{"id":2687,"date":"2016-12-21T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T02:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ryangaffney.com\/wordpress\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2016-12-21T20:23:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T02:23:00","slug":"merry-christmas-the-characters-of-rent-are-horrible-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2016\/12\/merry-christmas-the-characters-of-rent-are-horrible-people.html","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas, The Characters of RENT are Horrible People!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Christmas, so I am rewatching a number of Old holiday favorites: Die Hard, First Blood, Elf, you now, the classics.

I happened upon RENT this year, which I watched and enjoyed in theatres when it first came out. It\u2019s a holiday musical about young people, alternative lifestyles, and telling Christians they are doing it wrong. So it\u2019s pretty much the total package as far as I\u2019m interested. Only trouble is, I\u2019m not as young as I used to be, the story made more sense this time, and these bold cultural rebels have started to seem a lot more like horrible people that deserve everything that\u2019s coming to them.<\/p>\n

Imma show you what I mean. <\/p>\n

First of all: The problem is not that a lot of the characters are queer. I\u2019m fine with that, I certainly don\u2019t think that liking members of the same sex means you deserve to die in poverty. Things like refusing to work, committing crimes, and being irresponsible in handling infectious diseases however to have a tendancy to make one poor and dead. <\/p>\n

Homosexuality has become a smokescreen for these characters. Anyone who criticises them just doesn;t understands, and is really homophobic. They do something horrible and then kiss, \u201cHey mister, she\u2019s my sister\u201d they respond to the shocked faces. \u201cOoooo\u201d the audience responds. Look at those bad judgemental peole who cannot appreciate love. Unfortunatley, I\u2019ve seen this attitude played out in real life too. <\/p>\n

The plot of the play begns with Mark and Roger, neither of which is gainfully employed but who nevertheless live on the lower east side. Mark is a filmmaker who has never made a film. Roger is a guitarist who hasn\u2019t played in a year. This arrangment is possible only because their former roommate Benny is the landlord and has allowed them to become a full year late on rent. They steal power and burn things indoors without a chimney, but they are mad that they might have to pay anything at all. He tells them that if they don\u2019t pay he \"Imagewill have to kick them out. They sing about how hard their life is for a while before resolving into a musical crecendo that they are not going to pay rent\u2026 ever. <\/p>\n

How is this okay? Who is okay with this? How are we as an audience supposed to expect and cheer for any resolution to this besides eviction? <\/p>\n

Enter Angel who kills Benny\u2019s dog for money, and uses that money to buy booze for everyone. He\u2019s therefore a hero and we all like him, but it\u2019s not kindness, he makes it clear in a long sont that he expects the favor to be returned \u201cToday for you, Tomarrow for me\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh and there is also a bi-girl who cheats on everyone while pretending to be monogamous. She is an \u201cactress\u201d who puts on disjointed and masterbatory shows that nobody would ever pay for tickets for. She is also mad at Benny because she wants the performance space rent-free just like the boys apartment and he won\u2019t give it to her. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that these characters have no moral code. It\u2019s just that their moral code is terrible and wrong. These characters identify the following things as immoral in the movie<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Expecting payment for services (with Benny obviously, but also the server at the cafe)<\/li>\n
  2. Accepting a paying job with artistic flexibility (this was called \u201cselling out\u201d and Mark felt guilty for it)<\/li>\n
  3. Ever not having sex with someone (Roger told Mimi \u201canother day\u201d and it was a big deal)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s worth noting concerning #3 that both Mimi and Roger had aids, neither knew about the other one, and neither told the other one they had it as a reason why whe might not want to have promiscous sex right now. This is not considered a valid excuse, and the Roger is very sorry he refused to infect what he thought was an innocent girl with a fatal disease, or contract a fatal disease from her. His bad. <\/p>\n

    And the strangest thing about all this, the strangest<\/strong> <\/em>thing is that Benny is right there as a member of the main cast, making all the sense in the world about how fucked up this all is, and serving as a foil to the horrible characters.<\/p>\n

    \n

    They make fun — yet I’m the one
    Attempting to do some good<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    This dude has a POINT!<\/p>\n

    I don\u2019t know how I ever watched this with a straight face.<\/p>\n

    Oh. And one last thing. There are 525960 <\/strong>minutes in a year. Can\u2019t these people do anything right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It\u2019s Christmas, so I am rewatching a number of Old holiday favorites: Die Hard, First Blood, Elf, you now, the classics. I happened upon RENT this year, which I watched and enjoyed in theatres when it first came out. It\u2019s a holiday musical about young people, alternative lifestyles, and telling Christians they are doing it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMerry Christmas, The Characters of RENT are Horrible People! - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2016\/12\/merry-christmas-the-characters-of-rent-are-horrible-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Merry Christmas, The Characters of RENT are Horrible People! - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s Christmas, so I am rewatching a number of Old holiday favorites: Die Hard, First Blood, Elf, you now, the classics. I happened upon RENT this year, which I watched and enjoyed in theatres when it first came out. It\u2019s a holiday musical about young people, alternative lifestyles, and telling Christians they are doing it…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2016\/12\/merry-christmas-the-characters-of-rent-are-horrible-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-22T02:23:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/66.media.tumblr.com\/9e292c924c89d9395ffe51229c1b6b5c\/tumblr_nvchxzGHnR1tbak2to3_1280.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rgaffney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Merry Christmas, The Characters of RENT are Horrible People! - A Fear of Whales","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2016\/12\/merry-christmas-the-characters-of-rent-are-horrible-people.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Merry Christmas, The Characters of RENT are Horrible People! - A Fear of Whales","og_description":"It\u2019s Christmas, so I am rewatching a number of Old holiday favorites: Die Hard, First Blood, Elf, you now, the classics. 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