How to Out Yourself

Logo_ncod_lg

I don’t know if Victor Hugo was gay. But I do know he wrote some of his most influential work from exile—including political pamphlets, three books of poetry, and Les Misérables, a historical novel about the French Revolution that he “meant for everyone.” Hugo describes it like a superhero answering a cry for aid: “Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Miserables knocks at the door and says: ‘open up, I am here for you.’”

I did not see Les Mis, either on stage or on screen, but my kids went with their Nana after my wife and I escaped for our own outing: fancy dinner (turns out steak tartare is a raw hamburger), romantic movie (Jennifer Lawrence is a shape-shifting genius even when not playing a blue-skinned mutant), and historic B&B (former haunt of musical legend Oscar Hammerstein). We had a better time than the kids. My son was not wooed by Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman, and my daughter would not list on-set singing among his superpowers.

But the X-Men casting choice did spotlight some secrets in the musical’s origin story. Both literary blogger Chrisbookarama and Slate culture editor David Haglund declared Jean Valjean a “superhero.” They note his dual identity (alias “Monsieur Madeleine”), his superpowers (the strength of “four men”), and his arch nemesis, Inspector Javert (inspired by real-life detective Eugène François Vidocq). There’s even an unmasking scene:

“One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley” where an “old man named Father Fauchelevent had just fallen beneath his cart.” A jack-screw would arrive in fifteen minutes, but “his ribs would be broken in five.” Madeleine sees “there is still room enough under the cart to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back,” and he offers five, ten, then “twenty louis” to anyone willing to try. Javert, “staring fixedly at M. Madeleine,” declares: “I have never known but one man capable of doing what you ask.”

Although Valjean is breaking the law by disguising his past as a convict, he “fell on his knees, and before the crowd had even had time to utter a cry, he was underneath the vehicle.” Even the old man, “one of the few enemies” Valjean has made as Madeleine and then only from jealousy, is begging him to give up, when “Suddenly the enormous mass was seen to quiver, the cart rose slowly, the wheels half emerged from the ruts,” and “Old Fauchelevent was saved.”

“Just like a superhero,” writes Haglund, “outed by the noble use of his super strength.”

My daughter assured me the film framed it as a burst of Hulk-like adrenaline, but Victor Hugo was going for much more. Although Valjean emerges in torn clothes and “dripping with perspiration,” he “bore upon his countenance an indescribable expression of happy and celestial suffering” as the old man calls him “the good God.”

It’s the self-sacrificing yet self-ennobling choice saviors make every day. Even Jesus in Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ wants to hide in a mild-mannered lifestyle, before fully accepting the job of super-savior. Ditto for Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker and Michael Chiklis’s Ben Grimm. A hundred years earlier, O. Henry’s safe-popping Jimmy Valentine outs his Valjean past by saving a child from suffocating in the town bank vault. Philip Wylie’s superhuman Hugo Danner longs for the quiet life too, but fate slams another would-be victim into another character-revealing bank vault.

And there’s always a Javert standing right there trying to glimpse your secret self. Jimmy has detective Price on his trail (though in a typical O. Henry twist, he lets his Valjean go). That pesky tabloid reporter followed Bill Bixby for five seasons, always ready to snap a picture when Lou Ferrigno burst out during the emergency-of-the-week. Like Les Mis director Tom Hooper, the CBS team decided their Incredible Hulk was just a burst of green adrenaline, the kind that allows Clark Kents to shoulder cars off endangered loved ones. That’s the phenomenon Bixby’s Banner is researching before his laboratory mishap, his atonement for failing to save his wife when fate dropped Fauchelevent’s oxcart on her.

But Haglund’s comment unmasks another kind of outing. When my former department colleague and next door neighbor Chris Matthews read that Slate article “Why Tween Boys Love Les Miz,” he emailed me about Hagland’s “silent premise,” the implication “that there’s something weird about boys liking musicals.” And we know what alter ego lurks under that tale-tell proclivity. “The figure of the musical-loving boy or man,” says Chris, “has long functioned as both an element of gay male identity and as a handy stereotype for mocking ‘effeminate’ men, gay or not.”

I noticed plenty of family photos decorating the Hammerstein B&B, evidence that Rodgers was his partner in the strictly professional sense. But it did occur to me to check. GLBTQ, the online encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture, lists Hammerstein as “apparently quite straight,” but the site still can’t explain “the attachment many gay men have to the musical theater or the fact that in the popular imagination a passion for showtunes is practically a marker for homosexuality.”

Les Misérables premiered in 1980, twenty years after Hammerstein’s death, ninety-five after Victor Hugo’s. I was fourteen, Chris’s age when he saw it on stage. Haglund was nine his first time, so his pubescent body wasn’t bursting through his sweaty clothes just yet. Maybe that’s why he remains a tone-deaf Javert when it comes to identity-shifting. He sounds relieved that a superheroic explanation for Miz-loving boys hit him while watching Jackman belting it out. Why Do Tween Boys Love Superheroes? Because they’re not “weird.” He thinks his men-in-tights insight is “more particular” to boys, even though both sexes get equally erotic eyefuls of Jackman’s shirtless flexing. Sorry, David, but as my former neighbor points out: Hugh is hot.
 

hugh-jackman-ripped-up-for-wolverine-hot-sexy-images-ggnoads

 
Chris, by the way, is not gay. At least not in the I-like-to-have-sex-with-other-men sense. Like my and Hammmerstein’s homes, his is decorated with family photos. He claims to be “terribly low on football-related and power-tool-based conversation,” but wow can he unman me on a racquetball court—an advantage none of my Hulk-like adrenaline can match. Chris also grew up in the apparently quite straight world of comic books. While his tween-self was singing along to the Les Mis soundtrack, he was flipping pages of Spider-Man and Moon Knight. “Superheroes were not the guise of normalcy I wore over the shameful secret of loving a musical,” he says, “they were yet another way of getting around the pressures to be normal.”

Saturday October 11 is National Coming Out Day. It’s not a Revolution. It’s just a celebration of the superheroic who continue to overthrow the pressures of the so-called normal. I wish them all a safe return from their personal exiles.
 

x-t2

The Miserables

Les-miserables-movie-poster1

Les Miserables
Directed by Tom Hooper

I read Les Miserables during a study abroad program in Paris, but I had never seen the musical before watching the 2012 film a few weeks ago. The experience was an interesting one, mostly because I would have never believed Victor Hugo’s novel to be ideal for adaptation, and especially not into a musical. There are countless asides, mini-treatises, and lengthy tangents, like the chapter devoted to the Battle of Waterloo. The musical throws all of that out and focuses on the plot and the central characters.

The end result is a mixed bag. Part of me is happy that I didn’t have to sit through the musical riff of Victor Hugo describing the sewers of Paris. On the other hand, removing all those asides made the musical feel less rooted, less historical, and above all less French. The novel is about Fantine and Marius and Jean Valjean obviously, but it’s also about French history, geography, revolutions, Catholicism, and Hugo’s efforts to bind it all together.  The musical is draped in the tricolor, and the religious and revolutionary themes are still there, but they felt cursory and disconnected in comparison to the book. And when there’s nothing to distract you from the main plot, it’s hard to ignore the many contrivances, or Hugo’s less than progressive attitude towards women.

This particular version of Les Miserables has its own share of problems. Director Tom Hooper was way too fond of close-ups, the editing was a mess during the group songs, and the actors were hit or miss in their musical performances. But for all my complaints, I found it to be a reasonably enjoyable way to fill some time. It helped that I saw it with someone who’s very enthusiastic about the musical, and I’ll admit that several of the songs are catchy. And since I’ve never seen (and still haven’t seen) the musical, my expectations were about as low as can be.

What follows are my thoughts on the singer/actors:

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean: I always imagined Jean Valjean as a big, stocky man, so Hugh Jackman would not have been my first choice for the role. But he’s a decent singer (if a bit too much warbling), and his acting performance was solid. And I’ll admit there’s something inherently awesome in seeing Wolverine in a musical.

Anne Hathaway as Fantine: Hathaway received a lot of praise (and an Oscar) for her performance.  As much as I would like to be the contrarian, most of the praise is deserved. As Fantine, Hathaway had one of the most demanding songs, “I Dreamed a Dream.” It requires a powerful voice, and Hathaway’s version is rather weak when you listen to it as a single. Having now heard several other singers tackle it (including Susan Boyle), I wouldn’t rank Hathaway anywhere near the top. But within the context of the film, her version is excellent. The song occurs right after Fantine’s first night as a prostitute. Hathaway’s voice breaks, she fails to hit the right notes, yet the song feels perfect in the moment. A more polished, “ready for the album” version would have actually been strange and discordant. So by emphasizing Fantine’s despair and downplaying the show-stopper nature of “I Dreamed a Dream,” Hathaway actually made the most of her singing limitations.

Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert: Crowe had the same problem as Anne Hathaway. He has a VERY limited range as a singer but his role includes the song “Stars,” which requires a broad range and a booming voice. And Crowe just blows it. You can tell he’s trying his hardest, but he’s horribly outmatched by the song and what’s required of him. Crowe’s not much better in the rest of the movie, but at least he only has to “sing-talk” his lines.  Tom Hooper probably cast Crowe because he’s a big star and headlines a rock band called The Ordinary Fear of God.  After listening to a few of their singles (each one more horrible than the last),  I’m left with only one conclusion: Hooper must be a fan of actors with vanity bands. Maybe his next movie will have Keanu Reeves. Or Kevin Bacon!

Amanda Seyfried as Cossette: Cossette is a thankless role. She has nothing to do and is barely even in the movie. The men in her life obsess over her, but the audience is never given any reason to care. I’d feel sorry for Seyfried, but she doesn’t help matters. Seyfried seems to think that she can make up for the paucity in her role by singing every line at the highest register, so we’ll remember the character after our ears stop ringing. She butchers her duet with Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and is generally unpleasant to hear.

Samantha Barks as Eponine: Pretty much steals the show. She’s one of the best singers in the cast and completely nails her big number, “On My Own.” To be fair, Barks is a ringer, having already played Eponine on the stage. And Eponine is among the most complex and sympathetic characters in Les Miserables, despite being a side character who gets passed over for the irresistible Cossette. But there is an odd problem with the casting. Victor Hugo described Eponine as gaunt and boyish, a product of poverty and malnutrition.  It’s easy to understand why Marius would be oblivious to her affections. But Samantha Barks isn’t gaunt; she’s a knockout. And that means it’s hard to believe that Marius, or any straight man with working eyes, would be indifferent to her flirting. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

Sacha Baron Cohen as M. Thenardier: I understand why Sacha Baron Cohen was cast. He’s goofy looking, and the Thenardiers are the comic relief. What I don’t get is why Sacha Baron Cohen has a mock-French accent in the first half of the movie and a bad Cockney accent in the second half. I’ve been told that some stage versions of Thenardier use the mock-French accent, so maybe Cohen is simply following the example set by other performers. But it isn’t funny, partly because it doesn’t make sense that only one character sounds vaguely French while everyone else speaks with an English accent. Or maybe I don’t think it’s funny because I don’t think Sacha Baron Cohen is particularly funny.

Eddie Redmayne as Marius: quite good in his performance. The character of Marius annoys the hell out of me, but Redmayne does a great job and is a fantastic singer.