LES MIZ: Did Enjolras and his crew deserve what they got?

[msmith537]

@Sampiro

I think one of the reasons the musical movie was Epic Fail to me was that they tried to inject too much realism into it.

In a way, the movie works less for me as a single cohesive film and more as a collection of music videos for the songs I like. It’s a bit too long. Parts of it are pretty annoying. And yet, like Elaine’s father you end up humming the songs in your head for days afterwards.

@Sampiro

The movie West Side Story is heavily dated, of course, but it works because they didn’t try for realism; it’s obvious that every scene is filmed on a set. Imagine a re-make of West Side Story that’s actually filmed in the slums of NYC, has graphic violence in the knife fight, features a child prostitute passing by during Maria and shows some poor smack addict vomit and die in the background during the Dear Officer Krupke number, and that’s kind of the film version of Les Mis to me.

I’d see a gritty, realistic West Side Story musical set in LA. Possibly in hip-hop format.

West Siiiiiiiid bitches!

[Hermione]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

:: works action on shotgun ::

I’m gonna need you to take that back.

But with all due respect, that IS how the novel presents her. It is, by many people’s admission, rather different from the way she’s written for the musical–the show literally and figuratively cleans her up a bit.

She’s still a tragic figure in the novel, mainly because we see a bit more of her as a child at the Thenardiers’ inn (along with her sister, Azelma, who is Lady Not Appearing In This Musical) as a beloved, well-dressed, pampered child. (And even then, she tattles on Cosette for touching her doll, knowing full well it’ll get Cosette a beating.) From that, we see her descend to a starving, ragged, freezing urchin living in squalor, involved in crime and pimped out by her father to one of his criminal gang, hardened to it all and a bit mentally unbalanced from her life of hardship, seizing on her handsome neighbor as the one really pure and beautiful part of her life. It’s all that much more tragic because we first saw her as privileged as any other beloved child.

Novel!Marius isn’t so much blind to her affections or thoughtless of her feelings, just a bit flabbergasted by them–he pities her, but it seems he has no idea how to let her down easily without causing her even MORE suffering, which is the last thing he wants to do. This is what causes a bit of a hiccup in the novel/musical conversion–by presenting a friendship between them in the musical, it makes Marius come off in a worse light by the fact that he’s apparently on better terms with her than in the novel, but is oblivious to her affections.

[gigi]

@Hermione

It’s all that much more tragic because we first saw her as privileged as any other beloved child.

I thought of it as her comeuppance – she got treated well while Cosette suffered so now she deserves the tables being turned.

[Hermione]

@gigi

I thought of it as her comeuppance – she got treated well while Cosette suffered so now she deserves the tables being turned.

I’m not sure I’d go quite so far as to say “deserves it” since Ponine was only a kid following her parents’ example, but I see what you mean. (If anyone deserved misfortune, it was the ADULTS who should have been looking after a child’s best interests…and pretty much caused Fantine’s death. At least Madame Thenardier died in the novel.)

That’s part of the main thrust of an essay that used to be online called “Eponine is Not Kewl.” Unfortunately, I can’t link to it since it seems to have disappeared. It was written by a fan of the musical and the novel who, nevertheless, points out that musical!Eponine is a somewhat sanitized version of novel!Eponine, and points out the flaws in the logic of the teenage girls who worship her. (She says something along the lines of, “sure, your life is ‘just like hers’…except you eat three times a day, and are warm in winter, and have a decent roof over your heads, and your father’s not a petty criminal who pimps you out to his associates…”)

She explains that in the novel, Marius and Eponine weren’t really friends as they’re portrayed in the musical…she’s just this girl that shows up in his apartment to pick up some letters her dad lost, and he pities her, but is also a little creeped out by her. (He does ask her to be a messenger for him, as in the book, and tries to help her with his last five francs.) She also says that the real tragedy of Ponine’s life is not her unrequited love for Marius, but the fact that she started out with the advantages of any kid, but ended up the way she did.

And she also makes that point you did…that (to paraphrase what I remember), “sure, she has it rough now, but so did Cosette when she was a kid…and who was it who ran tattling, ‘Mommy, she’s touching my stuff!’?”

It kind of tickles me that this show (like the novel) portrays any number of social injustices, and the teenage girls watching it are thinking, “Harsh justice system? Meh. Grinding poverty? So what? Injustice to women? Whatever. Teenage girl getting friendzoned? OMG WORST TRAGEDY EVAR!!!11!!!”

But then, I have to remind myself that the young girls who see this musical are usually in a fairly privileged position (at least if their folks can afford to take them to see a Broadway show), and wouldn’t be able to identify so much with the other problems. But having a crush on a guy who doesn’t notice? That’s something they can relate to.

I’d like to recommend an excellent short story on Fanfiction.Net, Life I Might Have Known. It depicts the life of a young Eponine fangirl, who finds out, as her family falls upon misfortune, exactly what a life like hers would have been like.

[Jophiel]

@Hermione

It was written by a fan of the musical and the novel who, nevertheless, points out that musical!Eponine is a somewhat sanitized version of novel!Eponine, and points out the flaws in the logic of the teenage girls who worship her. (She says something along the lines of, “sure, your life is ‘just like hers’…except you eat three times a day, and are warm in winter, and have a decent roof over your heads, and your father’s not a petty criminal who pimps you out to his associates…”)

I’m pretty sure she had expected to be required to sleep with Marius on that initial visit as well:

Without waiting for him to tell her to advance, she entered. She entered resolutely, staring, with a sort of assurance that made the heart bleed, at the whole room and the unmade bed.

I suspect that many of her visits to wealthy men to beg for money ended up with her ‘earning’ it so she’d have something to bring back to her father and avoid a beating.

Just for fun, here’s Marius’ initial impression of the girl so many teens wish they could be…

A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail, emaciated, slender creature; there was nothing but a chemise and a petticoat upon that chilled and shivering nakedness. Her girdle was a string, her head ribbon a string, her pointed shoulders emerged from her chemise, a blond and lymphatic pallor, earth-colored collar-bones, red hands, a half-open and degraded mouth, missing teeth, dull, bold, base eyes; she had the form of a young girl who has missed her youth, and the look of a corrupt old woman; fifty years mingled with fifteen; one of those beings which are both feeble and horrible, and which cause those to shudder whom they do not cause to weep.