This week, I was trying to think of another musical in which the press plays a large part in the plot, but I didn’t like any of my options. Plus, I wanted to write about a topic with which more of you would be familiar.
Then, suddenly, I HAD IT! The biggest night in movies with the young hosts who were making a buzz. (That would be the Oscars with James Franco and Anne Hathaway, in case you live under a rock.)
For several weeks prior, the press was all over the story, speculating what this young duo might do. When the actual night came, it was the people who spoke…all over social network sites. Both were new to the gig, but the two made several allusions to Hathaway singing during Hugh Jackman’s opening a few years earlier. So, maybe musical theater was still in the bill? Hathaway and Franco did make a video parody of “Grease,” after all.
Some of the biggest hits, as it turned out, did relate to musicals.
1) Auto-tuning popular movies. Franco and Hathaway introduced this
montage by saying the musical was still alive. And when this is what mainstream music has become, why not musicals, too? (But please, Hollywood, don’t get any ideas about a “ Twilight” musical!)
2) James Franco in a dress. After Hathaway appeared in a suit to sing a parody of
“On My Own” (from the musical “Les Miserables” FYI), Franco said he figured he should reciprocate the action, apparently by cross-dressing as Marilyn Monroe from the movie musical “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” On a related side note, the other female star of that film, Jane Russell, died earlier that day.
3) “ Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Perhaps the most famous song from a movie musical (“The Wizard of Oz”), this number was sung by the students of
Public School 22 from New York as a Cinderella story closing to the evening.
In a night full of surprises, but also of expected wins, I never expected the musical to come up. None of the films up for Best Picture (or anything else, for that matter) were musicals. But the media and the musical have been intertwined for so long that it’s bound to crop up. Of course, actually seeing it in the media excited me, and to find out that other people (via Twitter) cared enough too to tweet about it made me simply giddy. Whereas, in the past, it was all about the professional critics from different publications, the media today is really about the common person. They have the Twitter accounts and the blogs. They have the big voice. The Oscars were a great indication of how the general populace now picks the trending topics and how everyone can be a journalist. So, get out there and get with it! Get musical!
