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第304期:《致命女人》的爽点,这部著名音乐剧里的蛇蝎大女主来回答你

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Hi everyone. And welcome back to one of your favorite segments Sound of the Musicals. 欢迎回来【曲外之音】.

In the previous episode, Oliver and I were talking about Chicago, a musical that is pretty dark, but it's awesome as well.


Welcome back to the studio Oliver.

Hello again.

So let's talk about Chicago a bit more.

We have covered the overview, the storyline, we already know that they are these fascinating, charismatic females like murderesses, women who kill, women who are killers essentially.

There's some major conflicts in the show, first of all is the idea of celebrity criminals, like the fame versus crime.

Yes, there is. It is something which has happened throughout history to a smaller extent.

But with the innovation and the sort of expansion of media, newspapers, radios, and then later TV, and even nowadays mobile phones, TikTok抖音whatever, criminals now, they are celebrity in a way because of, I feel, it's because of the differences from us. They do things that we would never do.

And we are interested in that, we're intrigued by how they could do this or why they did it, and all these different reasons.

It's almost voyeuristic.

A little, yes.

Like you just want to peek into their life and see what went wrong, why could someone who look so ordinary be so evil?So we try to paint them as extraordinary, not ordinary.

And honestly, I don't know if you would agree with me in terms of this whole media thing, especially nowadays online where traffic is everything, it doesn't matter if you actually are famous or notorious. So fame and notoriety kind of blend in together.

Exactly. Yes.

There's a saying any publicity is good publicity. And that is very much the case. It doesn't matter what you are known for, if you are known, then people will enjoy it. They like to be famous for whatever reason. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

The other thing that often gets mentioned, I think about Chicago, is the corruption of the justice system. Like you mentioned last time, how easy it was for this lawyer to manipulate the system, and then the press, use press a weapon to manipulate the system.

Definitely yes, that is how he builds his case to free Roxie, is all about getting her the right image from people outside of jail, the people on the street, the people listening to the radio or buying a newspaper, everybody knows her name when she goes to trial and everybody wants her to win the case.

He has built it so that they support her. And because of the US jury… judicial system, the group of people sitting in that courtroom are the people who have been reading these newspapers, listening to the radio. So they have already been influenced by her before they've even gone near the courtroom.

And there is definitely an uncomfortable corruption about that. And the 1920s was not a good time in terms of criminal justice system. They didn't have the same rules, laws and systems that they have in place today to prevent things like this, to prevent biased opinions or corruption in the system, yeah.

Talking about rigging the system or the corruption of the system, actually, in terms of music there're two particular numbers in this: one is We Both Reached for the Gun.

That is a fantastic song. I do really like that one.

That is so special that one.

I know, it's really good.

I like how it is shown as this puppet master with his toys and his puppets, and Roxie doesn't even sing the song herself.

It's supposed to be her during an interview, giving these answers and showing the media what it is.

But instead, it's Billy Flynn talking the whole time, she doesn't say anything, and it's dark but very entertaining song.

对于没有看过这个musical 也没有看过电影的小伙伴,这一首歌它是由这个律师和Roxie两个人表演的,但是Roxie在这里面就像一个提线木偶,而且在电影里面Renée Zellweger她化的妆就是一个提线木偶的妆。

So it was basically it looks like Roxie was talking, but it was Billy Flynn, the lawyer’s voice. It’s really creepy, it's really eerie. It's almost like a ventriloquist act.

That is exactly what it is. It's a ventriloquist. He has told her what to say. And she is saying it and so the song shows that it's not her words. It's his. He's the one talking, he's doing all of it.

Yeah, let's hear that bit.

Yeah.

图片

But I mean just hearing it, you probably don't get the full effect. I definitely recommend you watch that bit, especially the movie part. It's so good that is I think one of the climaxes of the film.

It is, one of my favorite parts is that; and the song sounds all…it's all happy and lively, lots of quick talking and happy voices, but behind it is this darkness, this dark undertone of manipulation and rigging the system.

And another part of the show which is one of my favorites, and again, it's talking about rigging the system and corruption, is a song that Billy has later Razzle Dazzle which is... actually that could be my favorite song.

That song has a lot of gibberish right?Lots of words that don't really mean much.

Oh, yes, it has got lots and lots of nonsense words, they talk about flim flam finagle all sorts of rubbish, absolute rubbish.

But that's the point of the song. It's all about if you sound confident and you sell them, if you give them a show, then everyone will love you.

They won't ask questions. They won't think what if this is true. They won't. You are dazzling them. Dazzle means to shine a bright light into somebody's eyes.

It's so showmanship.

That's exactly what you're doing. It's showmanship to hide the truth, the truth that she has killed somebody, is hidden behind this bright light of entertainment really.

Apart from all those that we talked about, the other thing that really intrigues me about this particular musical is the portrayal of women.

There's definitely something feministic about this musical. Even though women, they're not good women, they're actually really, really evil women.

But it's this whole idea like we talked about last time, they are not just portrayed as these tame little women, accessories, these quaint little angels.

They are seen as actual dark femme fatale, killers, that evil. And honestly, if you want equality, women should have the equality to be evil.

Definitely so, any equality has to be the good and the bad sides of everything really, and having these women, as you say, dark killers is a move away from most shows most musicals where it's a typical male villain; and it works really nicely even when they don't really have any reason to have killed.

Their reasons for doing it are quite, in some cases, quite weak, but they still did it which shows the darkness there.

What you're saying is Cell Block Tango, one of my favorite pieces in this.

Cell Block Tango starts with these six female criminals, they're all killers, they have all killed and they're in prison. And they were just chanting really random words.

It starts with someone saying Pop(six) Squish(Uh uh) Cicero(Lipschitz). And then you think what are they talking about?

And then one by one they're telling their stories.

Like you said, you would expect their stories traditionally to be a battered wife, someone who has been hurt. So they have to fight for themselves.

But no, it could be for example, one of the stories of the woman who said pop is just because she is annoyed with her men for chewing gum and then popping it.

就是说她自己的老公吃口香糖的时候总是会把泡泡吹炸,让她觉得很厌烦。

So that's how she just got fed up one day. She said stop doing that and he didn't and so she shot him.

Yeah, it's very dark. It's just chewing gum, but it is reflecting that in many cases, the male villains have very weak reasons for killing as well.

And it is changing it into a female being in the same situation, and I think it's really nice in terms of equality on the show, not so much what they did, but I like it, it works well.

It's like shameless evil, no excuses I did it, and especially in Cell Block Tango, if you notice the lyrics apart from recounting their stories, the chorus part basically says they had it coming, so it's their fault.

They had it coming.

We're not to blame, we're innocent, they had it coming.

They only had themselves to blame, so I killed him, but I did nothing wrong because it's his fault.

And then they say to the audience, if you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I bet ’cha you would have done the same.

They try and bring the audience into their dark killing tendencies in a way.

The other one is, obviously another larger-than-life character like you mentioned, Mama Morton, and then she sings When You're Good to Mama.

That is a fantastic song. It really is, I do enjoy that one.

So let's hear a little bit of this.

Yes, please.

图片

Every time I hear this song, it sounds innocent enough, but there's so many innuendoes, hidden meanings in this song.

Yes, there’re so many sort of layers to that song.

It just sounds like if you're nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. But it's all talking about the fact that she is the warden, the boss of the prison; and if you give her money, she will bring things into prison for you, she will do things that she shouldn't do.

So again, it's going back to the corruption but it's hiding it under this song of big showmanship and larger-than-life character. It’s great.

Comparatively speaking, compared with all these really larger-than-life women, charismatic women, the male characters in this like Amos, Roxie’s husband, it’s just like such a pitiful character, isn’t he?

Yes, he is. I feel sorry for Amos.

This show is filled with not good people, murderers and liars and cheats. And then in the middle of it, he just appears, every now and again, he just appears Amos, Roxie's husband.

He's not a bad guy. He loves his wife, he wants to help her. He gets the worst deal out of everybody. He gets such a bad deal, I feel so sorry for him.

One of the songs he has is about how everybody ignores him, how he gets overlooked by everyone. It's called Mr. Cellophane.

Cellophane, the thin plastic that you wrap around food. You can look right through him because he's not there.

It's透明人, like Mr. nobody, Mr. … like you can see right through him .

Exactly, you can see right through me, walk right by me, and never know that I’m there.

It's really sad because everybody else is lying and doing bad stuff. They become famous, they get rich, they're celebrities, but the good guy gets nothing.

At the end he loses his wife, Roxie leaves him, he leaves her, and then he gets nothing. So it's very sad end for Amos there.

It's definitely not one of those musicals that you can just take it as the surface like the superficial story because then it really isn't about positive energy.

Because bad people they get away was murder, they get away with lying, cheating; but good people they get nothing like you said.

They don't just get away with murder, they profit from it. Roxie, before she kills him, she's living in a small apartment with her husband with no money.

Afterwards, she's a performer on the stage with Velma in front of hundreds of people every day, they profit from murdering people. That's a dark message when you think about it.

It's better to see it as a piece of satire. I think.

Definitely it is, I think so. Yeah.

All right. But after all these discussion, most important thing is still the music. There are so many interesting, good, fabulous pieces of music in this musical. If you are interested, check it out.

I think we're gonna wrap up here. If you have anything else to add about this particular musical Chicago, or if you want to request any other types of musicals, leave as a comment in the comment section.

Thank you Oliver for coming to the show.

Thank you for having me here again.

We'll see you next time.

Bye bye.

重点单词   查看全部解释    
comparatively [kəm'pærətivli]

想一想再看

adv. 比较地,相对地

 
publicity [pʌb'lisiti]

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n. 公众的注意,宣传,宣扬,宣传品,广告

联想记忆
blame [bleim]

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n. 过失,责备
vt. 把 ... 归咎于,

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rubbish ['rʌbiʃ]

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n. 垃圾,废物,废话
v. 贬损

 
intrigued

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adj. 好奇的;被迷住了的 v. 引起…的兴趣;使迷惑

 
jury ['dʒuəri]

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n. 陪审团,评委会
adj. 临时用的

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recommend [.rekə'mend]

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vt. 建议,推荐,劝告
vt. 使成为可取,

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request [ri'kwest]

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n. 要求,请求
vt. 请求,要求

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essentially [i'senʃəli]

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adv. 本质上,本来

 
check [tʃek]

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n. 检查,支票,账单,制止,阻止物,检验标准,方格图案

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