Why do so many gay men love musicals so much?

And why do so many straight men dislike them?

• Most musicals are about a female character overcoming some problem, and gay men identify with that, as they secretly long to be a woman in peril.

• Personally, I secretly long to be a woman in pearls.

• r1: But so are rom-com movies, and very few gay men like rom-coms.

• Because they''re so gay!

• I''m gay and not a great fan of musicals.

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• [quote]I''m gay and not a great fan of musicals.\ \ I never said ALL gay men like them.\ \ I asked why do SO MANY gay men like them.

  OP

• Straight men say they hate musicals because they don''t want to be perceived as gay.

• The odd thing is that if you watch old movie musicals, they were the best way to see near naked women.

• Why are they perceived as feminine? Many musicals are primarily about men or about men & women equally: PAJAMA GAME, CAROUSEL, DAMN YANKEES, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS, GUYS AND DOLLS, MOST HAPPY FELLA, CAMELOT...

• I love musicals. Just love them. I think it''s because gays discover them at a younger age. Straights aren''t typically exposed to musicals until they''ve already hit puberty and learned they are a gay phenomenon to be shunned.

• Simon Cowell always made a big to-do over his self-professed hatred of musicals on Idol.

• Gay men have the ability to switch back and forth easily between Right and Left Brain thinking. That''s why we''re good at multi-tasking and it''s why we love art-forms like opera and musical theater that combine %0D\ logic and inuition, music and poetry.

• [quote]And why do so many straight men dislike them?\ \ Because straight males are nothing but huge bores who love to complain.

• Because gay men can appreciate art in its purest forms. %0D\ %0D\ With musicals, you get the best of everything. Works of art scene designs, timeless songs written by the best composers and lyracists this world has ever produced, capped off with excellent acting and breakneck directing.%0D\ %0D\ It''s like looking at a rare jewel or a beautiful sunset. %0D\ %0D\ Shame that everyone can''t appreciate the theater, but it only makes us the richer.

• [quote]But so are rom-com movies, and very few gay men like rom-coms%0D\ %0D\ That doesn''t mean they still don''t watch them.

• Straight men who like musical usually are Jewish.%0D\ %0D\ My father (not Jewish) enjoyed some muscials, but wasn''t necessarily a big fan either. Muscials were neither shunned nor beloved in or family. They were just another form of entertainment.

• R14, your enthusiasm makes me want to break into song and dance.%0D\ %0D\ Straight guys will sit there for two hours saying, "Where is the music supposed to be coming from? Why are the singing on a trolley? How does everyone know all the dance steps?" The answer is They Just Do, accept it and follow along. %0D\ %0D\ But if you turn the tables on them and say, "Why does the runner have to run to first base, why can''t he run to third?" they''re shocked because Rules Are Rules and that explains everything.

• "breakneck directing"???

• Because most straight men are frightened little girls and do not have the courage to like anything that might look less manly. %0D\ %0D\ The good news for them is that, as long as they can produce the sperm, straight women really don''t care about anything else.

• Because they''re about expressing emotions and many of them have a reputation for being cheesy.

• I think it works the other way around. Broadway musicals turn little boys gay. My Grandma took me to see "Oklahoma" at Casa Manana in 1968 and I walked out of there singing "I''m Just Girl Who Can''t Say No!"\ \ At that moment they all knew I would one day be dialing the phone with a pencil.

  I''m in a terrible fix..I always say com''on lets go, when I see thier dicks

• Isn''t that ironic considering the two biggest successes he has been associated with are Susan Boyle''s "I Dreamed A Dream from LES MIZ and Jennifer Hudson winning the Oscar for DREAMGIRLS.

  Paula Abdul, choreographer of REEFER MADNESS off-Broadway and availible for hire

• I''m a straight woman who hates musicals unless they''re in black & white from the ''30s.

• Some people (not just straight guys) just don''t like musicals. Deal.

  Miley Cyrus

• [quote]Some people (not just straight guys) just don''t like musicals. Deal.\ \ No one said everyone has to or that everyone does.\ \ Why did you think that?

• Some people (not just cheap whores) just don''t like cunts'' opinions. Deal.

  Slimey Vyrus

• OP, musicals were a popular American art form for most of the century. And they are a distinctly American art form that developed out of our own culture.%0D\ %0D\ Any dissent is purely homophobic; it is, after all, the U.S.

• Sometimes it helps to read the by-line, R25. But here:

  http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2010/06/miley-cyrus-hates-on-glee/

  Emily Osment

• R17, you have defined it perfectly. Bless your beautiful hide.

• It''s interesting how many posters aren''t addressing the question.

• Thanks, r27: but that addresses neither of the questions I asked.

• r31 was me, the OP, btw.

  OP/r31

• What if you are gay and detest musicals?

  And love Everybody Loves Raymond?

• [quote]What if you are gay and detest musicals?\ \ Yet again: I never said all gay men like musicals.

  OP

• You probably vote Republican, R33.

• This thread is full of such a load of nonsense. It's not true that most musicals are about women, it's not true that most gay men want to BE women, it's not true that straight guys don't like musicals, it's not true that gay men are any more "creative" and "artistic" than anyone else, it's not even true that there's such a thing as "a gay man." I can't believe how you all cling so desperately and unshakably to stereotypes about yourselves and other people. It is true that most musicals are awful. It's an embarrassing art form - tacky, cheezy, bright-and-bouncy in the very worst way - and: It went out of style entirely in about 1967. Up until HAIR, it wasn't embarrassing to like musicals. You know, blah blah blah, popular musical idioms changed so drastically, and cool kids could still be into, like, WEST SIDE STORY in 1963. And there was Louis Armstrong pushing the Beatles out of the #1 chart spot with "Hello, Dolly" in 1964. But rock music did its work and Bway music stopped being the same as pop radio music, certainly by the late '60s. As for the gay guy/straight guy thing: Everybody my father's age - jim and all his straight guy pals - liked musicals, when I was growing up. (I'm 51.) And my straight brother will admit to liking musicals, and I will admit to despising them, though I go to see them again and again. It's stupid to generalize.

• [quote]It went out of style entirely in about 1967.\ \ If that were so, then why is Andrew Lloyd Webber a billionaire? And why has WICKED made pots and pots of money?\ \ [quote]It''s stupid to generalize.\ \ As you have demonstrated. Thank you.

• I think gay men at a young age liked to get lost in a world where the biggest problems could be solved with a song and a dance at a time when they themselves were living in an oppressive world that fought against them and they themselves had no idea how to overcome it. When adulthood came, the love for musicals was just nostalgic. It was easier to remember those times then it was to remember being harassed in the halls in high school.(And yes I am projecting)

• Because some gays look & behave like womem.

• I''ve never liked musicals EVER and yes, indeed I tend to get along with straight guys better.

  gay as a goose though

• Because most gay men are defensive...from a life of being discriminated against.%0D\ %0D\ Many of us have a fantasy that we get to express ourselves in a perceived dramatic, classy, and fancy way when we do get the opportunity.%0D\ %0D\ Musicals provide the fantasy that life can be full of people doing just that.

• Back in the 50s, Broadway musicals were part of the American culture, not just gay culture. Broadway musical stars regularly performed their music on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Your Show of Shows." They didn''t have the strong gay connection we have today and straight men saw these TV shows every weekend.%0D\ %0D\ Opera was also available across America on those TV shows as well as "Bell Telephone Hour" and similar fare. Met Opera star Lily Pons was on "Your Show of Shows" singing the "Bell Song" from Lakme in one segment and then, with Imogene Coca, doing "When Love Goes Wrong" as Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Rise Stevens (Met Opera) sang the Lincon-Mercury commercial on the Sullivan show. %0D\ %0D

• While I may like a few songs from musicals, I don''t like them as a whole. The movie musicals were before my time. As for stage musicals, there''s something I don''t like about theater in general. I can''t put my finger on it.

• It''s only straight men who dislike musicals! EVERYONE ELSE -- women, children, gay women, gay men, household pets -- all love them.%0D\ %0D\ But it''s what straight men like that matters in this fucked-up world!

• "Straight men who like musical usually are Jewish"%0D\ %0D\ WTF? It''s (mostly) straight Jewish men who WROTE the Broadway musicals.

  Harold Arlen, Jules Styne, Johnny Mercer, Yip Harburg

• Wow, R44, way to make a thread all about your own perpetual victim status.%0D\ %0D\ The thread is valid, many gay men love musicals, regardless of straights'' opinions. %0D\ %0D\ And, if you go to any Broadway musical performance at ALL, and you look at the audience, it''s mostly OLDER STRAIGHT COUPLES in the audience. So, the straight man is not the issue of this thread, or shouldn''t be.

• Yes, R45, the combination of Judaism and homosexuality has nothing to do with the greatest creators of theatre. Nothing at all.

  Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins & Bill Finn

• "Why do so many gay men love musicals so much?"%0D\ %0D\ Sparkly costumes! Fabulous sets! Lilting music! Singing and dancing! Quasi-operatic scores! Bittersweet tears! Jazz hands!

• "They Just Do, accept it and follow along."\ \ What a scary, facist mindset. \ \ R14, musicals are certainly not art in it''s purest form and hardly the best of everything. In fact, things that tries to do everything at once are usually quite mediocre at everything they do. Like Liza, or Madonna.\ \ It''s so tiresomely American to talk about "the best composers and and lyracists of the world," when musicals are almost exclusively an American pursuit. I once met a guy who told me that Baltimore is the lacrosse capital of the world.

  What the fuck is lacrosse?

• Blah blah blah.\ \ Gay men aren''t special.\ \ Gay men are just as stupid as straight men and vice versa.\ \ All men are men.

• Between the OP, the "campy TV-opening" thread and R48, one must ask; why do gay men love mindless nonsense so much?

• R44, you just validated your self-pitting victimhood in the first sentence.

• "why do gay men love mindless nonsense so much?"%0D\ %0D\ Because we''re FUN-LOVING, dammit!%0D

  Just smelled fresh cookies

• I hate musicals.

• Some of you are gasbags. %0D\ %0D\ I may not scale the Great Wall of China, but damn it, I''ve heard the orginal cast recordings of "Funny Girl" and "Les Miserables" and that''s just as good. %0D\ %0D\ When theater works, it''s better and more exciting than the best, horniest fuck you''ve ever had.

• [quote]Why do so many gay men love musicals so much?\ \ It''s the law.

• They make a me happy.

• They''re less fattening than cookies.

• [quote]When theater works, it''s better and more exciting than the best, horniest fuck you''ve ever had.%0D\ %0D\ I''ve never experienced any theater that worked that well. %0D\ %0D

• Because they are, at their best, a great art form, whether they are an American art form or not.%0D\ %0D\ Because they are, at their best, a wonderful blend of music and lyrics and dialogue.%0D\ %0D\ Go ahead and think everyone that loves musicals is a fag. Go ahead and think that, because you don''t like musicals, you are a superior fag. The fag bashers will still beat you over the head with a baseball bat without waiting for an affirmative answer to the question, "Do you like musicals?" before beating you senseless. So you''ll be bleeding and will die without knowing "Gypsy." Your loss.

• Has there ever been a straight man who is thought to be an expert on musicals?

• Peter Filichia.

• r17 has it.\ \ I am a theology grad student who studies under a professor who argues for a greater influence of Greek artistic culture on the New Testament texts. One day while chatting he said he hated musicals. I asked why. He said, "Because I''m not gay." He explained further that the breaking out into song was too artificial\ \ Um, Dr. Douche, Greek drama and Greek epics were sung! (I should have left the school that day.)

• I used to love musicals, and somehow I got really over them. Now I hate them.%0D\ %0D\ I don''t know what happened to me.

• This is the musical number that turned me gay at six years of age.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcwAymlCB1k

• R65, that''s truly awful. How did that ever get made?

• Musicals present order, skill, and balance as a given; they''re perfectly solved algebraic equations that provide a heaven on earth experience for anyone open enough to say ''yes''.\ \ People who hate musicals do not understand the math or insist that the equation has nothing to do with their lives. Or they have shit voices. Or they have hearing issues. Or they''re fat.

• Some Broadway musicals never seem to get a mention at DL. It can''t be that every single DLer dislikes them. A whole war broke out over the mention of Lucy''s film version of "Mame" but I''d love to hear about some of the lesser known Broadway musicals like:%0D\ %0D\ Bombay Dreams%0D\ %0D\ Dirty Rotten Scoundrels %0D\ %0D\ The Scarlet Pimpernel %0D\ %0D\ The Drowsy Chaperone

• I can only speak for myself. I love musicals (well, make that some musicals) because a great deal of the music I was first aware of came from musicals. "Mary Poppins" is the first movie I remember going to see. I loved it whenever "Cinderella" and "Wizard of Oz" were on tv. "Fiddler" and "Funny Girl" were always playing on the stereo when I was little.

• Because straight men have no taste.

• Franco Nero''s blue eyes in Camelot!

• r68, with the exception of The Drowsy Chaperone, what exactly is there worth saying about any of those shows?%0D\ %0D\ It''s funny. I''m a gay man who loves the feeling of watching a great musical. It''s amazing to me when that happens.%0D\ %0D\ But I would also agree that a lot of musicals suck.

• [quote]with the exception of The Drowsy Chaperone, what exactly is there worth saying about any of those shows?%0D\ %0D\ Then, please, R72,tell us your thoughts about "The Drowsy Chaperone." And what made that better than the other three that were mentioned?

• many books on the topic-

  http://www.amazon.com/Something-Boys-Musical-Theater-Culture/dp/0312210582/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286448022&sr=1-2

• Ugh the video at r65 is exactly why I hate musicals. A bunch of humans trying to act like a Disney movie. The women in musicals are alright but the men, I want to punch them in the face, it''s so cringe worthy and embarrassing. Nothing sexy or appealing or admirable in a bunch of men acting and singing like ten year olds.

• What''s so great about "The Drowsy Chaperone"?

• Use of the word "frau" is rampant all over DL, and it is meant to abuse, belittle, objectify, mock, disempower, threaten, and demonize women.\ \ Your contempt for women is killing queer teens.

• Really, it's nothing to do with being gay, or being boring, or being seen as unmanly. And as to left/right brain switching, I'm both technical and artistic, and have my own cat, which is usually seen as a feminine pet. However, from a straight male perspective, I find musicals a) twee b) repetitive c) plotness and therefore unengaging and d) melodramatic. Most men hate repetition (eg: nagging) and melodrama. We can read poetry, but we don't have to re-read it six times in four minutes to enjoy it. Likewise, I find musicals shallow, tedious and pointless, but my ex used to love them . I have to admit I was a bit of a b*stard, as I went with her to see Phantom of the Opera once at Christmas in London, but only to ensure I could keep on getting into her knickers. It was the most pointless, tedious crap I have ever watched, but she loved it.

  Mark%20Gracie%2C%20Bristol

• Liar R78. There is more artistry in a good musical than there ever was in opera and music videos, both beloved of straight males of many stripes. Homophobia and anti-New York prejudice (rooted in antisemitism and homophobia) are the ONLY reasons why straights don't cotton to musicals or identify them as "inferior," "cheezy," "sentimental" cultural artifacts. The same people who call Pink Floyd's "The Wall" a masterpiece of surrealism (when the lyrics clearly indicate it is about a pathetic closet case) are the same idiots who can't bear the "absurd" idea of townspeople "bursting into song" on a trolley headed for the World's Fair (which is the sort of thing that might actually happen in real life, such is the giddy excitement of such a time).

• Of course that was a US centric analysis. I don't know why musicals are hated in London, but I'm guessing for the same reason.

• That was not the case always. In order to have a hit, producers in the early days of musicals (most of them straight men) required "gags and gams", which attracted a large portion of straight male audiences. "Oklahoma!" changed all of that, among its many firsts.

• [quote]Because straight males are nothing but huge bores who love to complain. Exactly!

• I had a roommate in college who actively despised my love for musicals...but God forbid he ever miss an episode of David Carradine in "Kung Fu" ...on my television. Naturally, he saw no similarity between his obsessive consumption of a mediocre cultural artifact and the love of musicals other people have.

• I am extremely gay and I love musicals. There is some truth to stereotypes. I make Carson Kresley look like Thor.

• I really dont care for them, especially the old school variety of musical, but that maybe a generational thing. But here's the weird thing: I do like opera.

• I'm not gay but I love musicals. I wish this stereotype did not exist.

  Mackdown

• Why is everyone assuming musicals are all about bouncy, happy tap numbers performed in perfect unison? What about Sondheim? LaChiusa? There's a lot more to musicals than Hello, Dolly! and Mame. Straight guys have an aversion (or put on a front of an aversion) for going to the theater whether it's Dolly, Once, Company, Boeing-Boeing, Moon For the Misbegotten or Venus in Fur. The act of going to the theater (and liking it) has been labeled "gay" by our society, and they need to distance themselves from that.

• We love musicals because they are faaaaaaaaaaaaabulous,you silly goose.

  Queenie

• When you grow up gay you are instinctively aware that the "real world" that everyone else takes at face value is false or, at best, is an incomplete picture (because people like YOU aren't acknowledged or represented in it). Art (theatre, painting, ballet, poetry, music etc.) is a way of connecting with other free spirits, past and present, and it can become a way to transcend your isolated, humdrum existence It's a rebellion and a self-realisation.

  Jazz%20hands%20optional.

• Why don't a lot of gay men like musicals? there are more bisexual and gay dudes that dislike or ignore musicals than those who do. why do the gay men who are stereotypical get to control the image of same-sex oriented males?

• [quote] why do the gay men who are stereotypical get to control the image of same-sex oriented males? Because stereotype=the fastest sort of visibility. This is such a recent thing. There have always been showqueens, but in the past married men took their wives to musicals all the time, and the musical comedies with leggy showgirls appealing to the tired businessman were around up until the late 60s.

• I think younger bi and gay dudes are not into musicals for the most part. They reject it as a tired, embarrassing stereotype.

• Gay men have the innate ability to experience pure joy on a level other segments of the population can't fathom. It is just one of the many gifts that come along with being a gay male.

• r93, you act like that is the universal experience of all gay dudes. It is far from it.

• Because we lusted after many of the men in the productions. Many who were gay themselves. Some of us even said to ourselves, "I can do that!"

• I have noticed that...I guess I'm an exception as I never cared for musicals or even theater. In the 8th grade we had a class trip to go see "Rent" and while I was glad to be out of school for a day, I fucking hated every minute of the musical and thought it was so damn boring.

• I don't get the appeal of musicals or anything 'broadway' or 'west end'. not a fan of theatrical arts or drama, onstage or in real life. I know that art can tell great stories and lessons and move people. for me this happens with some films and music. Hud is one of my favorite films. we've given over so much of ourselves to spectacle that we forgot how much of life's magic we can make on our own. when art forms cease to remind us of what we're capable of and inspire us to go beyond, then it's time to look for alternatives

• Beats the fuck out of me. I'd rather count grains of sand for two hours than watch (or listen to) a musical.

• Maybe the love of musicals has nothing to do with sexuality but rather an affection for "larger than life" imagination brought to life through song. Some of us just enjoy a big production! I have straight friends that enjoy musicals (tend to be emotional, romantic, dreamy types) and I have gay friends that don't care for them at all (they are more pragmatic logical, thinkers) So maybe it's more a personality thing... I will choose my showtunes though. Count me in that crowd.

• I can't stand gay men who try to project their personal non-masculine tastes to be the general taste of most or all gay dudes. They live to defame regular and mainstream bi and gay men by reinforcing antiquated stereotypes. And they get upset with men want nothing to do with them.

• LOTS of elder straight guys love musicals, Barbra Streisand and so forth. Don Draper probably saw Cabaret in 1967 and enjoyed it. It wasn't until Broadway musical was renamed "show tunes" that straight guys got suspicious. The various Tony Award recipients thanked their "lover." Broadway musicals were now openly gay.