A full year now after experiencing the film of Cats, I'm still seeing, and enjoying, video essays on youtube trying to explain exactly what went wrong, and also, far more intriguingly, for me at least, what the original stage show therefore got right. I don't expect anyone else to share my sickness however, nor do I expect anyone who doesn't share it to get through the above video from Sideways which I watched last night while waiting for the results to come in from Georgia. I only share it now because it's introduced me to a musical trope I'd never heard of before: the "I Am" Song.
Heroes of a musical – or more normally heroines – are supposed to get an "I Want" Song, I knew that, but what I hadn't clocked before was that for every "Somewhere That's Green" or "Part Of Your World", there was also likely to be a show-stopping "Dentist!" or "Gaston" or "This is America". It doesn't necessarily have to be the baddie that delivers the "I Want" Song; for example, what happens in the original Cats, but not the movie, as Sideways explains, is a succession of "I Am" songs sung by cats who want to get into whatever the Heavyside Layer is, all passed over in favour of the one cat with an "I Want" Song.
Here's Stacey Abrams.
"I Am What I Am" must be an "I Am" song (I'm guessing?) and it's a hero song – maybe it works because it's an outsider hero and the self-determination is the heroicness?
ReplyDeleteAh! Now! Yes. I was thinking about this. Because of "... What I Am" is it actually an "I Want" Song? Like "I Gotta Be Me"?
ReplyDeleteCertainly the "I Am" songs have to be sung by bullies, not outsiders, if they're to be read as villainous. It's a very specific, unquestioned I-Am-ism, untroubled by oppression. "Let It Go" is also an "I Am" song, although what Elsa actually is is never specified.
Actually... "I'm Just a Sweet Transvestite", previously... Divine's influence on Ursula subsequently. There's a lot more to talk about here, isn't there.
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