Notes from "A Problem Like Maria", Introduction: 06/03/07

Most scholarship about musical theatre and queerness has been dominated by gay men such as D.A. Miller and John Clum. Both writers use tropes of camp, diva worship, and cross-gender identification as means of explaining the proliferation of the “show queen” in cultural imagination. I’m a self-confessed show queen myself, yet I’m of a different generation of musical theatre fans (and scholars) that both Miller and Clum. I entered the world of musicals rather late in life (I didn’t grow up listening to Ethel Merman with my grandmother); I don’t think I’d seen a musical until I saw Rent at age sixteen, a show I saw no less than eleven times over the next two years. While I remember being aware, one some level, of the association of musicals with gay men, I wasn’t familiar with the affinity as written about by Clum and Miller. Nevertheless, my first musical viewing confirmed what I knew to be rumored…of course musicals are gay, for no other reason than they are about gay people! And despite society’s supposed ever0increasing “tolerance” for non-normative sexualities, the genre seemed to be the only genre (with the exception of the tired images recycled by Will and Grace recycled on my television every week), open to the exploration of queer lives. At the age of sixteen, I was a new inductee into the life (both musical and queer—I came out within approximately three hours of seeing Rent for the first time)—I was unaware that what I read as complex, progressive representations of queer-identified characters was startlingly disproportionate to the queers that served as the basis of the industry and some of its most loyal fans. My love for Rent led me to find other musicals—both those which explicitly explored homosexuality (Falsettos, A Chorus Line), and the favorites of Miller, Clum (and Wolf)—the musicals of the Golden Age and Rodger and Hammerstein’s most successful legacy—Stephen Sondheim. Years after first discovering my love for musicals, I now participate, almost unconsciously, in the diva worship and love of camp written about by Clum and Miller. Even though I may drop everything at the sheer mention of “Patti Lupone”—I have questions, interests, and desires that depart greatly from the widely accepted observations made by these two scholars. While musicals provided sustinence to men of Miller’s generation to survive the confines of the closet; they propelled me directly out of it. How might identifacatory practices work different for gay men, such as myself, who came (out) of age amidst a cultural landscape inclusive of musicals with explicitly queer themes, plots, and characters? Even when musicals feature divas (both performers and actresses), how might same-gender identification operate, especially with such queer historical figures as Oscar Wilde (in the musical A Man of No Importance). Miller, Clum, and Wolf all engage in a scholarly labor of queering what seems (on the surface) to be ostensibly conservative and heterosexual; my work on musicals seeks to determine what is queer about the form once a musical is explicitly queer in content.
Wolf’s book, A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical, examines mid-20th century musicals and their leading ladies from lesbian-feminist perspective. Without ignoring the gender-specificity of Wolf’s work, APLM may prove useful in examining how same-gendered identifacatory practices might work for gay men. APLM also contains useful information on general musical theatre history, examinations of musical structure, and useful tools for understanding how post-Golden age musicals conform to or depart from a particular set of conventions. In conjunction with this work, I plan to use Wolf’s essay from GLQ, “We Will Always be Bosom Buddies,” which examines how certain musicals queer the Broadway musical duet. This article may be particularly useful in examining how the musical adaptation of A Man of No Importance recuperates from the internalized homophobia (and homophobic conclusion), which pervades the non-musical film version.

Notes, Quotes, Etc.

“Attachments to musicals seemed to be generationally and historically specific”—viii

“Think about the structure of song order—do Robbie and Alfie sing right after one another?

Think about songs in terms of statements of desire/statements of identity, “I want” and “I am” songs (2)

Interrelationship between text, context, and spectator

How do contemporary “queer” musicals both maintain and depart from dominant cultural values?

“Most mid-twentieth century musicals do not directly reflect the identities of their makers” (19). Do contemporary ones? What about contemporary queer musicals as queer cultural production? McNally (libretto) and Flaherty (lyrics) are both openly gay.

“[Gay men’s] affection for and support and knowledge of musical theatre, lore, facts, and trivia serve as cultural capital, as community-building practices, and as markers of identity” (21). How might Wildean knowledge/witticisms etc. do this well? Does a musical ABOUT Wilde multiply/explode this effect?

How is this musical different after each song? Pg 29

“Because the musical values song as the most sincere and honest form of expression, it privileges characters who sing and non0singing ones are usually evil, dull, or dispensable.” Pg 30

Question…what is the relationship between the two acts of an explicitly queer musical, in terms of function, length, songs, etc….

Page 36, a star’s history is carried on stage with them, what about a “star” character such as Wilde? Because of the history that comes with embodying such a role, every performance simultaneously contributes to the lore and revises it, re-imagines it, re-constructs it

In AMONI (and in other texts)—what are the aural and visual representations of Oscar Wilde? What does he look like? What does he sound like?

Wolf discusses the ways various (stereo)types such as “butch” and “femme” have become necessary to representation—that hints and gestures toward, if not full embodiments of, these types are necessary for a spectator’s recognition of a character as “lesbian.” So how interesting is it, not only that Wilde’s effeminacy and wit have become such important markers for “how gay men act”, but that Wilde, as an actual character, is so frequently repeated over and over again.

Unmarked characters as potentially queer (characters not marked specifically as heterosexual open themselves up for queer readings)