Sweeney Todd Musical Analysis

Disney has faced a large amount of criticism from critics over the tropes and stereotypes that it portrays in its animated films. This is not a recent event however. One of Disney’s most notorious and controversial films, Song of The South, was released in 1946. Song of the South, set during the Reconstruction Era, focuses on a young boy named Johnny who learns that his parents will being living apart for an unknown amount of time, moves to a plantation in Georgia, while his father continues to live in Atlanta. Depressed and confused over the recent events Johnny decides to run away to Atlanta, but is drawn to the voices of Uncle Remus, an ex-slave living on the plantation, telling stories of Br’er Rabbit. Although it is implied that the African American workers are no longer Johnny’s family property, the black characters are still wholly subservient and are happy to be so. James Baskett plays Uncle Remus as a blissfully, happy companion ready to please. Due to this “magical negro” trope, the characters’ ridiculously stereotypical voices, and the unrealistic happy and joyful relationship between the white landowners and their black help, Song of The South, is one of Disney’s most offensive, racist, and fictitious film. Disney’s portrayal of Uncle Remus is his veiled justification of the mistreatment that minorities received before and after the Reconstruction Era.

This song represents the racism throughout the novel and the social hierarchy. In Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” a major subject discussed during the novel is racism, and in the song above the same subject is being discussed. In the song it talks about how white people have a privilege over black people, one of the examples used in the song is; “Hip hop started off in a block that I’ve never been to, to counteract a struggle I’ve never even been through.” This is saying white rappers didn’t start off where black rappers did and at they have not had to go through the same struggles at the beginning. Comparing this to the novel when Tom Robinson is on trial, all of the evidence proves he is innocent and that he has done nothing but go

“And the band started playing one of those really slow songs, like “Stairway to Heaven” or “Freebird” that probably have really great lyrics or something but the song itself just is awful-just awful. Then this real phony guy, with the hair all slicked back on the top of his head stood up with the Sax and did a solo. I almost died. I mean, almost completely died right there. It had to be the cheesiest solo I had ever heard. I mean he was swaying back and forth and he closed his eyes like he was really getting into it and all, but it was the fakest thing you ever heard. It was like something out of a bad Howard Johnson’s. I swear, he must record Muzak for a living or drive

In 1941 Rodgers was approached by the Theatre Guild to write a musical version of a show they had previously commissioned, Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs. Rodgers took the show to Oscar Hammerstein II after his previous partner Lorenz Hart turned the project down. They hired Agnes De Mille to choreograph this dance heavy show, with seventeen to twenty minute ballet and they were off to the races. Oklahoma! Premiered in 1943 and changed the face of musicals forever. After Oklahoma! composers and lyricists were no longer seen as just songwriters, but as contributors to the dramatic action. Each song they wrote now was integral to developing characters. Oklahoma! opened to rave reviews and is still a gem in the world of musical theatre. It

servant Uncle Remus (Weinman). Song of the South has never been released in North America and is no longer shown on television due to its use of offensive racial stereotypes regarding African Americans and racist language (Weinman). Uncle Remis the films protagonist lives on a plantation in what resembles the post-civil war period, although Disney never reveals the actual time period. Uncle Remis and all the ex-slaves in the film speak pidgin dialect or what some refer to as slave dialect a type of speech commonly associated with the slaves whom were not allowed to be educated and speak formally (Weinman).

“White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.” Sunday in the Park with George, a musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, is a very curious musical indeed. The first and second act are separated by a century, the protagonist manages to control the entirety of the show, from the way the story flows, the style, even down to the arrangement of the set pieces. The show transcends a traditional musical in the way it tackles a very specific issue, that of the artist’s struggle to connect to the rest of the world. It has been argued that this show is completed in its first act, but that is actually not the case. Those that argue that the show is complete after the first

In the “Ballad of Birmingham,” by Dudley Randall conveys the theme that innocence cannot always be protected from the unforgiving hands of racism. Initially, the young girl asks her mother to go to a freedom mach but her mother explains, “No, baby, no, you may not go,/ for the dogs are fierce and wild,” (5-6). The word “baby” is a wonderful exemplar of diction, proving that the girl must be protected. Randall uses a metaphor comparing dogs to the police for the cops were harsh and relentless to any protester in the 1960’s which is no such place for a child. To demonstrate the purity of the child, the girl gets ready to sing in the children's’ choir, “Drawn white gloves on her small brown hands and white shoes on her feet,” (19-20). The imagery

This essay is a comparison of two chosen songs one being from Sir Andrew Lloyd- Webber’s “Music of the Night from the musical “The Phantom of the Opera” and the other being “Defying Gravity” from Stephen Schwartz’s musical “Wicked”. These play rights are unique in that they portray different stories to their audiences musically as each song carries its own emotion and the music and lyrics enhances its portrayal. Webber Shows the Phantom’s

On October 6, 2016 while traveling to Manhattan on the number two train, two gentlemen came on the train and started to sing several songs. Train performance has been a way of life in New York for almost as long as there have been trains. This is a way of living for people who have a difficult time finding a job on Broadway or for some who is just trying to make a quick change. It has become an unofficial entertainment center, in which a many sings, dance and other daily performances. This I took the time out to actually pay any attention to the train live performance. As I know I had a paper due for my music class.

Desire, love, marriage and violence was there in "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams. This movie is talking about a women named stella who is married to a man named Stanley. Stanley was abusing his wife Stella, he was trying her badly and hits her always but she still with hem. Even when he hits her when she was pregnant. Moreover, Stanley was very crazy like he was mentally ill because of his madness.

Also, the comic operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan (1871-1896) were clever, tuneful and perfectly created – prompting new models of dramatic generation. After Gilbert and Sullivan, the performance center in Britain and the United States was re-characterized – first by impersonation, at that point by development. The best transformation in the American melodic venue up to that time came in 1927 with Show Boat, by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern. Here we go to a totally new sort - the musical play as recognized from musical parody. Finally, came the joining of song, comicality and creative production numbers into a solitary and inseparable imaginative element. Here, at last, was a production with a predictable and trustworthy story line, dependable ambiance, and three-dimensional

The Rocky Horror Show began as more of a hobby than anything else; it was just something that creator Richard O’Brien concocted as a side project while he was going through a transitional period between acting jobs O’Brien was born in England in 1942, but was raised primarily in New Zealand, where he dropped out of school at the age of fifteen and developed an affinity for the B-horror films and the science fiction features of the time, which was his first glimpse into the world of theatre, and he was drawn in immediately.

I recently saw the movie To Kill a Mockingbird. I honestly really enjoyed the film and would recommend it to a friend.

Shakespeare likely wrote Macbeth in the early 17th century. Macbeth is a character driven play that emphasises the attributes of the characters in the play. The newest adaption was directed by Justin Kurzel, which showed a more realistic and brutal Macbeth. Kurzel kept true to most of the source material, but changed a few scenes to make Macbeth a darker and scarier person. In this adaptation Kurzel brings Macbeths brutality to another level compared to the play. He does this by showing the escalation of his tyranny and brutal nature. The key parts of the film that shows this is the murder of Duncan, his hallucination on the news of Banquo and the execution of Macduffs family.

Analyzing the worldviews that were portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof was a little unsettling. It had never occurred to me to watch a movie with a critical eye, focused on the worldview presented and not just on the entertainment quality of the film. I have viewed this movie several times before. I enjoyed the musical numbers and the characters, however, I never considered the deeper meaning of the film until I watched it again for this assignment.