Why I Don't Like Musicals

I would like to introduce this post with a disclaimer. As a film viewer, I will go out of my way to find at least one redeeming quality in every film I see, however challenging that may be. I am therefore the last person to immediately dislike something without good reason, just because of its style or genre. Now on with the show!

Because of the impending release of Les Misérables on DVD, I have been exposed to multitudes of publicity for it and other films of the same genre. One piece that stuck in my mind in particular featured the reviewer saying, and I quote, "if you don't like musicals, you're wrong". Naturally, I'm going to disagree.

The reviewer in question said that the reason some people just don't like musicals is because they don't like how characters will be walking down the street and suddenly burst into song. But you wouldn't say the same thing about a sci-fi where a man can fly or Wolverine can have claws, he goes on to elaborate. According to him, if it's fine in sci-fi films or fantasies it should be fine in musicals too.

Here's my problem: In sci-fi/fantisy films, you the viewer have bought into a universe where abnormal things happen – it's in the canon, it's 'realistic'. In musicals however, you're introduced to a normal place – everyday life – where everything is as it is in reality; yet in this universe, people are allowed to inexplicably warble on about their feelings. It violates the narrative, in the same way that a McDonald's would in a film set in North Korea.

But that's not to say that I hate or can't watch all musicals. There are several that I absolutely love, for one common key component; they parody the genre. In the musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for example, entitled Once More, With Feeling, the rationality behind musicals is explored, and the fact that people suddenly start singing and dancing in tune is an actual plot point. That's the kind of universe I can get behind.

I suppose the one straight-up, normal musical that I do like is The Sound Of Music, but only because I saw it when I was too young to know any better. And also Singin' In The Rain, just because of Donald O'Connor.