Student Blog: My Love Letter to Movie Musicals

I am very fortunate that my mother showed me movie musicals from a very young age. She didn't just show me the Disney musicals, like Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid. I was exposed to Julie Andrews's Maria and Brandy's Cinderella. I was mesmerized by all of these films. I loved the storytelling. I loved the music. I loved the romance. I wanted so badly to be just like the women I saw in those films, especially Julie Andrews. Julie Andrews just has this charming power to her. She is able to fully commit to any of her roles. She takes moviegoers into the story. I don't think that I would have done theatre if I hadn't been exposed to these movies.

In middle school, we would watch a musical or two in music class every year. This is where I learned about the joy of golden age musicals, especially the dance numbers. In seventh grade, I watched Fred Astaire dance for the first time in Singin' in the Rain. Now, I am not a dancer. I'm very much a mover. However, Astaire and the other performers in that film were some of the first instances I saw that showed how dancing can tell a story. Beside the titular number, "Good Morning" sticks out the most to me. I love the use of tap in order to show how excited they are to solve the problems their film has been having. Tap is just so energetic that it makes the viewer just as excited as the characters.

In high school, I really started to dive deep into the genre of movie musicals. One of them being Les Miserables. Now say what you will about this film, but there are some genuinely spectacular performances in this film. Anne Hawthaway is the stand-out for me. Her performance as Fatine was so raw and powerful. During "I Dreamed A Dream '' was one of the first times I genuinely cried watching a film. Hawthaway did an amazing job of taking the viewer to a place of pure despair to the point of giving up. Fatine has hit rock bottom and you can feel her pain.

High school was also when I watched my first Marilyn Monroe film, the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I had always had a fascination with her, but hadn't seen a film. Even though Marilyn plays her typical dumb blonde role in this movie, she plays it so smartly and gives depth to her character. I'm very much a nerd, so I love to do research about the films I watch. In doing so, I learned that she suggested adding the line, "I can be smart when it's important. Men just don't like it." This was very ahead it's time. It called out that men at that time were wanting women to be dumb and submissive, rather than their own people.

My senior year, I experienced my first exposure to Bob Fosse's work. I had taken a musical theatre dance class that year, and we worked on dances by different choreographers, one being Fosse. After enjoying his strange way of dance, I wanted to watch more of his work, so I watched the movie version of Chicago. Although he did not work directly on this film, it does try to pay tribute to him. This was the first time I saw women be portrayed confident and having sexual agency, not only in the way they dance. Cell Block Tango is still so powerful. The women in that song aren't afraid to speak their mind and dance for their own benefit, rather than others. The women lead that number, not the men.

My first year of college, I was struggling. I didn't feel motivated as a politics major. I wanted to change to theatre, but I was scared and didn't know if I still loved it. That is until I watched West Side Story. This film is what reminded me of what I loved about theatre. It reminded me of the joy you experience when the main couple meets. It reminded me how dance and song can tell a story like nothing else. It reminded me of how theatre allowed me to escape. It made me want to do theatre again forever.

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