#and the way rudolf's motivations are shown is the contextualizing songs: hass & streit vater und sohn (and sometimes conspiracy....)

[fitzrove]

Akflflg hot take. The most annoying kind of reaction to media is when people assume that depicting prejudice (lampshading it!) is the same thing as being prejudiced. No, D*nna T*rtt writing about elitism and racism doesn't mean she's advocating for it - in TSH she is picking apart a privileged academic culture for all to see and pointing out that people who contribute to that kinda suck actually. No, Em*rald F*nnell portraying rape culture and violence against women (and men [almost] going "unpunished") on screen doesn't mean she advocates for those things, it just means she's making a comment on the kind of society we live in. No, Michael Kunze portraying explicit antisemitism on stage doesn't mean he's an antisemite - if people looked at the framing of Hass for even one second they would Get The Point (= hey guys did you know that the late 19th century wasn't a fairytale time to live in because it actively led up to the 20th, and did you know that this kind of rhetoric is still common today and yet many people are "blind and mute" to it and don't care enough to work to stop it). I do understand criticisms of the number (ie. it being triggering) and I don't mean to speak over people who are discomforted by it (or feel that it's tokenizing oppression etc - valid points to be made, and as the number is not about prejudice against my background, I will defer to ppl more affected than me), but I truly think that for people not personally affected by the prejudice portrayed in it, there's a responsibility to see it and reflect. You don't get to clean it up to make the show more family-friendly or comforting. It's not intended to be a feel-good escapist experience even though the marketing masquerades it as one.

Also separate rant that I go on every month or so. Like omfg I just really dislike Conspiracy. It makes Rudolf a useless hack 😂💀 Like I'm sure Hungarians irl enjoy their independence but it's not the point of the show akflpdkgpel. If Die Schatten werden länger (reprise) is not explicitly about the anxiety brought on by the seemingly unstoppable rise of fascism that nobody else seems to care to stop it, I don't want it and it's pointless. And that's what it was about originally...

Portraying evil/oppression/prejudice - especially evil things that people tend to shrug off and minimize in their daily lives because it feels too insidious and widespread for them to bother to fight it - is a pretty central thing in art that has a message, and it's honestly such a dumb take to go "omg why would they write about that, that's so [type of prejudice]" in cases where the CENTRAL THESIS OF THE WORK is "x is bad, it's real and exists in the world we live in, and the general public isn't doing enough to stop it". That kind of reaction shows that you just legit can't read and would rather have random "Good Representation" (which can also be important! But while representation has its place, it's not enough to just have random unaddressed diversity if you want to change people's mindsets) than a work that actually criticises the status quo, points out unaddressed privileges and prejudices, and makes a meaningful point.

#inspired by annoying posts i've seen on tumblr especially from ppl who claim to be big tsh fans #😂💀💀💀 i'm such a mean hater #rant #like as much as i rant about heterosexualization in media - in elisabeth the antif*scism is more important than the homosexuality sorry #like musical rudolf has two (2) personality traits which are 1) gay 2) anti-authoritarian/anti-oppression. remove one and he loses purpose #and the way rudolf's motivations are shown is the contextualizing songs: hass & streit vater und sohn (and sometimes conspiracy....) #and you shouldnt put conspiracy cos it adds this bizarre historically inaccurate nationalist interlude #aokfpsg anyway rant over #😂