Why do straight guys hate musicals?

Because it's very fem and very gay. In my grandparents generation, there wasn't as much of an awareness of gayness as there is now. Camp was just fun and straight men could enjoy it without facing a stigma. Now, it's unpopular with men who like women who don't want to be seen as men who like men. That may change with the Zers and the ones after them, but for now. it's still not a "guy's guy" thing to like.

Straight son. Fire-fighter EMT. Loves musicals, performed in them in high school and still goes to see them.

What are you talking about, OP? We LOVE them!

Even I, an effy fag, hate musicals. People can just communicate by talking normally!!!

OP is a moronic generalizing twat.

Just has to be the right musical. All my straight guy friends loved Book of Mormon. It's had the type of humor which appealed to them.

A lot of musicals are more aimed for the sensibilities of women and gay men.

They're very mannered, much like kung fu movies: just as kung fu movies depend on the conceit that lots and lots of people are trained in fancy balletic martial arts, musicals depend on the conceit that have you feel strongly about something you will burst into song and dance. I can't stand kung fu movies, but I like musicals,.

A lot is internalized homophobia and also lack of exposure. I know a few straight guys who saw one musical they didn't like and decided all musicals weren't for them. I'm always glad I was part of a family that went to the theater because if my only exposure to musicals as a kid/teen had been seeing Les Mis on an 8th grade trip to NY I'd probably hate them too.

I think they actually do like them but it's just too associated with being gay.

There are enough straight guys in theater these days that would indicate it's not impossible there are more then we know about.

Because they're insecure. Straight men think it's unmanly to openly enjoy anything that doesn't involve violence or boobies.

Men, aka str8 guys, want to see hot young stinkfish, not geriatrics (i.e., fish over 30). Thus musicals do not appeal to them.

(Some) gay men seem to have had a bad reaction to a recent and successful movie musical, too, judging from the reception it gets here.

Why do you assume all gays like musicals? I for one hate them too. They’re cheesy and stupid.

Maybe if there had been better ones over the last 40 years or so, there wouldn’t be as many musical haters as there are now.

I'm queer as a three dollar bill, love musicals and particularly love Hello, Dolly! But I DETEST Streisand's abomination of a film version and can easily understand someone deciding they hate musicals after seeing it.

I love the movie. I hate the Q-word and anyone who uses it. So long, R14!

Straight men hate musicals because they haven't seen Follies.

If it’s violence they want, most Angela Lansbury musicals tend to fit the bill, even the Disney ones.

Straight men hate musicals because musicals touch on ones emotions. Any good musical makes the audience feel something deeply emotional. Also, most musicals, until recently, are love stories; so, there is kind of a double whammy.

That’s why I don’t understand how musicals became a gay stereotype when so many of them are about heterosexual romances. If anything, I thought it was a Jewish thing!

Streisand gives a sensational performance in Dolly. She's in glorious voice and who would have thought somebody could do that with the role? Nobody but nobody has ever given an example of who could have done the role on film at that time. Channing? We love her but even we admit that Carol and Todd AO would be a recipe for disaster.

Babs and the spectacular production are what give the film its reason for existing despite Crawford doing everything he can to sink it.

People who hate musicals are people who CAN'T SING, period. They hate any sort of music except maybe extreme heavy metal and rap.

It’s a classic compared to LucyMAME.

I know a number of straight older men who love musicals. They were an integral part of being a NYer. Now that they’re targeted to tourists to make the biggest buck for producers, it’s not part of NY’s growing up culture

Straight men hate musicals because music is an expression of emotion, especially music that tells a story, and straight men are taught that expressing emotions makes them less of a man.

I thought if a straight man went on a date to a musical, the women had to blow him as a reward?

R19,

1. The female lead is more important than the male lead. . Very few musicals really have a male lead. In nearly every R&H musical, with the exception of The King & I, the female lead is more important than the male. there are exceptions: The Music Man, Man of La Mancha, Oliver!, Promises, Promises, How to Succeed, but the majority: Mame, Hello Dolly, Applause, Bells are Ringing, Gypsy, The Boyfriend, Showboat, Anything Goes, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, South Pacific, Sweet Charity, etc. have female leads that are more front and center than the men.

2. Musicals do tend to be about glitz, sequins, and rhinestones. Less so now that it is all about computer operated sets, but in the heyday, it was all bout the costumes.

3. Musicals tend to have a lot of dancing. For over a century, there has been a real stigma to being a chorus boy. Male dancers have been considered gay, gay, gay.

I post about my broadway loving husband & how we see everything. It’s not just straight boys that hate musicals.

I am a gay guy and I fucking HATE musicals. I feel asleep during Phantom of The Opera on Broadway as a kid in 90's. I did dig the song "Masquerade" though...

I despise musicals. I did enjoy the film Annie from 1982!

I dislike musicals because they're stupid and usually the talent sucks. I can enjoy a screen musical if there's great talent, or in the theater, great music. But is rare to get either of those.

Even though they are dragged to musicals by their gf or wife, they seem to enjoy seeing the show from what I've observed. For the record, I've seen over 50 musicals.

R4 same here. Except, The Sound of Music, but I think that’s evocative of my childhood and nice memories.

The only musicals I really like are Sondheim musicals, but that's because those ones are actually smart and well written.

What about Hamilton? I think there are a handful of musicals that have enough crossover appeal that even some straight men can enjoy them. My dad loved A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Little Shop of Horrors, the Wizard of Oz, etc. Some others that seem like they'd appeal more or equally to straights would be Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jersey Boys, and all those "rock operas" like The Who's Tommy.

Straight married men LOVE Phantom of the Opera

I'm gay and I don't like musicals, I find them boring.

Their mother took them to see Cats as a child. Would turn off anyone.

Seriously, they just aren't exposed to it unless they grew up in a Metropolitan area. Or had parents that watch with them during the holidays when all the musicals would start coming on. As an adult it's hard to just accept someone stopping in the middle of something and just starting to sing and dance.

I have a straight friend who has done musicals his entire career. He's an amazing singer, actor, comedian. He's also quite masculine and has always been in demand. Sorry to ruin the stereotype, there ARE straight men who love musicals.

Truly, musicals are so GAY. I hate them.

Maybe it's because gayness is so open now but straight men enjoyed musicals at one time almost as much as women. From Fred and Ginger to the R and H musicals it was a popular genre. My father love 42nd Street and South Pacific.

Now they are one offs like Grease and Hamilton.

R2 I don't believe you.

I have known many straight men who loved ballet, musicals , and drag shows. Straight men be well cultured too. Stop thinking they are all frat boy muscle heads.

Because there aren't any car chases, explosions or gun fights.

I hate musicals too. The only one I could ever stomach is West Side Story. Musicals for me are tacky. Twee. Boring. Second hand embarrassement inducing, I finally tried to watch ' the sound of music ' on TV last summer and I was shocked at how bad it was. It's seems to be an artform for old ladies of all sexes. I can barely watch a clip of Gene Kelly dancing in a tight pirate outfit because he's still sexy, but Fred Astaire makes me cringe big time. He really makes me feel very uncomfortable. It's very effeminate. I am pretty sure that most straight american males find them downright disgusting, and I sort of understand why. How can you not understand why OP ?

Frenchie is an FTM who still has a vagina.

^ Oh, dear.

another gay guy who fucking HATES musicals. so stupid. a 40 minute song about going up the stairs and sitting at your desk, making absolutely no sense at all. not entertaining at all, rather an endurance test. so garish and tasteless, not art - like some over done Italian opera....masturbating exercise of some self-congratulatory talentless asshole - like the emperor has no clothes.....

Homophobic het guys are still not going to fuck you, R46, no matter how much you pander to their lack of taste.

Most straight guys do no really spend a lot of time thinking about musicals OP

Or whether or not they like or dislike them.

There used to be an entire genre for straight men: the tired businessman's show. Tits and ass, tons of scantily-clad show girls. Simple plots, lots of singing and jiggly dancing. Basically it was eye candy, with more flesh than he could see on TV or at the movies. Think Oh, Captain!

Porn pretty much killed that.

Because most straight men have no taste.

Agreed. If they had any taste whatsoever, they would be gay.

Then again, I’ve met some gay men with horrific taste. Some of them brag about it in this very thread. I’ve found that people who don’t like musicals tend to be very liberal minded and nasty, unpleasant people in reality.

Who was it who went to see an out of town preview of the original Oklahoma! and wired back to New York "No legs, no jokes, no chance"?

Liberal = literal

I'm as gay as a goose, and the most expensive naps I've ever taken are Broadway musicals my friend used to drag me to with him. "You'll like this one, I'm sure of it." Not a one of them did I care for. Plays, on the other hand, I can sit through ad nauseam.

Why do straight guys hate musicals?

Because heterosexuality is a deviant lifestyle, that’s why.

Because musicals are all about women crying about their trivial problems. Why would any straight man be interested in that? I'm gay and I'm not even interested in that.

Maybe if at intermission there were sports they would come?

My straight married friend who I blew a couple of times adores Broadway musicals.

I have friends who really, really dislike musicals. It makes me quite sad given how happy musicals can make me. I also have straight female friends who don't like to watch musicals, even movie musicals.

The self-loathing is strong in here.

I don’t enjoy anything campy or corny. Musicals are very hokey and corny to me. Not my thing

Most gay dudes under 45 today despise musicals or have no interest in them. It’s an older effeminate gay thing

What's the musical with the guy taking 40 minutes to go upstairs to his desk? Must be a recent one.

[Quote] My straight married friend [bold] who I blew a couple of times [/bold]

Not really that "straight" then, now is he?

Grease and Xanadu I ❤️

Complaining about “effeminacy” is even more dated.

I’m GAY, and I tend to hate musicals. Particularly modern, tuneless ones like Rent or Wicked.

It’s just terrible music.

Can't stand singing / dancing / musical umbers in movies or on TV.

Or musical numbers.

I forgot about "Bollywood" which is an abomination.

Straight men don't even like plays, so why should they like plays with "dancing fairies"?

Why does it have to be straight? I’m a very gay man and I never ever like musicals or plays

I know. oP is projecting his preferences on all gay men. Stop 🛑

Something with “Whorehouse” in the title might attract their attention

[quote] I’m GAY, and I tend to hate musicals. Particularly modern, tuneless ones like Rent or Wicked. It’s just terrible music.

I prefer the old school Rodgers and Hammerstein/Lerner & Loewe/Frank Loesser/Bock & Harnick/Jerry Herman/Kander & Ebb types, too. When I think of a "showtune," I usually think of it a synthesis between classical music, opera, and jazz. Except for [italic]Hair, Grease,[/italic] and [italic]Hairspray[/italic], most rock musicals have fallen flat. I don't even consider rap music or a Black invention; the Germans invented sprechgesang talk-singing centuries earlier before Rex Harrison popularized them in [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic].

Yet another gay here not into musicals at all. My boyfriend ihates them. And we're both over 45 too.

R21 may sort of have a point - I cant sing either, although I do like a fairly wide range of music, not including rap

Cause they suck ass.

Last night we were very depressed but this clip of the Fabulous Helen Lawson lifted us right up!

Whom I blew. WHOM.

[quote]...But I DETEST Streisand's abomination of a film version....

R14 is the kind of person who drives someone like Streisand to try to control every aspect of production. If she's going to get blamed, as R14 has done, for every shoddy aspect of "Hello, Dolly!," how can she not speak up?

She didn't produce this film. She didn't direct it. She didn't design it. She didn't elect to shoot half of the exteriors in Southern California under impossibly harsh sunlight. She didn't create the heavy, leaden, and uninventive choreography. She showed up. Did her scenes. And she sang that score to the heavens.

People blame Lucy for MAME and they blame Barbra for DOLLY. Both properties are old-fashioned and I mean really, really, really OLD, making them entirely out of step with their times. But you can't blame Lucy or Barbra for that. They were both over-produced, but these two ladies were not the producers. Or directors.

They are two great talents not entirely well cast in the title roles of badly produced film musicals. They should not be blamed for the stacks and stacks of mistakes made by others on the film.

They hate musicals because the songs don't sound like Black Sabbath.

Most of my friends, gay or straight, are fine with old school musicals like Sound of Music, Grease, Fiddler, ByeBye Birdie--the sort of thing that often winds up being the school play in high school. Not huge fans, but no threats to commit suicide if forced to watch them.

Newer musicals, OTOH. Les Miz in particular is often cited as a particular form of torture.

Not every gay man loves musicals.

I find them sheer torture.

I'm Stray.

I hate musicals and Black Sabbath.

Not only straights. I like very few and loathe most of them.

Musicals just don’t appeal to me. I always associate them with gushing over the top types of performers.I lived in London for years, and only ever went to two musicals because my boyfriend at the time spent a lot of money getting good seats. I prefer plays.

What I really don’t like is the sort of singing that Adele Nazeem/Idina Menzel does. It sounds very loud and harsh and unpleasant to my ears. I don’t know if there’s a name for that style but it seems to be what you get with most musicals these days.

"Showtune" is used much more widely today as compared to 30 years ago, and it's meant to have a pejorative tinge to it. Pejorative as in silly and GAY. Those gays just loooove showtunes.

R81, a lot of people "blamed" Streisand for everything wrong with Hello Dolly because they believed she "stole" the role from Carol Channing. Even if they never saw the play, the press was forever telling everyone that this upstart thought her shit didn't stink once she had reached superstardom. That's true of course, and Streisand was an idiot for taking the role imho, however, she didn't cast herself.

Btw, the Yonkers train scenes in Hello Dolly were filmed in Garrison NY, upstate, not in "sunny California."

Humans don't sing to each other when they communicate and they don't talk in rhymes either. So fuck musicals and Shakespeare. Boring shit.

If this is the discussion on Broadway musicals, I’d hare to see the ones bashing Opera.

So glad to see so many rebuking OP for erroneously assuming gay men like musicals

I’m a gay and I really dislike musicals. My ex was obsessed by them which probably fuelled my hatred.

I once dated a guy who had two cats named Mack and Mabel. Major show queen.

Don’t date guys with cats

R93 Hatred for musicals or for your ex?

It’s the hypercompetitive nature of US males. Somebody presents a work of skill and we’re supposedly to judge it favorably enough to enjoy it.

Huh?

Truthfully, the entire concept of musicals is inane. While I used to love them as a gayling, constantly playing the music and reading books about musicals, as I’ve gotten older, the thrill has gone as I’ve revisited some and seen how bad they really were

I love Streisand in Hello, Dolly! And Lucille Ball in Mame.

There, DL, I said it.

R90: "Humans don't sing to each other when they communicate and they don't talk in rhymes either. So fuck musicals and Shakespeare. Boring shit."

So, If people don't do it naturally, it's just boring shit? Playing a musical instrument, reading, writing, cooking, building, speaking other languages -It's all shit, right? I wouldn't argue that you have to be super intelligent to enjoy art or the arts -But R90 shows us you won't be able to enjoy it if you're a fucking idiot. There's a reason why most of us find a Beethoven symphony more enjoyable than someone banging two rocks together.

[quote] So glad to see so many rebuking OP for erroneously assuming gay men like musicals

I'm OP and the only erroneous assumption is what you just wrote. I never mentioned gays in my post nor do I assume they all like musicals. I asked only about straight men.

R89 - All of the NYC exteriors in Hello Dolly were filmed on a massive "broadway" set built on the 20th Century-Fox lot in California. Some of the exteriors still exist.

R89... thank God DL wasn't around at the height of that travesty. We'd still be hissing about it

I know, darling R103. That set cost a bulk of the budget and was written about ad nauseam. Read what I wrote again, the YONKERS TRAIN SCENES were filmed in Garrison NY. At what is an actual train stop on the Hudson commuter rail line.

I’m a gay man and I hate musicals:

1. Musical vocal styling in musicals , which involves the vowel being elongated, is like nails on chalkboard.

2. The cheesy and corny storylines.

3. The “LIKE ME LIKE ME LIKE ME” aspect to the performers is really a turn off.

4. The audience is generally repulsive.

Apparently straight men have an extreme aversion to “I want” songs.

[quote] The audience is generally repulsive.

Lol? What?

You can’t be serious. You must know the answer to this. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

And they can’t get laid after going to an event like this. End of story.

There needs to be a middle finger button for all the Dolly haters and musical haters here.

Good lord you're pedantic R89 - your original wording makes it seem like you were refuting ANY of the exteriors were shot in "Sunny California" -- so suck it.

The musical haters in this thread are so "Pick Me"-ish

DLers seem to think hating musicals will make straight men more likely to run into their waiting, flabby arms.

LOL at thinking that straight guys are even aware the musicals are perceived to be "gay"

If they do think of them as being "for" anyone, it's women, as in "when we went to New York, I agreed to go see 'Wicked" and Jane agreed to go to a Yankees game."

Some of you old fucks are so out of touch. You do know that straight men are aware of gay men and gay culture, right? They know all the stereotypes. So yes, they do think musicals are gay. Although I suppose you wouldn't know that, considering you probably haven't interacted with a straight man since Follies was Broadway's hottest musical.

[quote]DLers seem to think hating musicals will make straight men more likely to run into their waiting, flabby arms.

Wrong. Many of us under 40 simply think musicals are dated and lame and aren’t interested in them. They’re from another generation. It’s stupid to watch a movie when all of the sudden the characters bust into song and dance out of nowhere.

[quote]R4 Even I, an effy fag, hate musicals. People can just communicate by talking normally!!!

But does it sound this good?

PS: [italic]Burn in hell ! !

R111 = limited reading comprehension, Trump supporter

WE are the reason straight men don't like musical theater.

No, WE are the reason.

There’s lots of romance and emotion, which is why we gays love them. Tragedy! We drink that milkshake. We drink it up!

Straight guys don’t want to talk about their feelings. They don’t want to listen to other people talk about theirs. Even if it’s done through song. Correction: ESPECIALLY if it’s done through song.

They want broad comedy, heroic action, and satisfying revenge.

You're stereotyping, OP. My brother enjoys musicals and even opera. He says that a couple of men he works with attend both at least semi-regularly with their wives/girlfriends.

The only outdoor scenes in HD filmed in CA were on 14th Street. All the Yonker's scenes were filmed in NY State. So you fucked up not knowing what the hell you were looking at.

I'm pretty fucking gay and I hate musicals. They're stupid.

If you hate musical theater you have no right to speak to anybody about anything ever. It's like you can't even read.

My father loves musicals and the arts in general. He's straight, but doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks of him or his interests. He likes what he likes.

Granted, he can't keep up with DL in terms of theater gossip, but he was the one to introduce me to West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and other musicals.

My mother thinks they are corny and cannot tolerate whimsy.

R125 get it together, old fem queen.

[quote] If you hate musical theater you have no right to speak to anybody about anything ever. It's like you can't even read.

If you like musical theatre you can't be taken seriously. It's like you're maintaining a tradition of viewing something rather than being authentically interested and sincerely wanting to see it.

So is it clear now, only insecure straight men hate musicals?

Yes, dizzy queen ^

Not everyone can stand a lot of overacting and oversinging of mostly bad songs by very annoying voices.

R127 Your idiocy gives you no right to live.

R128 Write that in your first language. Google translate will make better sense of it in English.

With out-there exceptions such as Pacific Overtures, musicals are about relationships, OP.

Walk up to a straight guy and say you want to talk about relationships, and watch him disappear in a puff of smoke.

Gramps is riled up at r132

We know that you’re trolling, because nobody could be that stupid.

The "I'm gay and I HATE musicals!!! They're so silly and fruity!!!" people in this thread are trying so damned hard to convince us they aren't like other gays, they're different. Would you girls like a cookie to enjoy up their on your high horse?

Wow, I used the wrong there. I'm red-faced. Yikes, way to ruin a perfectly good pissy post.

Because straight boys wasted their time playing baseball and thinking about girls and then not getting the girl. So by the time they were old enough to enjoy the theatre dahling, they had no basis, no foundation for the legitimate stage. It's quite tragic.

Straight men hate musicals for the same reason they hate soap operas. Dramas aren't their thing. I know that the people here seem to think that not all straight guys love Nascar and shit like that, which is true, but even the straight guys that aren't frat boy-ish don't enjoy emotional dramas. Straight men are morons, they have the attention spans of goldfish. Stories that focus on introspection and dealing with the problems of ordinary people (usually women) don't interest them.

You're right to say that not all straight men love shit like The Fast and The Furious, but you're wrong if you think all straight men aren't morons who get bored by musicals like Company or Gypsy.

[quote] A lot is internalized homophobia and also lack of exposure.

Is it like if you don't find femme gays sexy you're automatically homophobic? Not liking musicals has nothing to do with homophobia. I'm gay and I practically hate most of them because they're basically silly and boring as hellp. I've always disliked them, maybe because when I was a kid in the 80s music videos started happening and next to them musicals were just something ancient and laughable. I did enjoy Fame the TV show, though, but I'm not sure if it's even seen as a musical.

I was a kid in the 1980s and was less than impressed with music videos when I started watching old movie musicals and seeing them on screen. They're not even a new idea: there were such things as soundies in the 1930s and 1940s that took popular songs of the day and set them to film:

[quote] The "I'm gay and I HATE musicals!!! They're so silly and fruity!!!" people in this thread are trying so damned hard to convince us they aren't like other gays, they're different. Would you girls like a cookie to enjoy up their on your high horse?

An old fuck buddy had strict rules for all things gay men should and must be and do. It was exhausting to get scolded whenever I did something gay men don't normally do. Needless to say that friendship hasn't been active for quite some time now. Yes, there are gay people who can't stand musicals and they, we, don't do it just to piss you off or to pretend how special we are, we just don't fucking like musicals. Is that so hard to get? P

As a child we dreamed of a career 'on the boards'.

Alas, we soon discovered sizemeat/Miss Boozette, and Broadway lost a great star.

Why do effeminates try to make their interests and lifestyle definitive for all or most gay dudes?

R111 is correct.

R89 writes no better than he thinks and his thinking is obviously crippled by narcissism, immaturity, and a low IQ.

In any event, the wedding finale is not in Yonkers, nor filmed in Garrison. Anyone can tell from the view that Horace and Dolly got married at West Point.

New York State, duh, R144. Apparently you have not been following the thread.

Go back to your habitrail, R143

Because they are terrified musicals will turn them into flaming dick-loving homosexuals.

I actually know a really macho straight guy who used to love Les Miz. He would sing along in full voice whenever he was driving