The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
4 — Wednesday, March 30, 2022

IN THIS WORLD of expectations, schedules, 

meticulously crafted five-year plans and a deep 
underlying pressure to have everything figured 
out, a surprise can be refreshing, terrifying, the 
absolute worst or the one thing you needed all 
along. Surprises have been the key to my life, simul-
taneously adding the sprinkles of delight I need to 
get through the ceaseless repetition of existence 
while also ripping any semblance of control out 
from under me like an amateur magician pulling 
a tablecloth from under fine china (and leaving me 
to pick up the pieces). Simply put, I wouldn’t be the 
person I am today without the surprises I’ve expe-
rienced along the way. So of course, I wanted to 
hear about what surprises mean to the thoughtful, 
lovely and sometimes delightfully unhinged writ-
ers here at the Arts section of The Michigan Daily. 

As I gave them a false pitch for this B-Side (The 

Taylor Swift B-Side) before revealing the true 

theme, watching their faces morph from disgust 
to relief to betrayal, I knew they wouldn’t skip the 

https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T01S9SM6UAV-
F038S0BAH0F/untitled_artwork__4_.jpg 

I AVOIDED DOWNLOADING TikTok for 

as long as I could. I watched as friends got 
drawn in, downloading it from the App Store 
and ending up glued to their phone for hours, 
as the app scrolled through short-length vid-
eos automatically. I never had Vine or Musi-
cal.ly, never cared about that side of Gen Z’s 
pop culture. I never saw the appeal of the 
short video format. Who could effectively 
tell stories in so brief a time? What mean-
ingful ideas and thoughts could come from 
it? I decided as it grew in popularity that I 
would not download TikTok and waste my 
time watching mindlessly humorous videos 
of people I didn’t know. 

I finally caved in to the social pressure in 

January 2020 when a friend convinced me to 
get the app on the way back from a Broadway 
performance. Normally after seeing a show, 
I would spend hours examining the details 
from scenic transitions to the melody of a 
single lyric. That night I only spent a brief 

amount of time discussing the show, the 
musical “Jagged Little Pill,” with my friend. 
Once we got back to where we were staying 
on the trip, I sunk into the couch, sucked in 
by the TikTok pull. 

So isn’t it ironic that the very app that 

pulled me away from thinking about theatre 
two years ago has ended up being a huge 
force in theatre’s development since the start 
of the COVID-19 pandemic? Somehow an app 
with only a 60-second (and since July 2021, 
three-minute) video time limit has become 
a force in the development of theatre works. 

On Aug. 10, 2021, this development began 

with the post of a video by Emily Jacobsen. 
Jacobsen created an original audio for the 
app of herself singing a self-deemed “love 
ballad” to the rat Remy, the leading character 
in the 2007 fan-favorite Disney movie “Rata-
touille.” As of March 22, 2022, this video has 
1.2 million views and 160.5 thousand likes. 
But the story didn’t stop after just one video. 
On Oct. 19 of that year, Daniel Mertzlufft 
added onto Jacobsen’s original tune in a new 
video. By turning it into what he imagined 
as an Act Two finale song for a Disney-style 

Broadway musical, theatremakers began to 
see this as a project they could piece togeth-
er note by note, costume sketch by costume 
sketch.

Disney Theatrical Group, the producing 

agency wing of the Walt Disney Company, is 
responsible for live performances, plays and 
musicals. To this day they have produced 
over 15 productions, including incredibly 
successful adaptations of animated movies 
such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion 
King” and “Aladdin.” The rise of Disney on 
Broadway brought about some amazing art 
and important steps forward in the Broad-
way industry, particularly through “The 
Lion King.” Known for its use of innovative 
puppetry to portray the animal characters, 
the broadway adaptation took home six Tony 
Awards the year it opened in 1997. Director 
Julie Taymor became the first woman in the 
history of the award show to win in the Best 
Direction of a Musical category. The musical 
still plays to Broadway audiences today, with 
over 9,000 performances under its belt.

The Surprise B-Side

Musical theatre magic happens on a screen too, 

not just onstage

Why I hate classic
 rom-com endings

ROM-COMS ARE THE film 

equivalent of comfort foods. They 
may not be everyone’s cup of tea, 
but their predictable nature and 
formulaic plots lend themselves 
well to staying within the bounds 
of audience expectations. At the 
end of the day you’ll laugh, cry and 
sit with the heart-warming feeling 
of a love story turning out precisely 
as it should. Now I’m not really a 
huge fan of the romantic comedy 
genre, but I’ve begun to realize that 
it’s not so much the romance that 
I’m averse to, but the predictabil-
ity. Nearly all of the great romantic 
comedies that have stayed with me 
are the ones that defy these sorts 
of expectations, wherein the film’s 
final moments, they simply don’t 
end up together. 

To clarify, I’m not here to rant 

about the failings of the modern-
day rom-com or shame cheesy 
romance movie lovers, because 
I promise you I get the appeal. 
I understand the familiarity of 
watching a movie you know like the 
back of your hand, of drifting off on 
the couch and waking up an hour 
later without having missed all 
that much. Evidently, the romance 
genre excels in this domain of 
expected endings; most of us have 
experienced crying our hearts out 
and sitting with a warm contented 
feeling in our chest at the sight of 
the quintessential climactic airport 
scene or something as wholeheart-
edly profound as “a girl standing 
in front of a boy asking him to love 
her.”

There’s something inherently 

special to me when a rom-com 
strays from this path and actively 
subverts the age-old, tried and 
true formula. It’s a bold move, one 
that the writers must recognize 
as being instinctually upsetting 
to much of its audience. But when 
it’s a well-thought-out decision, it 
almost always feels right, one that 
I would argue pulls at your heart-
strings even more than the cop-out 
of a last-second death or uncharac-
teristic proclamation of love. After 
watching and reading romance 
after romance that trains you to put 
your full faith in the inevitable fate 
of the Hollywood ending and the 
way things were supposed to turn 
out, I find myself drawn to the ones 
that wreak havoc on nearly all of 
those preconceived notions and let 
our sorely misplaced projections of 
romance down.

Some of my earliest movie 

memories originate from watching 
Audrey Hepburn (“My Fair Lady”) 
gracefully glide across the screen, 
singing about how “the rain in 
Spain stays mainly in the plain.” In 
the ’50s classic “Roman Holiday,” 
Hepburn as Princess Ann plays 
hooky for the day with an Ameri-
can reporter running around the 
city of Rome. As a kid, I could never 
fully appreciate the final scene, 
the bittersweet longing apparent 
in her fleeting remark of “Rome, 
by all means Rome” as she locks 
eyes with Gregory Peck (“To Kill a 
Mockingbird”) in the crowd.

At this moment, we’re thrust 

back into reality as there’s simply no 
feasible way for it to work out. She’s 
European royalty, he’s an American 
journalist, but the omnipotent cin-
ematic hand guiding their encoun-
ters innocently kindles that inkling 
of hope that it could possibly turn 
out any other way. To this day I still 
can’t quite shake the resolve of the 
film’s ending shot of Peck walking 
away, a sense of finality seeping 
into the echoes of his very foot-
steps. It’s a perfect ending to a per-
fect movie and more importantly, 
it’s befitting to the fleeting nature 
of their relationship and gives Ann 
the capacity to exist outside of the 
confines of their love story.

With “Roman Holiday,” the end-

ing is tinged with sadness, but is 
ultimately pragmatic. I cannot say 
the same for the rollercoaster that 
is “The Philadelphia Story.” Anoth-
er early blueprint in the rom-com 
field, Tracy Lord (Katherine Hep-
burn, “Bringing Up Baby”) spends 
the day before her wedding with 
undercover reporter Mike (James 
Stewart, “It’s a Wonderful Life”). 
All the signs point to a Mike and 
Tracy endgame, yet in quite liter-
ally the last 30 seconds of the film 
she not only jilts her fiancé at the 
altar, but turns down runner-up 
Mike too. In a surprise upset by all 
accounts, she remarries her ex-hus-
band Dexter (Cary Grant, “North 
by Northwest”) and so concludes 
a jaw-dropping resolution to a love 

quadrilateral the audience wasn’t 
even aware of. 

Beyond the shock factor, the end-

ing works so brilliantly because it 
not only leaves viewers in a state of 
laughable bewilderment, but aligns 
with Tracy’s character and flighty 
nature. Who she marries ultimately 
matters very little. What does mat-
ter is her desire to not be placed 
upon a pedestal and perceived as a 
goddess or a queen, which comes to 
fruition in those final moments as 
she proclaims to feel “like a human 
being!” The ending scene preserves 
rather than detracts from the con-
sistency of her characterization 
and establishes the significance of 
having agency over her own love 
life, charismatic Jimmy Stewart be 
damned. 

But Tracy’s capricious tenden-

cies have got nothing on the icon 
that is Holly Golightly (Audrey 
Hepburn, “My Fair Lady”) of 
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” If you’ve 
seen it, you’re probably shaking 
your head at the thought of the 
movie’s ending being surprising 
in the slightest, because it’s pretty 
much your standard heartfelt pro-
fession of love and a proposal, fol-
lowed by a dramatic kiss in the rain 
(they weren’t exactly reinventing 
the wheel here). The film is adapted 
from Truman Capote’s short story 
of the same name, of which there 
are some minor variations that 
attest to a far from G-rated inter-
pretation of Holly. Yet the main 
difference is in the story’s close, in 
which Holly leaves her cat behind, 
flies off to South America and is 
never seen by the protagonist again. 

Now hear me out: that is how the 

film should have ended. The forced 
Hollywood ending manifested a 
romance where there wasn’t one 
and wholly disregarded Holly as a 
character. Even in the ending taxi 
scene, her dialogue is line-for-line 
from the original text as she repeat-
edly states her desire to not be caged 
in by a life of personal attachments. 
But in the film, the protagonist’s 
response twists her words, caus-
ing the audience to read her, albeit 
unpredictable and careless, actions 
as a cry for help; as if love was a void 
in her heart in need of fixing, that 
she was somehow in need of fixing. 
Capote’s Holly is an undoubtedly 
damaged and self-centered per-
son; confining the magnificence 
that is Hepburn’s performance of a 
woman of her own devices to that of 
a helpless heroine is why we sit and 
watch rom-coms earnestly expect-
ing the female lead to compromise 
herself, her sense of independence 
and agency, for the sake of a love 
story that renders her second-class 
to the male protagonist’s newfound 
attachment to her. 

I’ll always love “Breakfast at 

Tiffany’s,” but I’ll never be able to 
content myself with its unchar-
acteristically 
over-romanticized 

ending. Even if it was done purely 
as an appeal to mass audiences at 
the time, it’s a dishonor to Capote’s 
work: an examination of a spectac-
ularly selfish female character that 
loves and cares for no one but her-
self. And sure, even in the original 
we’re delimited to viewing Holly 
through the lens of a male narra-
tor’s platonic love for her, but for 
all the iconic kiss in the rain does to 
Holly, she might as well have been 
hit by that taxi. It’s the effective 
death of her character and all that 
she stands for. Because in terms of 
the romantic female lead’s worth, 
that’s all the viewers care about, 
right? Married or dead?

A similar line of thought mani-

fests in the holy grail of indie rom-
coms, “(500) Days of Summer.” 
It’s questionable as to whether the 
ending can even be considered a 
“surprise,” as it is made abundant-
ly clear from the start that “This 
is not a love story.” When I first 
watched this I thought it was the 
greatest thing I’d ever seen (what 
16-year-old didn’t, honestly), but 
I retrospectively and quite gen-
erously view it as a take on the 
fragile “manic pixie dream girl” 
fantasy too often projected upon 
female love interests. It’s hard not 
to align yourself with Tom (Joseph 
Gordon-Levitt, 
“Inception”), 
to 

feel your heart shatter as he visu-
ally plays out his expectations, or 
rather our expectations of how 
their interactions should play out. 
The intricately anachronistic time-
line also aids in Tom’s faulty mem-
ory of events that culminate in the 
genuine shock of Summer (Zooey 
Deschanel, “New Girl”) marrying 
someone else.

Design by Francie Ahrens

 SARAH RAHMAN

Senior Arts Editor

 SERENA IRANI

Daily Arts Writer

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

By Seth Bisen-Hersh
©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/30/22

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

03/30/22

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2022

ACROSS

1 Yoga aid that 

helps prevent 
slipping

4 Weather report 

stats

8 Recipe amts.

13 In the past
14 Sale rack abbr.

“Blue __”

17 “Misery” co-star
19 Like most tennis 

shots

20 In full view
21 “My turn to bat”
23 Cruise with a big 

price tag

24 Equine control
25 Merged comm. 

giant

26 On
28 Versatile award-

winning Indian 
film star known 
by his initials 
“SRK”

33 Starting gun
36 Move slightly ... 

like a mouse?

37 Hullabaloo
38 Cut (off)
39 Water source
41 Pachuca 

pronoun

42 URL ender
43 Cycle starter
44 Red letters in a 

dark theater

46 Fly over Africa
48 Oscar-nominated 

actress for “Paper 
Moon” and 
“Blazing Saddles”

51 Ultimatum word
52 Big noise
53 “Cornflake Girl” 

singer Tori

57 Obama __
58 Spoken
60 Food recall cause
61 Cop to
63 Swindler ... or, 

phonetically, what 
each of three 
puzzle answers 
is?


instrument

66 Celebrity chef 

Eddie

67 Yellow or Red 

follower


69 Places to relax
70 Explosive letters

DOWN

2 Tequila source
3 “My Cousin 

Vinny” Oscar 
winner Marisa

4 Suffix with craigs
5 “LOTR” menace
6 Eerie apparition
7 Two-__: fastballs 

named for the 
grip used to 
throw them

8 Undetermined: 

Abbr.


Castle” 
composer Béla

10 Toady
11 Dickinson work
12 South of France?
15 Animal that 

sounds fresh

18 Dadaist Max
22 India neighbor
25 Star systems
27 Wallop
29 Monopoly 

miniatures

30 Sport-__: off-road 

vehicle

31 Fruit drinks
32 A or E, but not I, 

O or U

 

surprise

34 New Rochelle 

college

35 Doctor Octopus 

foe

45 Boring
47 Sign into law
49 Friend of Jerry 

and George

50 Abduct
54 Damp
55 Elizabeth of 

“WandaVision”

56 Occupy, as a 

table

57 Actress Falco
59 German gripe
60 Bits of work
61 Fitting
62 Two-year-old, 

say


scoreboards

SUDOKU

WHISPER

“No more rain.”

WHISPER

By Tim D’Alfonso
©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/23/22

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

03/23/22

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2022

ACROSS

1 Alaskan islander
6 Bar flier

10 Early garden spot
14 Like the yolk in 

Eggs Benedict

15 MLB Triple 

Crown category

16 Govern
17 42-U.S.-gallon 

containers

20 “Try this”
21 Flying geese 

formation

22 Hall partner
23 Tries to make a 

point?

25 Tilt
27 Cocktail with a 

splash of olive 
juice

32 Sierra Nevada 

resort

35 Places for hoops, 

maybe

36 Crime boss
37 Eagerly excited
38 “The Martian” star 

Matt

40 Word with print 

or note

41 Word of dissent
42 Late NBA legend, 

familiarly

43 Mopey states
44 “Maus” is the 

only one to win 
a Pulitzer Prize 
(1992)

48 Caps, e.g.

area

52 Corrective 

surgery acronym

55 Took a load off
 

“__ Leaving 
Home”

58 Music industry 

advisory ... and 
a warning that 
may result from 
misinterpreting 
theme?

62 Doorstep 

delivery, at 
times?

63 October 

birthstone

64 Main line

brothers

67 Fishing tool

DOWN

1 Principal
2 Fishing gear
3 Habituate
4 Expected loser
5 Sheridan of 

“Ready Player 
One”

6 Most arid
7 Fit
8 Bone in the torso
9 Screeners at 

LAX

10 Not on target
11 Daft Punk, for 

one

12 Fashion 

magazine since 
1945

13 Condition suffix
18 One more time
19 Stadium sounds
24 Contend
25 ROFL cousin
26 Bring in
28 Coastal Arab 

country

29 One on a fan 

site

30 Cozy spot
32 Little kick
33 Petri dish filler
34 Georgetown 

athlete

38 “Just __!”
39 Basics
42 Bold-sounding 

trouser material

43 Coral __
45 City famous for 

cheesesteaks, 
informally

46 Soothsayer
47 Kill, as a bill
50 “Voilà!”
51 Gossip 

spreader

52 “Master of 

None” Emmy-
winning writer 
Waithe

53 Nerve cell part
54 Hustled
55 Guess
57 Common flag 

feature

59 Corn throwaway
60 Pub pick

Grammy-winning 
rapper

 MALLORY EDGELL

Daily Arts Writer 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

