Are you as tired of lazy generalizations about musical theater as I am? With Broadway’s move onto both the cinema and television screen, these generalizations have only gotten sloppier. For starters, we could at least separate the films from the television series. Critics speak as if Glee, Pitch Perfect, and Smash were all the same thing – and that thing they condense them into is deemed, ultimately, pretty awful. With the heavy anticipation for Tom Hooper’s film adaptation of Les Miserables, I’ve only been reminded of how very boring the Broadway backlash can be. Over at Grantland’s 2012 Oscar Roundtable, we were told that, “Gloriously, there doesn’t even seem to be anything ridiculous in the running for a nomination at this point, unless the Les Mis hype is coming from the same unfortunate place that leads people to watch Smash.” I mean, I guess Les Mis and Smash are the same thing, and I guess their viewers can’t tell a star-driven remake of a famous rock opera apart from a television series about an unknown musical performed by unknown stars. … Read More