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

I don't like most musicals OP. Often songs linked by a dubious thread. There are exceptions (most of Rodgers and Hammerstein).

Mad on 80s music Tudor music love a good film prefer a good and it has to be good historical drama, loathe musicals except Oliver and Scrooge at Christmas time. No your not weird I’m 55 so know where your coming from with the albums and stuff in my teens I hated body stuff for Christmas I just wanted albums.

I remember watching Bugsy Malone when I was little yep, I know a pretty dubious film but hey, I didn't see that as I was a kid and it just feels like all the singing in a musical film now is a poor imitation of Tallulah

Maybe if they had custard pie machine guns it would be better.

I can't stand most musicals. There are a couple I've watched which are ok, and I can cope with Disney films because that's what they do. But grown adults bursting into song? Naahhh, cringe-tasting.

Cringe-tastic even.

YANBU I felt the same and then I hit my mid 40s and I now can't get enough of them.

Agggggh but yes ... why do people have to take an excellent film such as Back to the Future and butcher it with shite singing?

See also - Clueless. This one alone should be a hanging offence.

@SilkenBunny

I can't stand most musicals. There are a couple I've watched which are ok, and I can cope with Disney films because that's what they do. But grown adults bursting into song? Naahhh, cringe-tasting.

I like cringe tasting ... if musicals were a snack they would be pretty to look at but when you ate them, overly sweet and synthetic tasting, like a Twinkie.

@Infinitemoon

YANBU I felt the same and then I hit my mid 40s and I now can't get enough of them.

I think my inner 10 year old starting rebelling against them even more when I got there!

Feel the same. I just loathe musical theatre/drama. I feel it's a bit like the golf as a good walk spoiled. Musicals, a good drama spoiled. Might be about wanting to 'believe in' a drama so when a character starts belting one out all that is gone.

The only ones I seem to like are ones I watched as a child. My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors and Disney films.

I tried the greatest showman and Hamilton on Disney plus and switched them off. DH uncharacteristically loves Les Mis but I'm not a fan.

I used to work in a theatre, so have had the 'pleasure' of watching quite a few, and yes, they're just generally too contrived and OTT for me. What I find a bit odd too though, is that a lot of people who like musicals seem to REALLY like them. A lot. They get a bit weird and obsessed almost, and that rather puts me off too.

There are some I like (Singing in the Rain, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers) but the thing I find most excruciating is when you see one at the theatre and they drag out the big final number after they've taken their bows and everyone gets out of their seats and claps and sways along for aaaages. I HATE that bit, I feel like a joy sponge with a fake rictus grin trying to join in but cringing so hard inside.

I watched the new West Side Story and that's 2 hours of my life I will never get back .

You have great taste OP in liking The Commitments

I'm the same. I love music, and I love a lot of music from musicals (I've posted my faves on the other thread). But I really don't like musicals, they really make me cringe. I kind of wish I did, and I have a lot of friends who absolutely adore them. But no, not for me!

I do like Disney films, and OP i loved Bugsy Malone too although my kids looked at me like was high on glue when I made them watch it with me. I love Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I don't understand why people turn films into musicals.

Part of my dislike may have been created when I went to see Shrek with my daughter as part of a Rainbows trip and somehow ended up in control of 10 of the little shits. The TALKING SINGING AT HIGH VOLUME couple with seat swapping, crying, sulking and chatting at random neighbours was not a good experience.

I am the same, love music and film, love a great soundtrack in a movie, but hate musicals.

Brinks that sounds exhausting

I'm almost the same as you OP. I remember my mum taking me to the cinema to see Oliver when I was little and I was outraged [gerin] that they kept ruining the brilliant story by standing around singing like no one in real life would ever do. It just made me cringe for them. I kept thinking: They wouldn't do that!

I weaned myself onto musicals by watching ones set in the entertainment industry - Cabaret, Chicago, Follies, Kiss Me Kate etc and now I love that sort of thing and can tolerate Sondheim . They're also fine if they are set in a weird universe anyway, so stuff like Little Shop of Horrors is fine.

But I can't stand stuff like Les Mis or Lloyd Webber. I still want to run screaming from the theatre.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

actually I did enjoy mama Mia but I think it's because you can tell they all think it's a bit silly and I was weened on ABBA so it's the memories thing.

Opera ... mmm I've never seen one so can't say however I think I would appreciate the sheer force of nature that is the opera voice and how rare it is for humans to be able to hit and maintain some of those high and low notes.

The musicals i like are the ones from my childhood (80s) when the songs were so good that they were like pop songs in their own right. Also the old fashioned musical are FAR less ridiculous and the actors just smoother somehow. Mama Mia would have made me cringe but I'd seen it first on stage where it was almost like a comedy and therefore didn't take itself seriously.

I've realised that I hate operettas.... where they shoehorn the dialogue into songs and nothing rhymes. It's awful.

They lead to unreal expectations. My colleagues have disappointed me in many ways over the years, but not jumping out from behind filing cabinets in a choreographed routine while singing when I walk into the office is one I can't quite get over. They should put more effort in.

There are so many genres of both music and film that no one will like everything. Even if you do like musicals, you probably won't like every musical. We are all different, and life would be terribly dull if that weren't the case.

Ah I am pleased to see I'm not the only middle aged woman who doesn't like them. The thought of going to see one on stage is too much to contemplate 😩

I do like Grease, maybe because of childhood memories and it was the first LP I bought.

I also adore Crazy Ex Girlfriend but the songs are really good, tongue in cheek and all sorts of genres

I'm not that keen on musicals and have never been to see one in the theatre because I don't think I could take the audience fawning and also because I'm too tight to pay West End ticket prices. However, I do have quite a few film musicals I've seen and loved. The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Oklahoma!, Oliver!, Cabaret, The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, High Society, Guys and Dolls, anything that involves terrific dancing (e.g. early Fred and Ginger - plots and dialogue abysmal, musical and dancing bits glorious).

I wasn't keen on seeing La La Land, but it was far better than I expected, actually. Haven't seen Hamilton but I hope I will at some point.

Nothing I have seen from Les Mis encourages me to think I would enjoy that, though.

My sister feels the same way about opera - loves the theatre, loves music, but thinks opera is 'doing two things at once, neither of them very well'.

(I love both opera and musicals, for what it's worth.)

@NeverTalksToStrangers

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

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

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

I think dismissing the Golden Age of musicals between the 1930s and 1950s is rash! And they were pretty well all American. Showboat? Oklahoma? Carousel?