Rent to own
Dave and I went to see the movie adaptation of the hit stage musical Rent tonight, and it was excellent, which is more then I can say for some of the corn-fed audience members who tittered nervously at the scenes of lesbians kissing (what did they expect, Sound of Music?)
But anyway, in spite of my complete enjoyment of the show, I couldn't help but mentally catalog a slew of anachronisms which, while not detracting from the production, still were kind of amusing. For reference, the play is set in New York City between Christmas 1989 and Christmas 1990.
The first anachronism is a reference to Thelma and Louise by the character Angel during his number about how his drumming sent Benny's akita (Evita) to her death. This is notable because Thelma and Louise didn't make their famous drive off the cliff until 1991.
We move on to Maureen's performance of "Over the Moon" where she waxes rhapsodic about a "yellow rental truck being packed in with fertilizer and fuel oil." It's too bad she didn't call the FBI, because Timothy McVeigh wasn't going to make this deadly combination famous until the spring of 1995.
A third improbable part of the plot (but technically not an anachronism) has to do with Benny, who was eager to evict the play's protagonists in order to create a "a state of the art, digital, virtual interactive studio" called Cyberarts. Now, it's technically possible that Benny was more forward-thinking then the love child of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but it is damn unlikely anyone in 1989 was thinking about cyber-anything. The whole "explosion" of virtual reality and computers onto the public consciousness occured in the early 1990s.
It's worth noting that Rent's creator, Jonathan Larson actually wrote the play during the early to mid 90s and it didn't open until 1996, so the anachronism are likely honest accidents. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure, because in a truly theatric tragedy, Larson died of an aneurysm in January 1996...right before Rent finally hit the stage.
And the movie...it is awesome, touching, happy and sad at the same time. Go see it. But remember -- it is a period piece -- it's not meant to be realistic, or current. Rent is to "bohemia" what Hair was to 60s hippies...an exaggeration for entertainment. Keep that in mind and enjoy the characters and music and you'll like it fine.
UPDATE: Found another anachronism, this one in the theaterical version (but not the movie). A reference to "Newt's lesbian sister". In 1989 Newt Gingrich was an obscure Republican back-bencher, and no one, not even political fanatics, knew or cared about his sister's sexual orientation.
Dave and I went to see the movie adaptation of the hit stage musical Rent tonight, and it was excellent, which is more then I can say for some of the corn-fed audience members who tittered nervously at the scenes of lesbians kissing (what did they expect, Sound of Music?)
But anyway, in spite of my complete enjoyment of the show, I couldn't help but mentally catalog a slew of anachronisms which, while not detracting from the production, still were kind of amusing. For reference, the play is set in New York City between Christmas 1989 and Christmas 1990.
The first anachronism is a reference to Thelma and Louise by the character Angel during his number about how his drumming sent Benny's akita (Evita) to her death. This is notable because Thelma and Louise didn't make their famous drive off the cliff until 1991.
We move on to Maureen's performance of "Over the Moon" where she waxes rhapsodic about a "yellow rental truck being packed in with fertilizer and fuel oil." It's too bad she didn't call the FBI, because Timothy McVeigh wasn't going to make this deadly combination famous until the spring of 1995.
A third improbable part of the plot (but technically not an anachronism) has to do with Benny, who was eager to evict the play's protagonists in order to create a "a state of the art, digital, virtual interactive studio" called Cyberarts. Now, it's technically possible that Benny was more forward-thinking then the love child of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but it is damn unlikely anyone in 1989 was thinking about cyber-anything. The whole "explosion" of virtual reality and computers onto the public consciousness occured in the early 1990s.
It's worth noting that Rent's creator, Jonathan Larson actually wrote the play during the early to mid 90s and it didn't open until 1996, so the anachronism are likely honest accidents. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure, because in a truly theatric tragedy, Larson died of an aneurysm in January 1996...right before Rent finally hit the stage.
And the movie...it is awesome, touching, happy and sad at the same time. Go see it. But remember -- it is a period piece -- it's not meant to be realistic, or current. Rent is to "bohemia" what Hair was to 60s hippies...an exaggeration for entertainment. Keep that in mind and enjoy the characters and music and you'll like it fine.
UPDATE: Found another anachronism, this one in the theaterical version (but not the movie). A reference to "Newt's lesbian sister". In 1989 Newt Gingrich was an obscure Republican back-bencher, and no one, not even political fanatics, knew or cared about his sister's sexual orientation.
posted by Mike at
10:16 PM
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