How can I adore music and film yet despise musicals?

[tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz]

Evening all

I have loved music since as long as I can remember. I'm 40+ now and remember from age 8 onwards being overjoyed with a stack of records then CDs for every birthday and Christmas and I'd listen to them until they wore out and learn every lyric off by heart. I'd daydream constantly to music and all,of my memories in life, good and bad, have a soundtrack, if that makes sense?

Ditto films. Adore getting lost in a great film. Bonus points if it's a film with a great soundtrack.

But I can't watch musical, film or stage, without my butt cheeks clenching at the horror of it. I just don't understand how I can enjoy the two elements separately but think if rather poke my own eyes out than watch a musical. When I tell people this they look at me as if I'd announced I love kicking kittens.

I've been enjoying the crazy nonsense that is Riverdale recently with DDut suddenly that's gone all bloody jazz hands

Please say it's not just me? What's wrong with me that I get such a visceral reaction

How do you react to the muppet show?

My daughter loves musicals and she's always wanting me listen to her favorite songs.

I do because I adore the child but I draw the line at her wanting me to take her to a musical production in our city or a film. Just NO!

I'm like you, it makes me cringe 😬

The music in the majority of musicals is crap.
Not just the music but the singing, too. It's not really singing, it's just shouting loudly and stretching words out as looooong as they can.

@FadedRed

Have you seen ‘War of the World’s’ musical? That’s pretty epic, especially if you can go to the live show.

Ahhhh now this is one of my favourite soundtracks EVER. I used to listen to my dads lp on a loop and scare myself silly with it.

Watching it could ruin it forever for me

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale

How do you feel about Disney films? Or tv specials like Buffy the vampire slayer (they got - the mustard - out!) or Crazy ex girlfriend?

Mmmmm mixed for sure. I love Tangled as it's the first film I watch with DD at the cinema. Neither of us can hear At Last I see the Light without crying happy tears.

Ditto Toy Story 2 and Jesses song

Weirdly In the Night Garden makes my bottom lip wobble.

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale

How do you react to the muppet show?

I can tolerate this as I used to watch it as a kid. I wonder why that's different?

@senua

The music in the majority of musicals is crap. Not just the music but the singing, too. It's not really singing, it's just shouting loudly and stretching words out as looooong as they can.

Yes!

Strictly** love love your username by the way

🦕🦕🦕🦕

I absolutely hated musicals when I was under 40. I really couldn't get the Greatest Showman which everyone seemed to love, though a didn't mind a couple of the songs .

Then, at 42, after a trip to the west End, I became a bit of a Hamilton obsessive. If you wanted to try a non-musical musical try Hamilton (Disney) or In the Heights.

Or of course you can continue to dislike musicals and that is fine. But my life is richer for Hamilton. 😁

I detest musicals! And love music. Films ok but less so. For me it’s definitely the pressure to all accept that we are in a world where people sing instead of talk. Fucked up. I think the clenching is your body actively resisting that pressure because it’s fucking weird!

What about 8 mile? That's kind of a musical and I loved that. 🤔

@CheshireSplat

I absolutely hated musicals when I was under 40. I really couldn't get the Greatest Showman which everyone seemed to love, though a didn't mind a couple of the songs .

Then, at 42, after a trip to the west End, I became a bit of a Hamilton obsessive. If you wanted to try a non-musical musical try Hamilton (Disney) or In the Heights.

Or of course you can continue to dislike musicals and that is fine. But my life is richer for Hamilton. 😁

Oooh I nearly went to see In The Heights.

I know a few generally anti musical people who adore Hamilton. May be something in that ...

@Barrawarra

I detest musicals! And love music. Films ok but less so. For me it’s definitely the pressure to all accept that we are in a world where people sing instead of talk. Fucked up. I think the clenching is your body actively resisting that pressure because it’s fucking weird!

That's a very good explanation actually!

I completely agree with you OP even down to not liking musicals bit liked Grease.

@JiannaTheWitchQueen

I completely agree with you OP even down to not liking musicals bit liked Grease.

You're proper hardcore

And 8 mile was good.

Is a Star is born a musical? That film I really enjoyed in a sad way.

Off to bed - you watch, I'll dream in musical now!!

Night all

I think you're watching the wrong musicals...

Les mis, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hamilton, Matilda - all fabulous.

Godspell, grease, Aladdin, most american ones - shite.

Happy hardcore

I would hate it if people broke into random song when trying to have conversations/transactions irl and thus I hate it when I’m trying to follow a plot and everyone starts singing, dancing and jumping on unsuitable surfaces. Just dragging the often shite storyline out until my tether is on the verge of snapping.

Honorable exceptions go to the first half of Moana and Cabaret.

I’m always reluctant to reveal my distaste for musicals because people generally seem to find it suspicious

I like regular music, film, theatre and can happily go to the opera and the ballet.

Yanbu I love music, hate musicals. This is apparently against the law when you’re a 50 year old woman. The shock reactions I get when I say I have never seen and have no intentions of sitting through Les Miserable.

I love music. I listen to it as much as possible.

But musicals? I just find them intensely cringeworthy. I don't understand the adoration for them and I really don't want to see another musical again in my life. Apart from Phantom of the Opera because for some inexplicable reason I love it.

I like opera. But musicals are just a hop skip and a jazz hand too far for me.

We took the DC to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but to me that’s different as it’s for kids and I liked the film as a child.

I hate musicals with a passion. I do love Grease though. Friends and family all think I'm mad for not wanting to join them at the theatre. Just no.

There are a lot of godawful musicals, but DH dragged me to a Stephen Sondheim at the Menier years ago, and I loved it, unexpectedly, and any others by him I’ve seen. Likewise I never ‘got’ opera, despite having heard a fair amount via friends who work in the opera world — it just sounded like impressive but unmoving vocal gymnastics to me, like someone doing a difficult parallel bars routine — until one day I was hungover at a Wagner dress rehearsal at the ROH because a friend was working on it, and I suddenly heard it differently and everything was suddenly transformed. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

But I think that’s unlikely to happen at Back to the Future: the Musical.