this show, while a bit heavy-handed, succeeds in what it sets out to do - to make you giggle but to also make you think about what it means to be naked.
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 06:53 pm (UTC)