15 November, 2005

RENT -- "How about love?"

    Of late, I have been considering not seeing the RENT movie when it comes out next week.  Yes, I am a musical nut, but I've never really liked RENT.  I only enjoy about four songs on the cast album and I find the message weak and lacking.  Here you have these rebellious bohemians who care only for their art (and -- so they say -- each other).  They refuse to be responsible and pay rent (however devious their landlord has been), they sleep around and contract AIDS, one is an S&M dancer at a local club, some cheat on their significant others, and half of them are decidedly not heterosexual.
    Yes, this sort of thing is "real".  Yes, New York City was like this at one point (probably still is in a lot of areas).  But do we really have to glorify it?  Do we have to lift up the actions of the reprobate in order to tell a good story?  Is it really a good story or is it the secular world's idea of a good story?  Somehow, I find it very hard to see the redemption in RENT.
    Unlike it's predecessor, La Bohème, RENT fails to show the consequences of the characters' actions.  The RENT-bohemians, like the La Bohème-bohemians, live the life of the poor.  They are cold, tired, weary, and can't find work to make money.  La Bohème shows what actually happens to people in this sort of situation; RENT sugarcoats it . . . glorifies it. In both shows, Mimi is terminally ill -- in RENT she has AIDS, in La Bohème, tuberculosis.  But AIDS, unlike tuberculosis, is usually contracted through less-than-blameless activities.  RENT's creator, the late Jonathon Larson, not only replaced the one sickness with another, he gave it to Roger/Rodolfo, to Angel/Schunard, and to Collins/Colline in addition to Mimi.  Instead of keeping it the tragic love story of two flawed people, he made La Bohème into a mock-tragedy more about a group of rebellious friends than love.
    Why do I call RENT a mock tragedy? You cannot present something as tragedy without the actual death of a character.  If Mimi is going to die, let her die.  The story will be stronger for it.  While I understand and love theatre's heavy reliance on "suspension of disbelief", when a playwright asks me to accept what he presents as what happens in the real world, then brings a main character back to life, I can no longer suspend that disbelief.  Larson crushed his own world and I can no longer believe in it.

    RENT chronicles a year in the tumultuous, self-serving, drug-filled, and sometime sodomic "love lives" of a group of friends; La Bohème follows the love of one man for one woman and how its comedy and tragedy helped bring a group of friends closer together.

    So, is it worth my while to watch this movie?  Will it instruct as well as entertain?  If so how will it instruct and will it be worthwhile instruction?  Will the learning be so valuable that it's worth watching Mimi pole dance in skimpy clothing, Maureen propose to another woman, Collins and Angel (two men, one a transvestite) kiss and profess their love for each other?  It's not that I think this movie will change my staunch position on certain topics like homosexuality, only that I'm not sure it's worth it to fill my mind with such filth in order to receive the movie's over-generalized moral: love.

5 comments:

  1. That's a well thought out query. Up until your closing arguements I was prepared to conclude that it was something that should be seen before being condemned...but knowing the glorification of the characters reprobate lifestyles (as shown even in the trailor) is it really worth seeing simply as a piece of art (good or bad), or should it be written off as too vile to spend time contemplating. We have to remember that in art as in many things in life, a realistic (but not excessive) contemplation of the bad and the ugly is what allows us to truly appreciate the good and the beautiful - "the shadow proves the sunshine."

    However, the flipside of this from a Christian's perspective is that we have to be careful to guard our minds from sin. If a movie is going to lead us to sin (with nudity or what have you) then it should be avoided and we must have the courage to be humble and say "no I did not see it - here is why - so I cannot comment intelligably on this issue.

    The flipside to THAT is that there is a very real difference between being offended and led into sin. No, I wouldn't personally find it PLEASANT - persay - to see the homosexual behavior so pervasive in RENT. But as a study of the collective mind of the artistic world it could be a beneficial excersize. I think Cider House Rules is a good example of this kind of criti'que. The movie is almost completely devoted to the idea that we make our own rules everyday and that's why abortion is ok. This is maddening to a Christian with a sense of the value of Life - but it is one of the clearest presentations of the mindset behind the actions that I have ever seen.

    The well-known conservative journalist Cal Thomas says that every morning he reads the Bible and the New York Times - the latter simply because he wants to know what the other side is saying. Is RENT worth seeing, and possibly being offended by, for this reason?

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  2. I LOVED RENT. It was amazing. That is all.

    Oh, and I love YOU.

    ~Meg

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  3. Hmmm.... How can I properly express the disgust for humanity in general that you, and people like you, make me feel? It baffles me that someone who claims to be a christain can be so full of hate and stupid, outdated and above all repressive views. At this point I guess you want an explination. I'm a gay teen (gasp!) and I think it's fair to say that people like you and the reason so many people like me have trouble coming to terms with their sexuality. You really have no idea what your useless and stupid religion does to people. I saw Rent and I loved every minute of it. Who are you to judge these people's lives? Also, where in any part of the movie did these people pass on AIDS? Actually I believe the main character resisted Mimi for so long because he didn't know she was also HIV+ and didn't want to infect her. If this isn't moral, I really don't know what is. To say that there's no death in the movie is really dumb too. Clearly Angel died of AIDS and it was one of the most touching moments in the film. There's also no "sodomy" in this movie but I think it would have been much stronger for it. Personally, I think you would probably like anal sex as much of the rest of us but then you would have to take that crucifix out of your ass first. You have absolutely no right to say that homosexual love is not as valid as it's hetero version and I hope you burn in the hell you've created for yourself. Oh, and you know George Bush? He LOVES the cock.
    ~Charles

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  4.     I'm sorry you are disgusted with me. Calling my views "stupid" is an opinion (and a lazy one at that), so I cannot fault you for it. Call my views "outdated" if you will, but I'll take that as a compliment. Considering the increasingly immoral direction in which our society is heading, I like old-fashioned. Calling my views "full of hate" and "repressive" are "insults" I've come to expect from many people, but my views are niether of those things as I do not intend to force anyone to renounce homosexuality, nor was a single word in my post stated in a hateful manner. In fact, my post was barely about homosexuality at all, but an exercise in comparing two purposefully similar works of art and their inherent worth.

        Now, to the intended point of my original post: the movie.
    "Also, where in any part of the movie did these people pass on AIDS? Actually I believe the main character resisted Mimi for so long because he didn't know she was also HIV+ and didn't want to infect her. If this isn't moral, I really don't know what is."
        Nowhere in my post did I state that any of the characters passed on AIDS. With the exception of April to Adam, that is untrue. What I did state was this: "RENT's creator, the late Jonathon Larson, not only replaced the one sickness with another, he gave it to Roger/Rodolfo, to Angel/Schunard, and to Collins/Colline in addition to Mimi." -- who was, of course, the only character to fall ill in Puccini's great work of art. Even though you misread me, your argument for that point was a very good one. I had never given thought to why Roger resisted Mimi for so long. You just made me like Roger a lot more.
    "To say that there's no death in the movie is really dumb too. Clearly Angel died of AIDS and it was one of the most touching moments in the film."
        When I stated that there was no death in the movie, I was specifically referring to Mimi's death (or, well, lackthereof). I know that Angel dies. But Mimi's coming back to life takes away from any possible emotional power the show can have on me because it makes the whole thing look like a farce. "Hey! Now that Mimi came back from the dead, maybe Angel will too!"
    "There's also no "sodomy" in this movie but I think it would have been much stronger for it."
        By "sodomy" I never meant the act itself. I used it as an adjective to describe the lives of some of the characters. Though we may not see the actual act, everyone knows it's there.

        As to your final vitriolic sentences: The next time something infuriates or disgusts you, I suggest you take the advice of mothers the world over and wait a day before writing your angry letter.

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  5. Oops. I called Roger "Adam". Sorry 'bout that.

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