so about the “isn’t she lovely” sequence, if there wasn’t such mistreatment of black characters and black fans, do you think it would still be appropriate for tadc to reinterpret the song’s meaning?
No.
The concept of trying to reinterpret the song's meaning is exactly what I have an issue with.
"Isn't She Lovely" is a Black song, made by a Black man for his Black daughter. It is a song about Black joy, about Black fatherhood and beautiful Black baby girls. It is about Black people. It is for Black people.
Yet again, the issue is not with gender, but it is about race. To take that song out of its original context and rehash it into something whiter is what I take the most offense to, it's completely disrespectful and it doesn't even pay homage to the original culture. It's a form of whitewashing that is incredibly sinister, because it often follows along the logic of "wanting everything to be for everybody".
But you can't possibly partake in other cultures if you do not understand those cultures first, if you don't take the time to listen and be generous. To them, the song is just a song. Like most facets of the show, they take these brilliant works and strip them down to scraps, then try to spin that into something brilliant by telling people to look at the "abstract" and what isn't there. Then people go and theorize and completely overwrite the original intention, they erase the meaning, and it's very painful to witness.
The mistreatment of Black people both in and outside of the show is WHY they used the song in the first place, certainly part of it. If they had respect for Black people then this wouldn't even be a conversation.
