6A - Monday, December 2, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
fiA - Monday, December 2, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
Commercializing
the fine arts
Is Hollywood
ruining theater
with adaptations?
By REBECCA GODWIN
Daily Arts Writer
Recently, the world of fine arts
has grown increasingly present in
mainstream media. Hollywood
producers are making musical
after musical into mildly success-
ful movies. Multiple media outlets
have covered street artist Banksy.
TV shows like "Glee" and "Smash"
made it cool to be a part of glee
clubs, acappella groups and other
singing organizations. Fine arts
has become increasingly commer-
cialized, and while that has helped
expose new people to the arts, is it
worth risking the integrity of the
art?
When I first stumbled my way
into fine arts, I was a sophomore
in high school. "Glee" had just
started, and its quirkiness and
mix of modern and classic songs
attracted me and most of the kids
in my school. So, when the annual
musical was announced, dozens of
us decided to audition. The final
cast, which included myself, was
huge, but the appeal of performing
quickly faded when many in the
ensemble realized that hard work
was required to put on a number
similar to Rachel Berry's.
By the next year, "Glee," while
still popular, no longer held the
interest of many of my classmates.
Movies like "Mamma Mia!" were
popular enough, but the students
around me had learned that big
song-and-dance numbers weren't
as easy to put together as Hol-
lywood made it seem. But I was
hooked - I performed in the
school musicals again my junior
and senior year, and soon I was
devouring everything that had
anything to do with Broadway.
But in recent years, fine arts
has become increasingly popular,
and I've begun to miss the times
when no one knew any Broadway
show besides "Wicked." It's not
that I'm upset that more people are
beginning to enjoy fine arts; I'm
just afraid that, in order to appeal
to a wider audience, executives
will begin to take the fine arts and
commercialize them.
Hollywood has already claimed
its first victim with "Glee." When
the show first started, I loved it. It
was a poignant look at high school,
and it gave the best representation
I'd ever seen of what it felt like to
be a part of a theater group. But as
the popularity increased, the show
began to change. Soon episodes
were dedicated to plot lines revolv-
ing around Britney Spears and
Lady Gaga, and the quirkiness was
replaced with the mainstream.
The next to fall to commer-
cialism was the movie musical.
Over the past several years, the
movie musical has gone through
a rebirth. Well known musicals
like "Chicago" and "Hairspray"
were all brought to the big screen
in fairly accurate adaptations
thanks to casts of genuinely tal-
ented performers. Then came
"Sweeney Todd," "Rock of Ages"
and "Mamma Mia!," and while the
stories were decent, the perform-
ers were slowly being replaced
with better known actors, who,
while quite famous, didn't pos-
sess the vocal capabilities the roles
required.
Finally, Cameron Mackintosh
decidedtobringthe powerful "Les
Miserables" to the bigscreen and I
couldn't have been angrier. I love
"Les Mis;" the music is breathtak-
ing, the story is heartbreaking and
when the show is performed with
the right cast, the show can be
awe-inspiring. But I knew Mack-
intosh wasn't going to cast the
right people. I knew that actual
talent would be sacrificed for big
names, so I dreaded the release. I
watched in anger as people around
me, people who had never once
shown any interest for the arts,
gushed about the upcoming movie
because Wolverine, the Gladiator
and Mia Thermopolis were going
to be in it.
When I did finally see it, every-
thing I had predicted had come
true. Hollywood destroyed the
masterpiece that is "Les Mis."
They were more concerned with
Oscar nominations and box office
numbers than preserving the
integrity of the piece. They moved
scenes, added songs, removed
musical numbers, cut out pieces
of the story altogether and then
claimed it was a cinematic tri-
umph.
But the masses ate the film up.
Many of them had never seen the
stage production, let alone read the
book, so they had very little idea of
the extent to which they were
robbed. Now Hollywood is at
it again, with filming already
underway for "Into the Woods"
and "Annie." Again, the movies
are full of big names, but I don't
see any evidence that these peo-
ple know how to carry a tune.
Maybe I'm just bitter. Maybe
I should accept the growing
popularity. But as a person who
loves the fine arts, I would rath-
er these works go unnoticed by
the majority and stay untainted
by greed than be butchered and
commercialized so some execu-
tives can make a profit.
ABC
"Do we have to watch 'Crash' again, mom?"
New ABC comedies
about families hit stride
THINKING OF JOINING DAILY ARTS NEXT SEMESTER?
E-mail arts@michigandaily.com to request an application.
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comedies, that continue to improve as the
h are [3 writers learn how to write their
ining characters. For example, Marcia
ormer in Trophy Wife Gay Harden's ("Law and Order:
of qual- SVU") character appeared to be
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nergs' midseason first episode. Several episodes
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it pilots ABC to her.
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and ABC avoids the trap of acting like a
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Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
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other moments helped develop
the characters by moving them
from their initial stereotypes.
For example, it showed Kate
not being the pretty trophy wife
and doing work to take care of
her kids.
ABC's other family comedy,
"The Goldbergs," only produced
a mediocre pilot. The show
focuses on the Goldberg family,
a group of people who love to
shout at each other. In the pilot,
the volume for every single line
was turned up to 11, and it was
headache-inducing to watch. S
'Trophy Wife'
and 'Goldbergs'
continue to *
improve.
The show's cast is talented,
but they have been given one
direction from the writers and
directors of the show: shout.
They do this very well, but it's
still grating after watching
it for 22 minutes. Jeff Garlin
("Curb Your Enthusiasm") is
the only one who can make this
type of dialogue work as Murray,
the father in the family. He plays
angry and loud very well and is
able to lessen the obnoxiousness
of some of the moments.
What works on "Goldbergs" is
the true sense of sentimentality
that is prevalent in each episode.
Each ends with a moment of
warmth and family togetherness.
This show, forcthe most part, nails
these moments because it lets
them come from real character
realizations, rather than forcing
them to occur. The Thanksgiv-
ing episode, for instance, ended
with the two sons, Adam (new-
comer Sean Giambrone) and
Barry (Troy Gentile, "Entou-
rage"), stopping their fighting
to acknowledge that they are
family, and they love each other.
After an episode with them doing
nothing but fighting, this was a
welcome change.
The glimmer of hope for
"Goldbergs" comes from the fact
that it's based on the creator's real
life. Adam F. Goldberg ("Break-
ing In") based this sitcom on his
childhood, complete with keep-
ing the names of the members of
his family and showing real-life
home videos over the credits. It's
clearly a passion project, and one
hopes he will find a way to tone
down the obnoxiousness of the
character interactions.
"The Goldbergs" and "Trophy
Wife" are growing comedies.
Comedies in their first season
need time to grow and develop
their sense of humor and their
ensemble. So far, both of these
family comedies have earned
that time.
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By C.C. Brnikel
(c)2013'tribun Ctent sAgency, LLC
12/02/13