A bit of a rant, more of a concerned fan asking other fans to look at their behavior.
Before you read this, please bear in mind that I do not think these musicals are terrible, or the actors are untalented, or that anyone in the fandoms are terrible people. This is simply about something that has bugged me for a while and I’d like to bring to the attention of people.
I have loved musical theater from the moment I watched Idina and Kristin as Elphaba and Glinda from the computer screen at my grandmothers house. Since then I have inhaled Broadway like it was crack and I was an addict; my mind was full of POTO, Wicked, Sound of Music, Annie, Les Mis, White Christmas, Hello Dolly, Funny Girl, Mary Poppins, Cinderella and so much more. I fell in love with the storylines and the harmonies and especially the characters. I loved them so much I tried to emulate them; I drew them, I wrote about them, I fawned over them. But I also understood something vital that many people now tend to forget; my heroes on stage were not perfect.
Glinda wasn’t totally good, she sold out Elphaba for fame. Annie wasn’t a saint, she could be annoying and stubborn. Mary Poppins wasn’t a flawless woman, she could be stuck up and arrogant. Cinderella wasn’t totally a bean, she lay down and allowed her sisters to walk over her. Characters are people, they have flaws and dark sides and quirks that are not meant to be ignored, but to humanize the powerful and to open them up to be relatable to the audience.
Who would want to be so perfect, no one could ever stand to be around you? Who could ever relate to someone who could do no wrong? Who would want to be seen by everyone as a small child in need of constant protection? Nobody. To be held on such a pedestal or viewed as such a child holds stress and anger over the image you must keep and the chains you can never break.
And yet, that is what Broadway Fans, more specifically, new Broadway Fans have done. When I say New Broadway, I’m really referring to fans of musicals like DEH, BMC, Heathers, Hamilton (though my thoughts on Hamilton will be discussed in a later paragraph), and Mean Girls. These fandoms are notorious for many things, but the one I’m talking about today as you can guess, is glorify and deify characters.
Take for example, Evan Hansen. Many people in the fandom paint him as a smol uwu cinnamon roll who made one tiny mistake bUT LoOk hE JuSt wAnTEd tO hELp, or He GoT ScAreD, or hE diDnT mEaN tO hurT eVeRyOnE. Let’s dismantle that. One, Evan Hansen is not a childish, beanie, naive character. He very clearly understands what he is doing, and he knows what he’s doing isn’t right. Two, anxiety does not make someone a bean. It does not make them cute. It does not make them a child. Stop romanticizing Evan’s anxiety now. Three, he is manipulative. Don’t fight me on that, it is very clear and very not ok.
Then Heather M. She is often made to be a bean, portrayed as sensitive, fawned over as the kind one. First, she is not a bean. She is as harsh and cold as any of the Heathers. Second, depression and anxiety doesn’t a sensitive child make. No, her character is not a sensitive soul, she is a bitch with mental disorders all of us have witnessed or experienced. Third, she is not kind, she is cruel. She set Veronica up to be raped.
Our last example, Michael. I’m not going to be elaborate here, instead I’m going to get to the point. Michael having a panic attack in the bathroom doesn’t make him cute or smol or a bb. It makes him a stoner that is carefree and loud and supportive that has anxiety. Period.
One aspect of a character does not define them. To do so erases their relatability, their message, and their meaning. It vilifies characters that shouldn’t be vilified. I’ve seen so many people call Jared a dick or a douche for turning on Evan, seen people hate on Jeremy on account of Michael, seen people ignore Heather Duke’s pain and humanity in favor of Heather Mac. But that’s not the point these characters are trying to make.
Heather Mac serves as a reminder even cruel people can be hurting, everyone hurts. Evan Hansen is a lesson, you can’t undo what you did, and you damn well should not use someone’s pain for your own gain. Michael Mell is a glimpse at how someone’s actions can hurt others, with or without meaning to. To take these characters and define them with only one instance or trait is to ignore why they are the way they are, and not only is it ignorant to do, but it’s really annoying. And when someone romanticizes anxiety, or depression, it can be harmful, as then people start to think it’s cool or a minor inconvenience or even what defines people.
Then these new, deified characters are taken and eaten up by the masses, and people form unhealthy attachments or become extremely protective of them. They protect the idealized version, worship it and go to war if someone dares to challenge that. It’s not healthy.
Now I said I’d speak about Hamilton. Hamilton is almost an exception. It’s characters are difficult to take and make perfectly good or perfectly bad, and most people do recognize that Burr isn’t actually always a dick and Hamilton wasn’t the ideal husband or person. But still some people do tend to put the characters into boxes, and that also defeats the story Hamilton is telling you. None of these characters were heroes or villains. They were people. They were complex. They were walking oxymoronic statements. To put them in a box is to erase half the character.
In conclusion, the romanticization or in some cases vilification of characters in the mainstream musicals is not only annoying, but ignorant and unhealthy.
Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or concerns or comments, please reach out.
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