Ilse neumann Supremacy 😪💕

To preface; I acknowledge that I am not using 1:1 examples. Since both b;apo and Spring Awakening are stage shows, there is so much of the atmosphere that is created through lighting and blocking and the subtleties in the way that each of the characters are played against one another, there’s no way to make a definitive blanket statement. That said, I was personally inspired by the production of b;apo I got the absolute pleasure of seeing live last year. Not only did we have the Ivy ever, but the team made an, in my opinion, super brilliant choice when it came to 'One'. They cut the “it was cute” line from Jason when Ivy’s apologising, and they really played up a visceral discomfort and overwhelm, culminating in Jason pacing up and down beside the bed while Ivy tells him he is “all [she] need[s]”, and it’s at that point that he concedes before focus shifts across to Peter trying to call his mother on the phone.     

Right off the bat, I think we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the gender dynamics at play when drawing these parallels, especially when gender as a concept intersects so much with the way sexuality is understood and explored by the characters in both b;apo & Spring Awakening. In particular I want to touch on the fact that - at least to my perception - Jason’s fully realised masculinity functions almost as a barrier to his emotions within the context of the story overall, but also when it comes to the meta context of his decision to have sex with Ivy. Because Jason is presented as this sporty, conventionally hot, outgoing guy who is popular with women, and because he is the one who is delivering most of these innuendos during 'You & I', I think there is a subconscious bias towards seeing him as someone who wouldn’t have sex with anyone he didn’t want to. And while generally a fair assessment, I think this subconscious bias is what leads people to unfairly assign amounts of blame when it comes to an analysis of his and Ivy’s relationship. Of course, 'One' and 'I Believe' don’t serve as exactly 1:1 examples even without the gender factors, given the time periods in which both shows were written and set, but I think both explore the idea of a grey area when it comes to sex as the crux of complicated relationships, both shows have running themes of dubious consent and religion, and most obviously both instances result in a pregnancy. 

Where it gets interesting to me is where the lines start to blur — yes, Wendla “let [Melchior] love [her]”, and Jason made Ivy “make [him] promise […] ‘I love you’” — but the contexts of both shows paint Wendla and Jason as confused and uncertain. Both Melchior and Ivy know, or believe they know, within themselves that both parties want to have sex. And while they may be correct on the subconscious level, this belief and expectation that they are holding dismisses the material reality of the situations. It’s not that Wendla wants to have sex with Melchior, it’s that she wants to know about sex, wants to understand why she has this physical attraction to him, not necessarily act upon it. It’s not that Jason wants to have sex with Ivy - it’s that he wants to want to and doesn’t have the safety to express that in any other way than simply going through with it. Where this is often acknowledged in the Spring Awakening context, I find that analysis of Jason and Ivy’s interactions in One don’t dig quite so deep. 

Which is not to say that Ivy or Melchior are terrible people - it is more so to say that they are both characters who struggle with appropriately communicating, and understanding other people’s communications, about sex and sexuality. Where Ivy likens pursuing Jason to “such a game of hide-and-seek”, Jason only ever takes their sex as something deep and important. Where Melchior has been “playing with [Wendla] in [his] fantasies”, Wendla “only wanted to be close to him”. Despite Ivy and Melchior’s knowledge on and experience of the subject, it manifests more so an intellectualisation of the act of sex itself, as opposed to a genuine understanding of the ramifications on a personal level - especially for people like Jason and Wendla who don’t have the same experiences or beliefs as they do.

Melchior knows that the way the adults in their lives address sex and sexuality - or don’t address it, as the case may be - isn’t productive, and because of this perceives himself as the ultimate authority on the subject. I think that this belief is what leads to the implicit forcefulness of his interaction with Wendla in the hayloft. He knows what’s happening, and because he is armed with a preconceived idea of what Wendla must be feeling, “defending [herself], until finally [she] surrender[s] and feel[s] heaven break over [her]”, he isn’t receptive to her hesitation. Rather, he interprets it as a necessary part of the experience. He knows that Wendla wants it to happen - but he also knows that she doesn’t comprehend that it means sex yet. And because they are both so present in the moment, “hearing [each other’s] heart beat”, Melchior falls back on his belief that the truest understanding of sex and that kind of physical pleasure can only come through lived experience - such as when he all but teaches Moritz about how to masturbate during 'Touch Me'. Even when productions of Spring Awakening do revise the dialogue to include a verbal ‘yes’ from Wendla, the presentation is still that of an assault, intense and hazy hounding and coercion.   

Ivy knows why boys are nice to her - “I know them, and what they’re after” - and when she stacks this belief up against the fact that Jason is nice to her despite his loyalty to and care for Nadia, it makes sense that she would assume that he wants to have sex with her, it makes sense that she wouldn’t put any thought into the subtleties of Jason’s responses to her or the hesitation in his questions about her “want[ing him] to kiss [her]”. What’s very interesting to look at in regards to Ivy and her character is this dichotomy she has in her head. She knows that “[...] boys will be boys [...]”, and on some level has the same expectations for Jason, teasing him about “see[ing] what [he’s] staring at” on her birthday. Even so, she believes that it’s different, because she loves him in a way that “[she’s] never felt [...] before”, she has the notion in her head that Jason “want[s her] just like [she] want[s him]”, because he kissed her on her birthday when she asked. I would argue that it is because of her conviction in her belief that Jason does want her that she does put such a pressure on him in the moment of 'One' - “If you like me, kiss me, don’t stop”. 

It is also important to acknowledge Ivy as a victim - while no abuse is heavily implied or stated outright in b;apo, there is an understanding that Ivy is a girl who has been sexualised for a long time, and that is of course going to skew her view of and relationship with sex as an activity and the role that she is expected to play within that. I don’t mean to detract from that fact at all by drawing out comparisons to her and Melchior, and acknowledging Jason’s own victim status as it parallels Wendla’s.   

There is also something to be said for how both Wendla and Jason’s loss or lack of functional autonomy contributes to their deaths. Both of them are characters burdened by conflicting expectations - Wendla is expected by her mother to still be young and naive, while simultaneously expected to know better, and Jason is expected by his father to “keep the McConnell flame burning”, an expectation competing with the one held by Peter that he cannot stay closeted forever. However, Wendla’s mothers expectations of her don’t conflict directly with Melchior’s expectations of her in the way that Mr McConnell’s conflict with Peter’s - in a way, Mrs Bergmann’s expectation that Wendla is still young enough to follow blindly what she’s been told is the expectation that leads to the pregnancy in the first place. Melchior is explicitly more knowledgeable about the mechanics of what they are doing in the hayloft, and as such holds a power over Wendla by being able to lean into those expectations that if another person knows more they ought to be listened to. Similarly, it is Ivy’s assumption or expectation being that Jason does truly want to have sex with her that snowballs into the conflicts as presented in Promise, and ultimately b;apo’s “story ends in total damage” at least in part as a result of these expectations being enforced.  

To summarise, I believe that because Ivy and Melchior are so sure of their own wanting, their own  understanding, and their own emotions, they end up projecting that onto Jason and Wendla respectively, turning them into vessels for sexual gratification and somewhat diminishing their personhood in the moment.