Sep 30 2009
Glitz
Until Prior received his prophecy I wasn’t sure why we were reading Angels in America for this class. All I was picking up on was obnoxious Jews, a Mormon marriage built on Valium and lies (yes, let’s all make fun of the Christians…), saintly former drag queens and AIDS. Maybe this was the 90s and Kushner felt that we all needed to hear it, but to be honest I feel like I’ve been hearing this message ever since and ever louder. Was Angels in America the inspiration for Larson’s Rent?
Back to academics, I agree with Ariana in her assessment – though Angels in America fits within Quinby’s algorithm of doom, I do not consider it an Apocalypse. Not to deny the enormity of the death of a loved one, but it feels melodramatic to consider such a death an apocalypse. Even when stretched to the communal level (nearly everyone in the story is dying of AIDS), it is still not an apocalypse, rather a call to action.
For me, the play felt like the funeral for the glitzy drag queen with twenty professional Sicilian mourners – so over-the-top one forgets to cry. But I shouldn’t have expected much more after Kushner’s Munich, a film I once saw aptly shelved next to a cheap porno in a bodega.
Louis’ rambling, though it could be dismissed as the sad rant of a guilty Jew, about how there are no angels in America because “there is no [singular] spiritual past,” is a question that did leave me thinking. How do we reconcile our individual and communal choices with G-d when there are so damn many of us in this country? Though heaven is infinite, can it handle the vastness and variety of human psyches? Can it handle the neuroses of guilty Jews?
I read your original comment as much more condescending than I think you meant it, I’m sorry.
I agree that Revelation can be (and has been) seen as a call to action, written by and for a persecuted minority.
I was having trouble seeing AiA as the same type of call to action, in part because, as we agreed, the epidemic in AiA shouldn’t be considered an apocalypse on par with the one described in Revelation.
But Professor Quinby’s clarification in her most recent post, about how the narrative framework of the apocalypse story can be divorced from the apocalyptic myth and used independently, is a possibility I hadn’t considered.
My point wasn’t about similarities – though we’re reaching semantics now – rather that AiA could have been an inspiration for RENT, coming out just a few years before RENT and featuring many similarities. I also never said that such a connection diminishes the value of either – that was entirely your own idea.
Besides for ego-pleasure and the sheer joy of composition – I’m sure that Kushner wrote the play hoping that it would advance his cause.
Also, Prof Quinby brought up the point that Revelation was often a ‘call to action,’ and usually military action – making my original point moot.
I’m not denying the similarities between Rent and AiA, but I don’t see why that diminishes the value of either story. Just like there’s room in the Holocaust genre for a multitude of stories about similar places, people and situations, there’s room in the 90’s genre for more than one version of the story. Even with the glitz.
Also, I think you’re selling Angels a little short. It paints a much bigger picture of the era than Rent, especially through the Cohn/Reagan/Ethel Rosenberg storyline. The gay characters in Rent never wrestle with religion, either. If Kushner’s characters are more than a little stereotypical, “over the top,” cliched, maybe it’s because they’re meant to evoke America at its worst – a caricature that doesn’t deserve or demand a reader’s tears.
I just don’t see it as a call to action (As opposed to, say, Milk). Maybe a cry for help. But considering the straight world’s traditional intolerance and fear of homosexuality, especially during the height of the AIDS panic, is it realistic to think Kushner had real hope anyone outside the gay community would hear or respond?
A,
The parallels between RENT and AiA:
1. Both feature stories where the majority of the characters either have or have been intimately affected by AIDS. (Though I’m assuming you’re liking AIDS to the Holocaust in your critique, making this a moot point.)
2. Both feature minority drag queens who play the savior role/are super sassy, witty, and the moral compass.
3. Both are theater pieces that came out in the early 90s.
4. Both just love the glitz.
My first paragraph was more a reaction to the piece then a response, that came in paragraph # 2, which started with “back to academics…”
I ask you to get past your “first instinct” and think about the play’s depictions of Mormons, Jews, Gd and angels. This is where I felt Kuschner rankled.
“A call to action” meant a call to fight AIDS. The call is to anyone – politicians, citizens, men, women, gays and straights.
D
Daniel, your first paragraph rankles. My first instinct is to ask you, if you wonder whether Angels was the inspiration for Rent, do you also wonder if Night was the inspiration for Schindler’s List?
Also, despite our agreement that Angels is not an apocalypse story, I’m not sure what you mean by reclassifying it as “a call to action.” What group is Angels trying to mobilize, and what action is it telling them to take?
I wonder if Rabbi Chemelwitz is named for the city of Chelm. It would seem appropriate.