What ruins UTOPIA FALLS is that it thematically elevates artistic expression to a level of importance that it doesn't have and never will. It's representation of dance offs and sing offs as possessing this level of importance renders it risible and ridiculous.
Certainly musical entertainment is not new. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it's been part of human entertainment for millennia. The "Western" notion of the "musical" itself probably stems from the late 1800s. So having various forms of performance art (dance, singing etc.) integrally mixed with fiction storytelling is a well-established and long accepted form of legitimate entertainment. So no problem there as far as that goes.
Anyone who's ever felt a strong emotion knows that music (and other forms of performance art) is a wonderful way to express and/or commune with deeply felt human emotions. In other words, saying you feel really strongly about something doesn't hold a candle to singing a really moving song or composing a really powerfully-worded poem or employing some other, more abstract form of artistic expression to really capture and project that feeling and to possibly profoundly communicate that feeling to others.
But carrying the "meaningfulness" of that artistic expression beyond the point where it is specifically a "vehicle" of expression to where it is held forth as the point itself, THE important theme in the program or what the program is ABOUT, just reads as absurd.
What's that you say? Singing and dancing represents the pinnacle of human evolution, progress and achievement? They are the REASON we do everything else that humans do? Seriously? We're going to solve all the problems of humanity by dancing our way into the future?
I think some people tend to confuse the experience of feeling strong emotion in connection with artistic expression as somehow suggesting that the expression (the singing, the dancing, whatever) has an importance in and of itself that it doesn't have. I'm completely guessing here, but we have at least one generation currently alive so far, and perhaps more, who have grown up in lives more virtual and symbolic than actual and experiential and can't always seem to separate artistic symbology from the things being symbolized. Whatever they FEEL or BELIEVE, that's what IS. They seem to think that perception makes reality rather than the other way around.
From a mechanical standpoint, I have no idea what the heavy top loading of minority performers is supposed to be telling us. Is it that, since GRAVITY FALLS entire raison d'être is about performance art, and literally nothing more (to its failing), all legitimate cultural expression and performance art can only come from traditional "minorities"? Was it just that most Caucasian people got wiped out in the apocalyptic conflagration?
Last time I looked, traditional "minorities" were continuously objecting to the lack of population-ratio-related representation in Hollywood etc.? Why is completely skewed representation totally okay here?
Well, so close and yet so far. If the show had maybe followed the lines of a more "traditional" musical it might have resulted in an interesting novel mix of old styles and new ideas. Instead, it panders to a very experience-limited and reality-challenged subculture while deeply mired in heavily distorted PC sensibilities. I don't see how that's going to be a successful long-term broad appeal formula.
But, hey, what do I know? Maybe hip-hop is so important it can save the world and lead everyone to freedom. Because, you know, inspiring youth-oriented rebellious music never happened before hip-hop. Uh-Huh.
Certainly musical entertainment is not new. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it's been part of human entertainment for millennia. The "Western" notion of the "musical" itself probably stems from the late 1800s. So having various forms of performance art (dance, singing etc.) integrally mixed with fiction storytelling is a well-established and long accepted form of legitimate entertainment. So no problem there as far as that goes.
Anyone who's ever felt a strong emotion knows that music (and other forms of performance art) is a wonderful way to express and/or commune with deeply felt human emotions. In other words, saying you feel really strongly about something doesn't hold a candle to singing a really moving song or composing a really powerfully-worded poem or employing some other, more abstract form of artistic expression to really capture and project that feeling and to possibly profoundly communicate that feeling to others.
But carrying the "meaningfulness" of that artistic expression beyond the point where it is specifically a "vehicle" of expression to where it is held forth as the point itself, THE important theme in the program or what the program is ABOUT, just reads as absurd.
What's that you say? Singing and dancing represents the pinnacle of human evolution, progress and achievement? They are the REASON we do everything else that humans do? Seriously? We're going to solve all the problems of humanity by dancing our way into the future?
I think some people tend to confuse the experience of feeling strong emotion in connection with artistic expression as somehow suggesting that the expression (the singing, the dancing, whatever) has an importance in and of itself that it doesn't have. I'm completely guessing here, but we have at least one generation currently alive so far, and perhaps more, who have grown up in lives more virtual and symbolic than actual and experiential and can't always seem to separate artistic symbology from the things being symbolized. Whatever they FEEL or BELIEVE, that's what IS. They seem to think that perception makes reality rather than the other way around.
From a mechanical standpoint, I have no idea what the heavy top loading of minority performers is supposed to be telling us. Is it that, since GRAVITY FALLS entire raison d'être is about performance art, and literally nothing more (to its failing), all legitimate cultural expression and performance art can only come from traditional "minorities"? Was it just that most Caucasian people got wiped out in the apocalyptic conflagration?
Last time I looked, traditional "minorities" were continuously objecting to the lack of population-ratio-related representation in Hollywood etc.? Why is completely skewed representation totally okay here?
Well, so close and yet so far. If the show had maybe followed the lines of a more "traditional" musical it might have resulted in an interesting novel mix of old styles and new ideas. Instead, it panders to a very experience-limited and reality-challenged subculture while deeply mired in heavily distorted PC sensibilities. I don't see how that's going to be a successful long-term broad appeal formula.
But, hey, what do I know? Maybe hip-hop is so important it can save the world and lead everyone to freedom. Because, you know, inspiring youth-oriented rebellious music never happened before hip-hop. Uh-Huh.