@derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
We all do this from time to time, and time can change those opinions.
Changing opinions because of the passage of time is fine. Everyone can have a change of heart.
That's not what I'm talking about.
In the case of Allegiance, one of the repeated points of criticism is that the music was sometimes too light and frivolous for the subject matter. For example, in one spot, you see a family dealing with the death of a child at the camp, and then, in the next scene, they are all singing about playing baseball and dancing and making the best of things. It's a corny-as-hell song, and critics, by and large, found tone-change jarring.
I read this and I kind of eye-rolled.
Of course it's jarring. It's supposed to be jarring. It's as jarring as being woken up in the bright hours of the morning to be hauled by armed men into trucks, driven to train stations, and shipped off to concentration camps. It's as jarring as knowing that you are an American citizen, but locked up in your own country for looking like the enemy. It's as jarring as expecting any American to just lie down and take confinement "for the good of the country" when there was an entire Revolutionary War fought because Americans don't really "lie down and take" any sort of bullshittery (at least, back in the 40s).
In retrospect, this is why I hated Rent for a while. I thought that it was vaguely disrespectful to have joyful pieces like "Cover You" and "One Song Glory" when you know damn well that the characters are dealing with HIV. And then a nice, gay friend of mine calmly asked: well, what the fuck else are you supposed to do, lie down and take it?
And, like, not for a moment, apparently, did the critics think: hey, maybe people do seemingly absurd things to make the best of a situation when they have no other choice. Apparently.
So, music? Sure, it wasn't going to win a Tony. Plot? Perhaps over the head of a lot of the audience. But the critics? Some of them seemed to just ignore context or culture when writing their pieces. And that's what I take exception to.
I would like to think that what crippled Allegiance was its seriousness. It lacks levity, even when it tries to be. It's not a show you want to take in when you're being reminded of the loss of a loved one, for example. And maybe it turned off a lot of the older Broadway crowd because no one likes being reminded that the United States forced its own loyal people into concentration camps. Or, perhaps, the producers simply did not think enough of it to keep it going for at least a full season.
It's sad.
But, then, these sorts of things get forgotten over time.