#rent2008

[glialcell7429]

I’ve been rewatching RENT, specifically the 2008 version (imo the best version, also free on YouTube). Since it’s the first musical I ever really got into, it brings back fond memories. It’s been eye opening to catch all the little things I had no appreciation for as a high school freshman, for instance: the song Contact.

I didn’t like the song when I first saw the show because I found it kind of discordant. It felt like a random sexual interlude in between two heart-wrenching songs that felt like it had no purpose other than to be a tonal palette cleanser. But now, knowing more context for the history of AIDS activism at the time, I think I have more insight. When RENT first came out in the mid 90s, there had been a shift in the narrative about HIV/AIDS from a “gay plague” to an illness that could impact anyone and a multitude of reasons beyond sexual (e.g. Ryan White, a teenager and hemophiliac who contracted the disease from a blood transfusion). This marked a valuable shift because it opened the general public to being receptive to funding research, humanitarian aid, etc. as it because more of a public health concern than something that could be banished to a “shameful” region of society and ignored.

However beneficial this increased awareness was, it does sideline the more “unpalatable” people who did contract HIV from explicit, “devious” sexual encounters. So, Angel’s refrain in Contact “Take me” can mean not just “take me [sexually]” and “take me [up to heaven]”, but also “take me [in my entirety]”. Take me as a queer, cross-dressing person who got this disease from unprotected gay sex and realize that your activism includes all of me. Not just the flattering parts of me (generosity and creativity) but my sexual identity and all of its taboo rituals and “distasteful” debauchery that the people don’t want to have to acknowledge to fully support the people living with this illness. HIV and AIDS activism isn’t complete until the conversation includes everyone; even society’s unsavory underbelly. I think the repetition of the word “lover” in Contact as well as I’ll Cover You and the reprise serves a similar purpose. I’ll Cover You is very sweet, romantic, probably easier to digest for the general public of the time. But, “lover” is used in both songs to signify that the palatable and unpalatable are inextricable; Collins and Angel’s relationship being accepted can’t be conditional on just the cute, mild aspects of their relationship, they’re also queer men who have (probably non-vanilla) sex and that’s a fact that has to be part of the conversation around a sexually transmitted disease.

Also, side note: the depth of Angel and Collins’ relationship feels a lot more apparent to me this go-around. Like, I think they kind of felt like a loving foil to all the turbulent relationships we see throughout, that didn’t have drama because it wasn’t plot relevant, but in retrospect, they didn’t have drama because in the shadow of such a finite time limit, the little quarrels were probably insignificant. Collins and Angel never had that full 526,000 minutes together, and they spent what little time they had in full, head-over-heels love for each other. Similarly, I used to think Angel, say, providing groceries for Mark and Roger or buying Collins a new coat was just, like “Oh here’s this great character who’s just an infallibly good person to balance out these other assholes.” But, Angel must have known she didn’t have much time left, and in as much as she was generous by her nature, I’m sure she was also generous because she knew her time was coming to a close. Which absolutely breaks my heart.

#rent2008 #rent musical #rent #musicals #broadway #angel and collins