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Social Issues of Rent

Discussion
Oct 4, 2009
by: Jess Gaffney
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At a school assembly last week, the cast of the upcoming musical performed a song in order to promote their show.  The musical that was chosen to be performed this year is Rent.  I think anyone would agree that they are a talented group of individuals who have been working very hard in preparation of opening night, coming up in a few short weeks.  If the whole performance is up to the standards of the song they sang at the assembly, then it is going to be an amazing show.  However, there are members of the community who are opposed to it, because of the controversial subject matter.  It tells the story of a group of artists and musicians living in New York City, struggling with poverty, drugs, and AIDS.  Currently there is a blog for people who think it is too inappropriate for a high school setting.

... by having teenagers perform Rent, a Broadway musical that wallows in corruption and depravity, as part of a campaign to mainstream homosexuality among youth. Appallingly, it will be staged by Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City. We've got our backs to the wall if kids aren't safe from degenerate brainwashing at a Catholic school in conservative Utah.

Over the weekend the cast and crew were to participate in an AIDS Foundation event in hopes of generating publicity. Needless to say, anyone who really wanted to fight AIDS would stop encouraging children to experiment with homosexuality.

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/09/schools_still_s.html

The part I want to point out is in the first sentence, where it says performing Rent is "part of a campaign to mainstream homosexuality among youth."  The rest of the blog contains countless derogatory statements towards homosexuals, along with arguments for why homosexuality is inherently wrong and sinful.  One person even explains that this kind of exposure is the reason they home school their kids.  I think this kind of opposition is excessive.  By performing Rent, the school is not promoting and encouraging homosexuality.  Someone else commented that we were "a bunch of left wing propaganda artists."  Again, I would disagree.  We are raising awareness of certain social issues that exist.  It would be ignorant to go through life pretending otherwise, and I think high schoolers are mature enough to decide for themselves what they think of certain issues without being brainwashed.  if you don't think you can handle the reality and the mature themes, don't go see the musical. 

 

 

Comments

 Jess,   This is

Submitted by Jakegarcia23 on Sun, 2009-10-04 14:46.

 Jess,

 

This is completely and utterly ridiculous.  As a member of Rent myself, I can easily say that none of the themes in the show are even remotely related to "mainstreaming."  By stating that we are "mainstreaming" AIDs and "promoting" homosexuality, they are then also stating we are "mainstreaming" homelessness or "promoting" drug abuse. 

I completely agree with your last paragraph, in that "we are raising awareness of certain social issues that exist."  Rent is a musical masterpiece and regarded as one the greatest musicals of all time.  If that alone is not reason enough to perform it, then it is also to help fight these causes by at least making people socially aware of what they are surrounded by in our world. 

Thank you for displaying this post, as now I am overwhelmingly enraged by the sheer stupidity and ignorance of some people.

-Jake. 

 Jess- I liked your post

Submitted by emwelch21 on Sun, 2009-10-04 18:26.

 Jess-

I liked your post on rent because you noted how our school is being criticized for putting on this performance. While it doesn't surprise me that we are getting negative publicity, because after all, we do live on Utah, I was a little shocked at the quote you posted above. The fact that people thing we are "mainstreaming" homosexuality, is pretty outrageous. I agree with you, that by putting on this play we are simply acknowledging that these issues of poverty, aids, discrimination, etc exist in our world today. I liked your sentence, "If you don't think you can handle the reality and the mature themes, don't go see the musical," because we are by no means impressing the musical upon the community. People do not have to support if they don't want to. 

jess- As a cast member, I

Submitted by Cricket on Sun, 2009-10-04 20:05.

jess-

As a cast member, I first would like to thank you for your compliment on our performance last friday. I thought it was interesting of our principal to bring up this blog and the negative press we have been receiving. It's interesting the amount of 'spin' people have been creating out of this situtation. Moonbattery is a very extreme right-winged blog, the average person is not going to be reading this blog and to the average person, this blog seemed very outlandish and not very intelligent. It does not represent the majority of the population.

As much as I would love this negative attention so we could all prove them wrong and get a lot of pity sympathy, it wouldn't be fair to ignore all the positive feedback from the community we have received thus far.

Thank you for bringing this us Jess. The cast and crew really do appreciate the discussion that has sparked in the community and look forward to spreading the true message of Rent.

 

-cricket

Franky its ridiculous to

Submitted by JohnSargeant on Sun, 2009-10-04 23:40.

Franky its ridiculous to suppose a musical featuring homosexuality promotes homosexuality  anymore than a musical promoting straight people promotes being straight. The show is only meant to be a portray a certain aspect of life, admittedly focusing on the life of a few gay men with aids but that doesn't constitue incouraging homosexuality. Its amazing that people freak out about this. Mostly the bibles fault of course...

 As a current cast member

Submitted by johnhum on Mon, 2009-10-05 01:58.

 As a current cast member of RENT I would like to say that these statements are infuriating, and I agree with you completely when you say "we are raising awareness of certain social issues that exist." Many people, especially in the community we live in would like to turn a blind eye to the social material presented by this show, but these situations do exist and ignorance of these social matters will only cause people like the characters in the show to suffer from people's ignorance.

Dear Jess,     I was

Submitted by parkermjmchs on Mon, 2009-10-05 02:49.

Dear Jess,

 

 
I was impressed with your article because until I read it, I had no idea that little old Judge Memorial had such an infamous drama department. "A Catholic conservative school in conservative Utah" personally seems the best place to be showing RENT; it emphasizes that in a school with excellent values in a state where such values are highly important, RENT is still being performed - meaning that the performance must in  some way uphold and promote these same values. I saw the movie version of this quite a few years ago, and although it's not the same as the musical on Broadway or even here at Judge, I still felt as if it was entirely appropriate for a mature audience. The bloggers on this website that you have quoted obviously don't fall into this category. Ignorance is a sign of immaturity, and both run rampant in the aforementioned quote; the blog expresses such rightist views, however, that this seems like it must (hopefully) be a minority opinion, at least with respect to those in contact with the Judge community.
    Your ending sentence stood out for me as the most important idea, as it always should be, that if someone doesn't like something they don't have to see it! There is no captive audience here, and those that do attend don't need protection from naive Utahn conservatives! I despise those who are so narrow-minded as to put upon others their own faulty, distorted beliefs and standards. RENT, looking beyond even its message of awareness and stark reality, is a play with beautiful artistic elements and songs that speak far beyond the stage and highlight the essence of the art of drama.
    Furthermore, in response to the gay issue, my family has a personal connection with AIDS and homosexuality, and neither one of them is a sin - AIDS isn't even strictly a homosexual disease! Regardless of whether or not it is a life choice or an intrinsic quality from birth, it is a real-life situation that honestly should have no more controversy attached than any other life choice. I don't want to get on a soap-box about anti-gay viewpoints, but I would like to point out that even if we were promoting homosexuality as appropriate, what is so wrong about that?
    Regardless, the play is art not propaganda, and as for anyone who thinks differently - their presence will not be missed at the performance of what is sure to be yet another fine production from our school.
    Thanks for posting this - you picked a great issue that speaks both to local and global communites, and I look forward to your other writings!