Killing Memories / Harvesting Corpses: Working Girl, The Musical

Killing Memories / Harvesting Corpses: 

Working Girl, The Musical

So, I guess the eighties (or as I call them, the 'haties') are a thing to be reborn or exhumed (depending on how you look at it). I know they've been mining that hill for awhile now, but lately, they seem to be going a little too deep.

I grew up in the 60's and 70's. When I think of the 70's, I think: bubble gum pop and disco. Fun stuff.

But I consider the 'haties', my decade. And when I think of them now, I think: minority suppression, HIV, preppies, greed, shoulder pads, electric synth drum tracks and all that cultural appropriation by white artists that was lauded as 'innovation' (hmmm, I guess some things never change).

This is probably not news to most of you, but it was to me... I just learned that Cyndi Lauper is writing the music for a musical based on the film Working Girl. (This was announced in September of 2019 - where have I been?) I love that film. (Did you know it was a television show in 1990 with Sandra Bullock in the lead? Again... where was I?) I love me some Cyndi, too. But it sort of made me laugh and mourn the state of Broadway musicals. 

See, I also love Bob's Burger's - without a doubt, one of the best animated series ever. I love the irreverent plot lines, the amazing depth of it's characters, and it's overall take on life; it all fits with my world view. 

Well, on one episode, due to budget cuts, the kid's school can't afford the royalties for any established musicals, so they ask the students to submit original ones. The one chosen will be that year's school musical. Bob's son, Gene, creates and submits his dream project: a musical based on the 1988 film Die Hard. Courtney, a super annoying girl at school who has a crush on Gene, wants to be in his musical. They end up having artistic differences, so Courtney, in cahoots with her jingle-writing father, decide to submit their own musical based on the 1988 film Working Girl. 

Courtney's musical is selected, but Gene refuses to give up, mounting his show in the boiler room of the school on the same night Working Girl is set to open. Hilarity ensues (because this is a cartoon), resulting in the two compromising and collaborating on a hybrid musical: Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl!

So, now that a musical is being generated from the film Working Girl... what is this? It's not meta. Ironic? Oh, I know...

It's absurd. 

Are the money-hungry a-holes at Fox so desperate for product that they need to defile the memory of anything that was successful before?  Are they that bankrupt of need ideas? 

I mean, I get it. Easy money. Easy to adapt. Surefire winner. 

And while I don't take issue with musicals adapted from movies that only reached a small audience (Sara Bareillis' Waitress springs to mind, as does John Waters' Hairspray), and I know that Broadway has a history of doing this (All About Eve/Applause, Auntie Mame/Mame), but I do take issue with adapting anything that ever once had a pulse. 

Flashdance the musical, anyone? Xanadu the musical, anyone? Oh, yes... they exist and they are gawd awful. Each one another nail in the coffin of theater, an art form I have considered dead for centuries. 

Footloose? Fame? Mean Girls? Legally Blonde?  Sister Act? Sunset Boulevard? School of Rock? 9 to 5? Beetlejuice? Pretty Woman? The Bodyguard? Heathers? I mean, come on!

Why do I care? 

Because I don't like my memories being cheapened and tarnished.

And I know it will never live up to the promise of Work Harder or Die Trying, Girl!

Working Girl the musical vs. Die Hard the musical

Work Harder or Die Trying, Girl!