Robert DuSold

If the idea of transformation is not the heart of Some Like It Hot, it is one of them. “The movie”—with its gangsters, its moonshine makers, its down-and-out jazz musicians, its struggling girl band, its lonesome heroine, its accidental cross-dressers, its unconventional millionaire—“seemed to me about people who are nonconformist in their nature,” says López. It was this realization that led him from the instinct that an adaptation would be a fool’s errand to an inclination that it could be something quite special and exciting. “I thought, Let’s take something that always had the patina of being vaguely queer and let’s queer it up and make it a celebration. Let’s make it about people who don’t fit into society and what they do in order to survive. It’s about rule breakers.” Billy Wilder just might agree.
— Read on www.vogue.com/article/some-like-it-hot-broadway

I’m gonna write more blogs I have decided, especially after deactivating my Twitter account because Elon Musk.

That will be my next one.

Anyway, I found this puff piece hawking “Some Like It Hot” interesting on several levels.

This may be a great show… I hope it is.

But, what it’s not is “Some Like It Hot”.

It’s taking the ingredients out of a can of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Soup, replacing them with something else… maybe meatless Chick’n, various other vegetables, less salt, broth made of ethically sourced, free range angel chick’ns and selling it as…

Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Soup

It’s branding. It’s using a brand to sell tickets.

Because I’ve adapted a documentary into a musical, I know it’s impossible to just throw the source material on a stage and add some songs and shiz.

It’s an incredibly detailed puzzle that’s put together with broad strokes and edits to make big picture points to honor the source.

But you gotta honor the source if you’re selling the soup… and it seems the creative team has decided that this film was “wrong in 1959”.. or something to that effect. I was born in 1959 and I was incapable as a baby to comment on what was wrong with a film then.. but , hey.

What are we left with other than co-opting a brand?

It seems to me, we are left with some piping hot identity soup.

That edict in theater still fascinates me… because I don’t think the movement or whatever the zeitgeist is has evolved much beyond navel gazing.

But, identity is now a pretty desperate draw to sell all sorts of soup… from “1775%” to this to lots of other disparate cans.

It’s living and dying by the identity sword and I don’t think it makes shows any better for the most part.

I guess what struck me about this Vogue piece is the Chunky Soup branding of real live non-binary actors and real live African American actors to entice audiences to see this show… almost as some sort of peace offering for ticket buyers throwing down money to see a show about 2 dudes in drag and a sexpot singer.

It’s almost like an apology… which is weird.

I guess the question is.. should we care?

I don’t need to know anyone’s gender status or their specific ethnicity to buy a ticket to a show… I’d love to see some remarkable actors in a great show… no matter who they are.

That’s it. That is it.

And, “queering it up” thrown around by a gay person doesn’t give queer any more validity in my opinion.

We are now tasked with embracing history and erasing it at the same time… and I doubt if tinkering with the decade of “Some Like It Hot” is going to satisfy either.

But identity politics is a tricky sales pitch.. because it inevitably comes full circle and reveals the flaws in ideology that strike at the bottom line.. which is selling tickets.

The dug in identity-truffle seekers will find all sorts of stuff to dig up and complain about regardless of how many vegan friendly ingredients are in the soup.

Cuz, it’s still chicken soup.

Wilder made a movie about outcasts and rule breakers called “Some Like It Hot”… a really funny, iconic movie.. I guess I don’t get the lightbulb moment that 60 years later the film is about….

Outcasts and rule breakers .. that now need to be queered up.

Which would be dandy if they were writing an original musical not based on an iconic film.

I know the calculation is to draw the older peeps mostly who know the film, in addition to younger crowds who will miraculously come together to make this a hit so it can make money.

But, if that happens it will be in spite of the source material, not because of it.

It may be like buying a Coach bag on Canal Street.

Or, a can of sorta Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Soup.

And, Billy Wilder May agree…..