The Problem with The Prom
The current trend of post-postmodern film and television, which is the twenty-first-century form of literature, is a new heavy-handed, identity politics-based reader response. That is to say, the story is no longer the focus; the audience is. More specifically, the marginalized audience. The expansion of the western canon has led to an explosion of inclusivity that claims oppression in order to keep its audience. A tectonic shift in the literary world has been happening since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and we now seem to be entrenched in cultural warfare armed with fallacies and victimology. The way to find the mainstream now is to stand on a moral high-ground and shame those who don’t agree. Film and television that leans into this new reader response is hopefully a fluke, a watered-down agit-prop perhaps, but it seems more and more evident that, in actuality, it might be the next major literary movement.
Victimology is the outlook one obtains from real or imagined victimization, with a need to glorify the state of being a victim. This is ubiquitous in film and television that deals with any minority group. It is not exclusive, and there are writers and directors out there who do not embrace this trend, but they’re getting harder and harder to find. Postmodernism created ethical relativism and through a skeptical lens infused Marxist ideology, mostly the evils of capitalism, and paved the way for the activist, social justice, anti-dramatic movement we now find ourselves in. A movement that celebrates, not just diversity, but victimhood. And as with all victims, there has to be a bad guy. For the current movement that would be straight, white men. We needn’t look further than the terminology to conclude this. What are the ills of society? Heteronormativity, patriarchy, white privilege, white supremacy, and toxic masculinity. Straight, white men are perceived as an allied force of oppression that everyone else needs to reject, remove from power, and re-program. The flip side of this, ironically, is that men are the most well-rounded, three-dimensional characters in film and television because victimology allows them to have flaws, to be the bad guys, to be layered, whereas a queer man, for example, is nothing but a symbol of every queer man in the audience, and therefore, he is more often flat and one-dimensional.
New movements in literature happen when we’re not looking, and it’s only after we’re stuck in them that we can begin to unpack them. We identify a literary movement after that movement has become the norm, and also when critics and scholars acknowledge the new form by including elements of it in their writing. And while I don’t know that there’s a name for this current movement, I call it neo-identitarianism.
We can identify a neo-identitarian piece, and critics are already examining them by the following criteria: If the story is about a minority of any kind, that minority must be symbolic of whatever group they belong to, group being the word I’m using for race, sexuality, gender, etc. There must be an unquestioned belief in the morality of that group. They must stereotype all who oppose the group. Ideas that question the group consensus must be self-censored. Anyone with any morality must believe in the illusion of unanimity in the group. We must view the silence of non-group members as an agreement of violence or hatred against the group. Insiders must direct pressure to conform to the group if one is struggling. And there must be self-appointed spokespeople who shield the group from dissenting information. Finally, the most important aspect of this movement is that the dominant world will be against all the minority characters. There needn’t be any explanation of this, it’s just how the world will function. The people with the most power in the story will oppress the minorities blatantly and irredeemably. This criteria, I discovered on Wikipedia. It was on the page describing groupthink. I was shocked to discover how accurately it describes the cultural moment we’re in.
I will now show how groupthink, as neo-identitarianism, can be applied to mainstream films, proving it is now part of the culture, and I will do so using Ryan Murphy’s The Prom.
The Prom is a musical about a teenage lesbian who plans to take another girl to her high school prom in Indiana. Her school holds a PTA meeting, and the parents are up in arms about the idea of turning their high school gay, so the school and the board decide to cancel the prom. Enter a group of narcissistic theater actors, looking for a political cause to re-start their careers, and viola! The world starts to pay attention to the intolerance of small-town America, clichés are sung, hearts are opened, and lives are changed. This overly saccharine story is not helped by Ryan Murphy’s frenzied direction. The camera never stops moving, which I think is meant to trick the audience into thinking the story is the thing that’s actually moving, which I would call clever, were it not for the fact that vertigo began to set in about thirty minutes in. The colors are too bright, it’s overlit, overwrought, and overacted. Therefore, a critical examination of the film as a post-postmodern identity piece, like all criticism, needs some perspective. I will furthermore refrain from any traditional criticism of the film as entertainment, which I’m sure for many people it is, as I will only be examining the elements that demonstrate the aforementioned criteria.
Neo-Identitarianism first and foremost cares about the audience. And the audience is always the minority that’s being persecuted. So, in this case, it would be an LGBTQ audience. The film makes a fatal error in this regard, right out of the gate. It cast James Corden, a straight actor, in a gay role. This matters because the audience will only accept gay people in gay roles- this is mandatory under the criteria of the new movement. One needn’t look past a review of the film to realize that pandering to the LGBTQ audience is how critics are reviewing it. James Corden is trashed in most reviews for his “stereotypical and offensive portrayal.” It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it doesn’t matter that Ryan Murphy, the gay director, cast him and was clearly okay with the performance himself, the audience matters more than the story, more than the storytellers, and James Corden is not gay, so we can’t accept him. End of story.
Next, unquestioned morality of the persecuted minority character is vital. In this case, we have lesbian teenager, Emma (played by newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman). Emma is a static and flat character without a single flaw. She is saintly. Just the perfect girl trying to be happy and constantly being impeded by the bullies that exist all around her. Like all around her. In fact, she has no allies at school or at home, really. It feels like the 1950s. But another criteria is to look for the negatives, and surely this kind of story still happens, therefore, it’s still happening to all the LGBTQ audience members, and they are fragile things. And let’s take a moment to look at the characters who oppose her. They are all stereotypes, most especially her girlfriends bigoted mother played by Kerry Washington. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Kerry Washington is an actress of color, so she obviously can’t be the villain, and so we know from the moment we first see her, that she will come around. The rest of the cast of homophobic clichés are unquestionably awful. It’s not even a point of interest in the story- they are just the paper-thin, torch-wielding mob in a monster movie after the audience has humanized the monster. Yes, I just compared a lesbian to a monster, because that’s the only way an LGBTQ audience is apparently able to understand metaphor. Blame the filmmakers.
And what about the other lesbian character? Emma’s closeted girlfriend Alyssa (Ariana DeBose) is the perfect foil, she is the popular girl with the perfect mother whose very popularity rests on her keeping her identity secret. Of course, we in the audience know how shameful this is, and so we know that she will come around when she realizes her true morality. This is the truth of all queer people, surely, because it is now the standard coming out story. Happiness will happen when the world around you accepts you for being queer. Until then, you’ll suffer. Alyssa doesn’t come out for herself, because she is an end to Emma’s means, and so she comes out for her. Is that okay? I thought we weren’t cool with that? It’s so hard being a symbol of everyone else, I can’t keep up. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, this is about Emma, or rather the audience, and we all know a lesbian who is already out is a way better representative to the rest of us, so we don’t really care what happens to anyone else.
The pressure to conform to righteous morality, which of course is a total understanding of LGBTQ people, in this case, is literally spelled out in the song “Love Thy Neighbor.” Andrew Rannell’s character Trent sings a gospel number to all the homophobic teens in a local mall, to teach them how to have the right morality. Now, I want to make a joke about a gay guy singing a show tune in a mall to change minds being the most ineffective thing I’ve ever heard of, but it doesn’t matter, the audience is LGBTQ, they’ll accept it. It’s a song that’s meant to confirm to the audience why their sense of morality is superior to anyone who opposes them. If we don’t assume that, it’s reduced to a didactic aside that’s so unrealistic it’s laughable. Not the performance! Andrew Rannells one-hundred percent makes it work, it’s the dramaturgical reason for the song that’s erroneous.
Unanimity of the LGBTQ community must be at the heart of this film. First, we have to set up the world of the hateful straights. The story goes out of its way to show that coming out as queer will mean that you lose your parents. It happened to Emma and Barry, the James Corden character, so the stakes for Alyssa are even higher because all LGBTQ people are the same. Symbols, get it? The struggle of one is all of our struggle. This is not a developed story point, it’s an inherently understood pre-requisite of the LGBTQ audience that the film is pandering to. It’s a given circumstance we just have coming in to the film. So when the truly bewildering and treacly scene with Tracy Ullman as Barry’s mom happens, tears will be shed. Ah, catharsis, a guarantee in all modern neo-identitarian pieces. Because the audience will relate, and that’s all that matters. It’s about them, not the story, nor the vision of any storyteller.
And while every character in the film is either comically amoral or boringly pure, the lessons that are learned are on par with a first-grade picture book, which should be insulting to the LGBTQ audience. The film seems to assume your fragility as a human being. But that doesn’t matter. Which brings us to the final criteria. The world is against us. This is, again, not a story point, it’s a given circumstance. The cultural narrative has told those of us who are minorities that the world is against us, and so stories can now just assume we know this from the get-go. It’s a lingering side effect of postmodernism and identity politics which has created more than one generation of people who are taught from birth to find the negatives in our fellow humans. We look for the flaws and we pounce on them. It’s so common, films like The Prom don’t even have to give exposition to explain it, we just accept it. And while it’s true that most writers and directors have always had to consider their audience, true storytellers don’t pander, they invite. They build the world, and you can go in or stay out. The Coen Brothers, for example, have a built-in audience because they earned them. They tell stories that stay true to the stories themselves. They build worlds outside of political agendas and invite us to join them, to see their version of reality. Not to reinforce our own. They don’t change the world to make it accessible to a specific kind of audience. That is artistry. Isn’t that what diversity should be? That’s why people travel the world, to see differences, to experience other people, other customs, other beliefs. Even when we think what we do or what we have is the correct version of something, the more diversity we look at, the less myopic we become. And filmmakers and writers are no different, no matter their race, gender, sexuality, or anything else, no one is more human than anyone else. This movement toward identity-based social justice feels de-humanizing to everyone, mostly to the marginalized groups of people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the movement. Groupthink reduces everyone to political abstractions, and that means less humanity, less empathy, more negativity, and more division.
In this vein, to counter this movement, to counter the narrative of always finding the negatives in our fellow humans, I will end this with all the positives I took away from this film.
Meryl Streep knocks it out of the park! Her energy and humor make this film crazy enjoyable. It’s a scenery-chewing bit of bravura that further cements her legendary status. Keegan Michael Key is another highlight. He and Meryl play off of one another really well. And who knew he could sing? The cast, for the most part, all look as though they had a great time, and that should make for a delightful viewing experience. Most importantly, this film stands as proof that the world of progress that the civil rights pioneers fought and died for is here. The diversity of this film is inspiring. The fact that the given circumstances are on the side of formerly marginalized people should be celebrated. If we look at it from the right angle, we can say, the world is better. Perfect is not attainable, and progress only moves forward. The movie is flawed and silly and overly sweet, but it’s also life-affirming and demonstrates that it doesn’t matter what the world thinks or says about you. If we connect with each other, if we love one another, we win. That’s the meaning of the film. That’s the meaning of life.
