Yeah it's gay as hell per all musical theater and kinda weird, but it's not casual bullshit like a review like Jerome Robbins' Broadway, it's not niche like Sweeny Todd (violence) or Starlight Express (foamers)
Basically it's Cats, Les Mis, or Phantom
Rent is legally EVERYONE HAS AIDS
What blows my mind is no one liked
Cats. It was played up at the time by critics, then everyone saw it, and realized "wow, these people really like the smell of their own farts." It was mocked into oblivion throughout the 90's to the point that kid's shows like
Hey Arnold! made fun of it. There was a similar phenomenon with
Rent and it got mocked in
Team America: World Police, among other entertainment in the late 2000's/early early 2010's.
There was a time that theater kids had
some self-awareness. Now, even the likes of Patrick Stewart get TDS and turn every production into some contemporary political statement. That's nothing new - what do people think kitchen sink drama was about? Why did André Malraux write about communist uprisings in his fiction novels written in the 1930's? - but now it's an industry and it's gotten to a point that it's hackneyed and, in many cases, dishonest drivel written by people who don't even know what they're talking about. The extent of their life experience has been high school, college, and then show business. George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War. André Malraux at least
went to the places he wrote about and acknowledged that he was lucky to make it out alive amid the violence.
Ben Shapiro, whatever people here think about that dork, is up-front about the movies and shows that the Daily Wire produces. They are conservative productions for a conservative audience. It's a business. Take it or leave it. Mainstream movie, TV, and stage productions try to present themselves as "telling the truth," but it's obvious to everyone but them that it's politically motivated.
If Hollywood types just said "yeah, we're liberal, go fuck yourself," they would get less pushback. However, admitting that destroys their belief that they are the cultural pulse of the world. It also admits that they're doing this for an audience, which means for money, and underscores their disregard for real world experiences and relevance. They resent that more than anything else. They don't want to admit that they're sheltered putzes and not globetrotters like the heroes they worship.
But the later zoomers, especially those who were in school during the pandemic are not equibed for life at all. I've tried to train two this year to operate a cash register at my store. They can't count. they do fine on stocking, on cleaning but they just cannot into cash money. they are good kids but basic math is beyond them.
I went to a pharmacy once and the Zoomer behind the counter asked my birthday for verification. I told it to him in numbers. He did not know what month my numbers corresponded to. He was not an immigrant. I did not return to that pharmacy. For whatever it's worth, everyone looked at him like he was a retard, but still.