--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Something strange is happening in Hollywood.
--:-- Noel King: I'm not talking about that guy they got to host the Golden Globe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yo, I got the gig ten days ago!
--:-- Noel King: I'm talking about the secret musicals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What was that? Oh Lord, it's the Queen Bee. Regina George. Don't look her in the eye! You could be really hot if we changed, like, everything.
--:-- Noel King: A new Mean Girls movie comes out today. It promises it is not your mother's Mean Girls, which, rude, but also what does that mean?
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: mean? The trailer never tells you, but check out this footage from a recent screening.
--:-- Noel King: That audience groaning when not Lindsay Lohan, Katie Heron starts singing? They're bummed because they didn't want a musical. They didn't necessarily know they were getting a musical, but they got a musical.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: And it's not just Mean Girls. Why Hollywood is hiding its musicals. Coming up on Today Explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is very Sean. This is very Sean-coated. Gucci loafers.
--:-- Noel King: Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see.
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--:-- Noel King: It's today. Today explains.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Ben Lindbergh is a senior editor at The Ringer, where he recently wrote a piece of investigative journalism about the American film industry.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes, there is a cover-up occurring. Hollywood is hiding its musicals. They're not telling anyone.
--:-- Noel King: The actual music has been absent from trailers for some of the most prominent movie musicals of the past year.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Hollywood is hiding The actors who are singing I think the main ones that people have taken note of was Wonka, Mean Girls, and to some extent The Color Purple, at least in its initial trailer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are all very much movie musicals. They do not hide the music once you are in the theater.
--:-- Noel King: But the trailers for these films really obscured the fact that there was music in the movies themselves, which started some conversation among some people who were in the know as word of mouth went around, hey, you know this is a musical, right?
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Whoever is producing, why you hide my singing? People kind of did a double take.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I did not know that. I saw the trailer. Nothing in the trailer told me that these were musicals.
--:-- Noel King: I want to sing, I want to sing. Yeah.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: There's been multiple rounds, I think, of people coming across this secret hidden knowledge that these are actually movie musicals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let me sing it, cause I am a star. Yeah!
--:-- Noel King: And I, too, saw all the initial trailers for those three offending movies you mentioned.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: So let's just go through them one by one and tell people, if you watch these trailers, what you would see or what you would think, starting with Wonka.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just about no music, as I recall. There were multiple trailers, but really no sign whatsoever other than Hugh Grant's Oompa Loompa maybe singing in the second one.
--:-- Noel King: And you would think that if you've seen the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or even the remake, you know that there's some music in a Willy Wonka movie.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination. Take a look and you'll see into your imagination.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But they are doing their best to hide that here.
--:-- Noel King: And the movie doesn't hide it. You know, basically, as soon as the movie starts, okay, there's going to be singing in this thing.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it. Anything you want to do it. Want to change the world, there's nothing to it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But from the trailer, you really would not be able to guess that whatsoever.
--:-- Noel King: The baseball writer Craig Calcaterra in his newsletter wrote about my piece because he went to see Wonka and in his theater, there was a man who, as soon as Chalamet opened his mouth to sing the first song, just let out an audible, oh no.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Oh, I don't think I want to hear that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Which just goes to show that there really are people out there in the wild who do not know that these are movie musicals and in some cases may be disappointed.
--:-- Noel King: So I suppose that backs up the strategy.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Okay, next up, let's talk about The Color Purple, which I believe was based not only on the original source material, but also on the Broadway musical of The Color Purple, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's right. Very successful Broadway musical with multiple runs.
--:-- Noel King: And the first trailer for The Color Purple promised that it would be a bold new take on the beloved classic, but did not specify what made it bold or what made it new, which is the fact that it's a musical, a successful musical, you'd think that they'd want to play that up.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: So they're basically telling you we're doing the musical without saying we're doing the musical.
--:-- Noel King: In fact, the trailer mentions that it's based on the 1982 novel, but it does not mention that it's adapted from a Tony-winning Broadway play, which seems like something you would want to brag about.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Sweet and loving God.
--:-- Noel King: And lastly, because it comes out today, let's close out this trend with the new Mean Girls movie, which I'm sure a lot of people are wondering why there is a new Mean Girls movie.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Yes. That is so fetch. Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One reason why there's a new Mean Girls movie is it's a musical, which, again, you would not know and probably would not even suspect from the trailer.
--:-- Noel King: Why are you dressed so scary? It's Halloween.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Katie if you you dress slutty that is slut us That just unprofessional
--:-- Noel King: Now I think there sort of a tell which is that if you went to the theater to see Taylor Swift Eras Tour movie there was a special theatrical trailer for Mean Girls which did highlight the fact that it a musical
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: My name is Regina George.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So if you're in the theater to see something with music, then they will disclose that there's music in this movie.
--:-- Noel King: But if not, if you're not already in that audience, then they're just not going to tell you.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: And you will just wonder, why are they remaking this thing? It's not even that old.
--:-- Noel King: And you will just be in the dark until someone lets you know or you go see it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, the NYC Critics Association just sent me this. Best actress in a movie based on a musical based on a movie.
--:-- Noel King: Hey, that's great. And why, Ben? Why are they doing this?
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Musicals have not done well lately. They have not made much money in theaters, and they have not garnered great audiences on streaming.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, you don't have to go into the distant past to find very successful movie musicals, whether it's La La Land or The Greatest Showman.
--:-- Noel King: These are award-winning and nominated movies and movies that made a lot of money ultimately.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Or Hamilton, of course, which was an enormous streaming sensation when it came out on Disney+.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But since then, things have changed.
--:-- Noel King: And in fact, the industry really invested in movie musicals post-Hamilton.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: There was sort of a production boom, inspired perhaps by Hamilton.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But almost everything that has surfaced since has flopped to some extent.
--:-- Noel King: And so there's been a quick correction here as Hollywood has pivoted to, wait, maybe people don't want to see movie musicals.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Or at least they don't want to be told that they're about to see a movie musical.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I think that's what's driving this trend.
--:-- Noel King: I know when I'm not wanted.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Who are the floppers? Who are the main offenders here?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So some of the more prominent ones would be West Side Story by Steven Spielberg.
--:-- Noel King: Puerto Rico, you lovely island, island of tropical breeze.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Or Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights.
--:-- Noel King: I am Usnavia, you probably never heard my name.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Reports of my fame are greatly exaggerated, exacerbated by the...
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There are others that are a little less prominent. Dear Evan Hansen.
--:-- Noel King: Have you ever felt like nobody was there?
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Everybody's talking about Jamie I'm a super superstar and you don't even know it
--:-- Noel King: In a wonder bra and you don't even know it So blah blah and you don't even know it I'm like au revoir and you don't even know it
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Not enough people were talking about Jamie as it turned out
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Of course there was Cats, the pre-pandemic notable movie musical bomb
--:-- Noel King: Memory all alone in the moonlight I can smile at the end
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: And then there were a bunch of movies that came out maybe on streaming and just didn't do well based on what we can tell from streaming charts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Why does it take an accident Before the truth gets through to us
--:-- Noel King: Tick, tick, boom, and A Week Away, and Diana the Musical all on Netflix, or Annette on Prime Video.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: So we love each other so much.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or Come From Away and High School Musical, The Musical, The Series, another mouthful, which are on Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus, respectively.
--:-- Noel King: So a lot of these just seem to be misses.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Again, maybe the market was oversaturated.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Maybe they overinvested in the wake of Hamilton.
--:-- Noel King: It's kind of a copycat industry.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: But most of these movies just failed to break through.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Granted, of course, there was the pandemic, which certainly hurt the movies that were released in theaters.
--:-- Noel King: But even the ones that have come out since or that came out on streaming only just haven't done well lately.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Do we think Wonka and Mean Girls and The Color Purple, which were both based on the Broadway musicals of those stories, were greenlit in this era, this post-Hamilton era, where everyone was drunk on musicals?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It could be partly that.
--:-- Noel King: I think in some of these cases, though, these are based on established IP, right?
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: So you might wonder, well, if they're going out of their way to hide the fact that these are musicals, why are they even making musicals, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Exactly. It feels like a paradox.
--:-- Noel King: You could nip this in the bud by just not greenlighting musicals.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Exactly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we might not see as many movie musicals made in the near future, but these are based on established properties, right?
--:-- Noel King: People know Wonka, they know Mean Girls, they know the color purple in one incarnation or another.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: And just as in any genre, it's easier to get things greenlit these days when you can point to this is a recognizable brand or this previous version of this thing made X amount of money, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I think these are sort of exceptions in a sense, and maybe what is going away or what will go away is the less recognizable movie musical, the one that doesn't have some established source material.
--:-- Noel King: I talked to a lot of movie marketing people and trailer production people, and they said that the goal of the trailer is just to get people in the seats.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: There are some people who would be attracted by a trailer that makes it explicit this is a movie musical but there are maybe more people who would be repelled by that or at least would not think that they want to see a movie musical and so the best thing to do the studios have concluded for now is just to omit that fact right so as not to turn anyone off and so they hope that if you are a movie musical fan, you'll find out some other way that it's a movie musical and you'll show up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you're not, then yeah, you know, they're trying to trick you in hopefully not the most nefarious way, but they're trying to get you to go see the movie by any means necessary.
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--:-- Noel King: Let's talk about people who hate musicals.
--:-- Ben Lindbergh: Why do people hate musicals?
--:-- Noel King: I don't know if hate is the right word.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Oh, Professor, hate is the right word.
--:-- Noel King: I just think they are not drawn to musicals.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And I think that musicals have lost their connection to popular culture, particularly popular music.
--:-- Noel King: In the 30s and 40s, during the Depression and World War II, musicals were extremely popular and studios made many of them.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And they were one of the main ways, along with radio, that popular music was disseminated.
--:-- Noel King: So lots of hit songs came from musicals.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Big bands were featured in musicals. Popular dances were featured in musicals.
--:-- Noel King: And with the 50s and the advent of rock and roll, that began to shift.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Stephen Cohan is a professor emeritus at Syracuse University.
--:-- Noel King: He's written multiple books about movies, musicals, and movie musicals.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: He's the kind of guy when you're like, what's up with this new trend? Hollywood's hiding its musicals.
--:-- Noel King: He'll be all... It's not new. It's been going on since 2007, I think.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I know Sweeney Todd disguised the fact that it was musicals.
--:-- Noel King: But I don't think The Greatest Showman advertised that it was a musical.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: If you look at trailers for musicals, I don't think many of them, if at any, advertise that they're musicals.
--:-- Noel King: Studios advertise to their desired demographic.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And just because the studios think people don't like musicals don't mean that people don't like musicals.
--:-- Noel King: I do think that there are certain gender divisions.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Now, I'm going to make a simplification.
--:-- Noel King: When I would teach the musical, the majority of students in my class tended to be women and then there'd be a handful of guys.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And they all loved musicals.
--:-- Noel King: Some of it was because of Broadway and some of it had to do with familial associations because of watching musicals with a grandparent or events like watching The Sound of Music for a slightly older generation when it would air on TV as a family event.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And I think associations from childhood can be very powerful in terms of people's tastes.
--:-- Noel King: So I think it's fair to say that the studios think that people don't like musicals.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: The other thing is that a convention of trailers these days is to give as much of the plot as they can.
--:-- Noel King: Songs are harder to excerpt in a way that indicates a plot.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: When musicals were a mainstay of studio production, and so a studio like MGM or Fox were churning out eight or nine musicals a year in the 40s, They would advertise the number of new songs, the various performers, and they would have little clips of performances.
--:-- Noel King: They were not interested or focused on advertising a narrative.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: But these days, the trailers advertise a narrative.
--:-- Noel King: And so I think there's that industrial reason, just the convention of a trailer.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: But I agree. I think that the studios think that audiences will not rush to see a musical.
--:-- Noel King: And why do you think that is?
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I think there's probably many reasons.
--:-- Noel King: People aren't used to watching musicals.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: They are not accustomed to the break in the illusionism of a musical when someone will burst into song and you hear an orchestra.
--:-- Noel King: Whereas when musicals were produced in large numbers, audiences were used to and accepted a break from the illusionism of the narrative and the heightened sensibility, the heightened utopian experience of watching someone dance in the streets or sing their heart out.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I also think there is a lingering association of musicals with a queer following
--:-- Noel King: Show should be more pretty Show should be more witty Show should be more... What's the word? Gay?
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Exactly.
--:-- Noel King: So that it makes some people uncomfortable.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: But I think the main reason has to do with just not knowing how to watch a musical.
--:-- Noel King: Does it break your heart a little bit that audiences have fallen out of practice with musicals?
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I think it used to, but not anymore.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, for one reason, I have a lot of musicals on Blu-ray, so I can still watch them.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: You know, I think you and I may not see eye to eye on the haters out there, but I do feel like in my personal experience, I have heard many a friend and acquaintance say, oh, I don't want to go see that. I hate musicals.
--:-- Noel King: But I will agree with you that I don't think that person necessarily hates musicals.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I think that person has maybe seen a character jump into song and rolled their eyes and said, Oh, I don't think I want to hear that.
--:-- Noel King: What would you say to them to maybe help change their mind?
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I'd say go see Aquaman.
--:-- Noel King: My dad's from the land, my mom's from the sea. I am Atlantis' true king.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Okay. I know the kind of viewer you're talking about.
--:-- Noel King: And if you're going to talk about people hating musicals, then there's something really profoundly disturbing about the musical.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: I think that's much more deep-seated and psychological than simply not accepting someone bursting into song.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, I've taught musicals in general, in introduction courses and also in courses on the musical.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And I've seen students laugh uncomfortably when someone bursts into song because they're not used to it and it's unexpected.
--:-- Noel King: But I think that when someone says, I hate musicals, it's because of what a musical represents to them that is so disturbing.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: That's why I think that there's still a lingering association of otherness with musicals.
--:-- Noel King: So this is interesting.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: It sounds like you're saying at the heart of this matter is people might think, oh, musicals are kind of queer.
--:-- Noel King: That's not me. Musicals are about white people. That's not me.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Is there a musical out there that sort of transcends those stigmas, maybe, and can be sort of enjoyed by one and all?
--:-- Noel King: I think, if anything, it would be the musical, the film version of Hairspray.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: It had a multiracial cast. It was about popular music. It had drag. It's well done. It had people of size. It defied authority. It was anti-authority.
--:-- Noel King: The film version of Hairspray, that's the one where John Travolta and Christopher Walken, they slow dance on the rooftop and it's movie magic.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Yeah. and Michelle Pfeiffer. Queen Latifah.
--:-- Noel King: That's right. It's derived from John Waters' Hairspray, which is a really good film that's a musical.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: And both of them are about the advent of rock and roll as youth music in the 50s.
--:-- Noel King: And the integration of what was a sort of pseudo version of American bandstick.
--:-- Stephen Cohan: Professor Stephen Cohan.
--:-- Noel King: You might remember him from Masculinity and the Movies in the 50s, Hollywood Musicals, The Film Reader, Incongruous Entertainment, Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical or The Sound of Musicals.
--:-- [Closing music plays]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The supporting cast includes Matthew Collette, Laura Bullard, and Rob Byers.
--:-- Noel King: Noam Hassenfeld played the musical.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The rest of the ensemble includes Noelle King, Amna Alsadi, Avishai Artsy, Victoria Chamberlain, Amanda Llewellyn, Miles Bryan, Halima Shah, and Patrick Boyd.
--:-- Noel King: Miranda Kennedy is our executive producer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We did not use any music by Breakmaster Cylinder, but sometimes we do.
--:-- Noel King: Today Explained is distributed by WNYC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The show is a part of Vox, which is totally free.
--:-- Noel King: Thanks in part to contributions from our listeners.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Join us at Vox.com slash give.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We are off Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
--:-- Noel King: It's a day of service. Do something nice for somebody.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: More today explained on Tuesday.
--:-- Noel King: And my heart's keeping time to the speed of sound
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was lost till I heard the guns set up down my way
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A woman down the left, she shook her cheek and shake up a man
--:-- Noel King: And so I'm gonna shake and shimmy at the best that I can today
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Cause you can't stop the motion of the ocean of the sun in the sky
--:-- Noel King: You can wonder if you wanna, but I'll never ask for
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you try to pull me down, I'm gonna spin your eyes and say
--:-- Noel King: She can't stop the beat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Lemo, emu.
--:-- Noel King: And Doug.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Here we have the Lemo, emu.
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--:-- Noel King: Cut the camera. They see us.
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--:-- Noel King: The Predictive Index reveals the hidden drivers of people challenges and successes, giving you the power to steer your talent strategy in the right direction.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Backed by 70 years of behavioral science, PI consistently gives HR the edge to lead with confidence.
--:-- Noel King: The Predictive Index, where people strategy drives business results.
