I know Rent is pretty bad in lots of ways, but it was life changing for 16 year old me, in a world that lacked representations of gender or sexual diversity. After a truly disappointing movie version I was keen to give it another try, so when a friend invited us to Otaki to watch the local players version of it I booked travel immediately.
For non-New Zealanders (or even some New Zealanders who might not know where it is) Otaki is a small rural town outside of Wellington, with a population of less than 6,000. The Otaki Players, however, seem to be a thriving group of avid thespians, and their rendition of Rent was amazing. The singing was so incredible, but what I really loved about it was the body diversity – there was such a nice range of different shaped people, that major productions of Rent would never do, because, you know, dumbness.
I never thought of Rent as “pretty bad” in any way? I mean I can think of a couple lines I guess but that’s mostly just making it feel colloquial and real. What am I missing?
Ohhh I just think it’s a mostly queer story that focuses on the straight white guys plight – which is pretty boring IMHO (even though I love Mark). And it has some yuck slut-shaming stuff about Mimi, and some yuck biphobia and slut-shaming about Maureen (the ol’ Bi person being greedy trope etc), and in different productions I’ve seen some interpretations of Angel as trans other times a drag queen (and I think that the incoherence is kinda great in lots of ways, but the script doesn’t allow for autonomy on how she identifies – so it’s all mediated through other characters deciding what pronoun to use, which is a little yucky) but also – my friend pointed out that often women of colour, particularly in this instance a trans woman of colour, are exoticised for being the holder of wisdom, and having to be sacrificed so that others learn her wiseness – which is poop, because she’s the best, and she should live, ya know? I dunno, media is never perfect, and I know that I over invest in queer media because there’s so little of it, so I still love it, and it’s problematic (’cause how can it not be? I am trying to put all my hopes and dreams into one thing), and yeh…. I dunno, I’m rambling now
Hey Sam! That’s great. I love it. Rent has always been and I think always will be my fav musical and I’ve seen about 7 versions of it. Happily, in most of them there has been a range of body shapes, even in more major productions, but granted, the Mimi, Mark and Roger characters are always trim, taught and terrific. I’m pretty sure Joanna was a bigger actor in the one we saw in Melbourne. I don’t know- I was too busy staring at Rodger Corser and drooling!
Typo- I meant Joanne
Oooh yeh, you’re right – all the versions I’ve seen have had Joanne as big and beautiful too – good, good good 😀 Lol lol yes I was searching the 1999 cast in Melbourne and reminiscing about your Rodger crush!!
I watched the movie version for a class a few years ago. This is part of what I wrote about it:
How would you have written Rent?