Line #14 MisaimedFandom/Theatre


1	Examples of MisaimedFandom for characters in {{Theatre}}.
2	----
3	* Creator/BertoltBrecht: Inventor of Epic Theater, communist and Marxist, critic of UsefulNotes/{{Capitalism}} and yet far more popular in the capitalist West than the Communist East, who largely rejected his modernist and revolutionary aesthetic in favor of socialist realism. Brecht [[IntendedAudienceReaction aimed his plays for a largely capitalist audience]] so this didn't bother him much because in his view, revolutionary agitation and modernist alienation are more useful to a capitalist audience than one in a socialist audience, at least in theory. What would bother him are the following ironies:
4	** When ''Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera'' first premiered in Berlin in 1928, it was a satirical indictment of the bourgeoisie. It was a major popular success among all audiences. The songs from this play and ''Theatre/TheRiseAndFallOfTheCityOfMahagonny'' were intended to have StylisticSuck and parody opera ended up becoming highly popular songs in their own right. This is especially the case with "Alabama Song" that was intentionally written by Brecht ''in bad English'' but ended up being CoveredUp by rock musicians like Music/TheDoors and Music/DavidBowie. It probably didn't help that Brecht's composer, Creator/KurtWeill, probably couldn't have created a bland, forgetful piece of music if he tried.
5	** Brecht of course would see most productions of the Threepenny Opera as ComicallyMissingThePoint since most of them are {{Bowdlerization}}, especially "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" which is famous for being a classic in the jazz repertoire as a swinging song about a womanizing dandy called "Mack the Knife" (and crooned by the likes of Music/LouisArmstrong, Music/BobbyDarin and Music/FrankSinatra). The original song is a MurderBallad about a SerialKiller and SerialRapist who commits acts [[WouldHurtAChild of arson that leads to the death of many orphans]] and the song and the opera in general is a portrayal of prostitution that criticizes the oppression of women who are forced into abusive relationships with pimps who would kill them without a second thought. The Bowdlerization more or less makes Mack the Knife a LoveableRogue in the mould of the original ''Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera'' and perpetuate the same romanticism that Brecht is criticizing.
6	** Another example is the song "What Keeps A Man Alive?", which is a lyrical FreudianExcuse about how poverty leads to savagery in order to survive. Brecht condemned this attitude, as in practice, it meant that the poor would prey on one another rather than organizing and bettering their condition. This was missed at people that took the message at face value and ignored how in the play, they end up remaining under the thumb of Macheath and Peachum, and miss the final lines (often left out of productions) that people only see those in the light but ignore the ones who are out of sight.
7	** Mother Courage from the play ''Theatre/MotherCourageAndHerChildren''. Admired by the audience for her courage, perseverance, and resourcefulness -- but Brecht wanted the audience to see her as a hard, unappealing person who puts financial security ahead of the safety of her children. This is not to say that Brecht wanted the audience see her as a villain or that he didn't want them to feel any pity or sympathy for her--rather, he wanted the audience to become outraged about how capitalism and war (which he saw as just an extension of capitalism) forced people to choose between personal survival and being a decent human being.
8	** On the reverse side, some Brecht productions go the opposite direction and make his works into simple propaganda advocating revolution, they submit his works to a SettingUpdate and generally simplify his message which was never his intention. Brecht believed that ViewersAreGeniuses that his works must take place in the settings he specifically chose because the drama derived from the special context he created in his work and that the primary job of the playwright is to make audiences think rather than simply identify and leave with a single message.
9	* ''The Threepenny Opera'' is a remake of John Gay's ''Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera'', which was as much a victim of MisaimedFandom as Brecht's version. It was originally meant as a satire of both Italian opera and English society, but was seen by most as just a rollicking good time. Even sixty years later, [[Creator/SamuelJohnson Boswell and Johnson]] were debating about what exactly it was supposed to have satirized.
10	* The titular character of ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'' gets idolized by people who thought he was cool for being vengeful and for slitting people's throats. Problem is, Stephen Sondheim wrote Todd to be a total psychopath and a VillainProtagonist. This is lampshaded in the line, "and I will get him back even as he gloats/in the mean time, ''I'll practice on less honourable throats''." Todd is just as bigoted and flawed as the "filth of the earth" that he claims to despise so much. Also, the message of the play is [[CycleOfRevenge revenge is just as horrible as the deed done to trigger it]], and [[VengeanceFeelsEmpty it accomplishes nothing but bringing more pain]]. This is made clear when [[spoiler:Sweeney Todd unknowingly kills his own wife at the end of the story]]. But nope, people marvel at how "awesome" Sweeney Todd is, wish they were him or that they were as cool as him, and quote him multiple times. Not made better by the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids disturbing amount of teenagers who have seen only]] [[Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet the film version]], and do the same things fans of the musical do, except amped up to 11 because of Creator/JohnnyDepp.
11	* Troy, the protagonist of ''Theatre/{{Fences}}'' is often held up as a "proper" man and father who raises his child with tough love and teaches him to respect authority, particularly with the famous "Why don't you like me" scene. What those fans tend to overlook is that Troy's behavior is mostly a result of his insecurities and overwhelming pride. Even though he tells his son that he doesn't ''have'' to like him, the truth is that he really does but cannot bring himself to be that vulnerable towards his son. And that behavior combined with him sabotaging his son's chances at playing football in college out of insecurity at the fact that HE wasn't able to play baseball professionally due to racism ultimately drives a wedge between him and his son that lasts until his death. This all combined with how he cheats on his wife paints the picture of a man who is not meant to be admired but to be pitied.
12	* [[JustForFun/TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples Of course]], Creator/WilliamShakespeare's works are subject to this. Made difficult since we don't have anything remotely like WordOfGod on what his intentions were for his plays and characters, leaving it subject to AlternateCharacterInterpretation that is unlikely to ever die:
13	** "Hath not a Jew eyes..." in particular - most scholars agree that the purpose of this soliloquy is to demonstrate that Shylock ''does not actually understand what a human being is'', since the only trait he describes unique to humans is vengeance, a vice associated with Jews. Now it's usually treated as a showcase of his humanity and how he's been wronged by Christianity.
14	*** Proto-Feminist scholars once saw Portia as a positive female character since she demonstrates active agency, has more guile than the heroes and eloquently voices her views in law. Modern audiences see her as a DesignatedHero who is more or less party to state persecution of Jews and whose formerly beloved 'the quality of mercy' speech is one where she more or less states that Christians are more merciful than Jews, which a modern audience no longer sees as anything other than religious propaganda, and which considering the overall conceit of the play is nothing more than being a {{Hypocrite}}, and MoralMyopia.
15	*** Stephen Greenblatt, the Shakespeare scholar and editor of the Norton Anthology of Literature noted that compared to Creator/ChristopherMarlowe and his ''Theatre/TheJewOfMalta'', Shakespeare ''is'' nicer since he allows Shylock to live albeit converted to Christianity, recepient of a HumiliationConga and moreover condemned to being a second-class citizen. However, Marlowe's play has Barabas as an unrepentant VillainProtagonist who never converts, and remains DefiantToTheEnd and moreover ascribes no qualities of mercy to Christianity or any other religion (indeed its message is explicitly ReligionIsWrong). This means that Shakespeare's [[FairForItsDay more liberal for his time and place]] take on an anti-semitic stock character comes off as far more offensive nowadays, since it is easier for anti-anti-Semites to subject Marlowe's defiant AtLeastIAdmitIt characterisation of Barabas to DracoInLeatherPants and RootingForTheEmpire than Shylock.
16	** ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' is subjected to two different yet equally wrong misreadings, usually because people who talk about it seem to have not read it:
17	** On the one hand, you get the MisaimedFandom who seems not to realize that Romeo and Juliet die, and it's a tragedy (hence, it is called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet]]).
18	** On the other hand, you have people who assume it's not actually a love story and that Romeo and Juliet are just stupid over-dramatic teenagers who should have listened to their parents, even though those parents are too busy fighting out a completely pointless feud to really do any sort of parenting (which is a major factor in why Romeo and Juliet's relationship is doomed). Romeo and Juliet mishandled their love for each other, but they ''were'' in love. Indeed, this aesop is surmised in the play's climax by [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Prince]] [[OnlySaneMan Escalus]] as he tells the Capulets and Montagues how their petty feud has hurt so many innocents.
19	** Iago in ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' is cruel, manipulative, abusive towards his wife, a murderer, and is quite possibly a compulsive liar. Despite this, he's an extremely early example of a DracoInLeatherPants character. Edmund from ''Theatre/KingLear'' gets this, too.
20	** The "All the world's a stage" monologue from ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt'' has its own entire MisaimedFandom. Jaques, the character that delivers it, is very specifically not a character that is supposed to be taken seriously.
21	** Same thing for "To thine own self be true" from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''. Though it IS good advice, only those who have bothered reading the play will remember that when uttered by the scheming Polonius, it's a source of verbal irony. Not only that, during the Victorian times, the eponymous character was thought of as a noble, TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth victim.
22	** "Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love" from the same play is actually an example of StylisticSuck, and yet it's become one of Shakespeare's most famous lines.
23	** Also, ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'''s "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech is a favorite of many {{Straw Nihilist}}s who don't realize Shakespeare used it to show how twisted and desperate the protagonist has become. Since it comes immediately after he learns of the death of his wife, it presumably shows the eponymous character going into a VillainousBSOD, rather than being a bold statement of considered philosophy.
24	** From ''Theatre/TwelfthNight'': "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." Some people take this quote seriously, rather than a load of crap fed to a stuck-up jerk to get him to make a fool of himself.
25	** Nobody is quite sure whether ''Theatre/{{Coriolanus}}'' is meant to be a straightforward (if tragic) glorification of manliness and martial virtue or a {{Deconstruction}} thereof, but the trope applies either way, as the text has been both very popular among 20th-century fascists (who adored the hero for his rhetoric and badassery) ''and'' left-leaning revolutionary thinkers, like the aforementioned Bertolt Brecht (who adored the text for portraying the same hero as an absolute dumbass and the antithesis of functional society).
26	* The Phantom in ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' has a dreadfully MisaimedFandom. In [[Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera the book]], he was so deformed as to be compared to a walking corpse. In the musical, he's as sensual as can be. But somewhere along the line (around the time Gerard Butler played him, actually) some people forgot that the Phantom's primary physical characteristic is that he's ''ugly as Hell''. Nothing causes more of a collective facepalm in the phan community than someone saying something like "I didn't like [[Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera1925 the silent movie]]; the Phantom was so ''hideous''!"
27	** It gets even worse when fans ship the Phantom with Christine and go on about how Raoul (who was an aspiring Arctic explorer in the book) is boring and less attractive and that Christine is an evil tease for choosing him by the end. Because heaven forbid a woman marry her sweet childhood friend instead of the raving murderous madman who stalked her, scared her half to death, and threatened to kill her boyfriend if she didn't marry him. The sequel to Creator/AndrewLloydWebber's musical, ''Theatre/LoveNeverDies'', handled this matter by turning poor Raoul into a gambling addict and alcoholic and again raising the possibility of the Phantom and Christine getting together, [[spoiler: ultimately making the misaimed fandom pairing the ''legit'' one]]. The existence of the show serves as a ''massive'' ContestedSequel in the phan community largely because of this - those who view it as a legitimate sequel come into conflict with those who think it shouldn't be taken seriously, making this a case where the misaimed phantom have almost withdrawn entirely from the community at large to form their own groups.
28	** ''Phantom'' contains an in-universe Misaimed Fandom as well, with Erik writing, and forcing the opera company to perform, the opera ''Don Juan Triumphant'', an apparent rewrite of Mozart's ''Theatre/DonGiovanni'' where the title character avoids his gruesome fate and gets the girl. Erik does not seem to understand that Juan/Giovanni was in fact a ConMan, rapist, and murderer whose death via being DraggedOffToHell by the spirit of the father of one of his victims (whom Juan himself killed) is clearly portrayed as richly deserved.
29	* The popular image of "Method Acting" comes from acting theorist Lee Strasberg and his method that was largely popular with American film actors in the 1950s. Strasberg's method was largely based on the method developed by Russian Constantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski is considered the father of modern acting, and his ideas are the basic method taught to virtually all acting students in the West. However, the text Lee Strasberg based his method on were poor translations of Stanislavski's original books. Furthermore, Stanislavski made major revisions to his method later in life. When he contacted Strasberg years later and attempted to correct these errors, Strasberg simply said he didn't care. So, the modern image of the pretentious "Method Actor" comes from an outdated, misunderstood technique.
30	** Consequently, while Stanislavkis' method (complete with revisions) is the foundation for virtually every acting student in the US, many professional actors think of Strasberg's "Method Acting" as something of a joke.
31	* One extremely famous piece of MisaimedFandom sprung up around the Creator/GeorgeBernardShaw play ''Theatre/{{Pygmalion}}''. Shaw had originally written the play illustrating that Henry Higgins and Eliza were no good for one another and could never get married (and he included a feminist slant by having Eliza end up with Freddy Eynsford-Hill, whom she had some control over, as opposed to bowing to Henry Higgins' every will and whim). Practically since its debut people have attempted to change the story to make it more of a romance between Henry Higgins and Eliza, something Shaw did ''not'' take kindly to.
32	* In the mid-1800s, the people of Northern Italy (who at the time were under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) came to consider Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Nabucco'' (specifically the chorus piece ''Va Pensiero'') as a manifesto in favour of Italian unification. It was nothing of the sort.
33	** ''Va pensiero'' is still considered an unofficial national anthem of Italy. One has to recall that in the 1800s messages had to be hidden, often quite deeply, to go under the political censors' radar, and that Verdi owed part of his early popularity to the fact that his name could be used as an acronym, allowing people to cheer "Viva Verdi!" = "Viva '''V'''ittorio '''E'''manuele, '''r'''e '''d''' ' '''I'''talia!" (Long live Victor Emanuel, king of Italy).
34	* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dVWsBKHgWU Das Wild in Fluren und Triften]]'' from ''Theatre/DerFreischuetz'' has often been said to glorify war, mostly by various stripes of Nazi. A particularly notable example is from ''Anime/{{Hellsing}}''. The song is really about Cuno, the head forester, trying to cheer up Max, one of his subordinates, who, because of his failure in a recent shooting-match, may stand to lose both his position and the woman he loves, by speaking of the trial-shot the next day. The title even means "The game in meadows and pastures".
35	* In the original production of Tennessee Williams' ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'', Marlon Brando's depiction of Stanley Kowalski ended up making Kowalski more sympathetic, even though he was a wife-beating rapist. Williams ended up revising the play to give Kowalski a bigger role and to make him a more complex character.
36	* Nazi and Neo-Nazi Music/RichardWagner fans. Wagner was indeed anti-Semitic, but believed that Jews should assimilate culturally and convert to Christianity, not that they should be wiped off the face of the Earth. He had a number of Jewish friends, including conductors of his operas. But the association of Wagner with Nazism has become so ubiquitous that some people who don't check their facts think Wagner actually ''was'' a Nazi, despite the fact that he died before Hitler was even ''born.'' Some Jewish couples take this to the point of not playing Wagner's [[LohengrinAndMendelssohn most famous composition at their wedding]]. It doesn't help that Hitler himself saw Wagner's operas as ringing endorsements of Nazism (though many of the other leading Nazis weren't fans of his operas), and that many of Wagner's descendants from that time were close friends of Hitler and approved of his interpretation.
37	* "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" from ''Theatre/{{Cabaret}}'' was originally used to symbolically represent the rise of '''UsefulNotes/NaziGermany''', and within the story it is presented as something horrifying. (This is partly AdaptationDisplacement: in the stage version, the song only became associated with Nazis in a reprise.) This hasn't stopped it from being used by the Tea Party movement as a rally song for "taking back the country," to say nothing of actual neo-Nazis and neo-fascists. In Italy, a translation of the song ("Il domani appartiene a noi" -- "Tomorrow belongs to us") became an unironic anthem for fascist youth groups in TheEighties.
38	* In Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe's version of ''Theatre/{{Faust}}'', there's a scene in the restaurant "Auerbach's Cellar" where Faust and Mephistopheles meet a group of drunken students. One of them states "I praise my Leipzig! It's a little Paris and educates its people." Later used verbatim by many fans of the city in Saxony; however, they all forget that the guy saying this is drunken, as said, and also named "Bürger Frosch" (citizen frog), and rather supposed to be a JerkAss like [[Series/AllInTheFamily Archie Bunker]]. Oh wait, Bunker actually had the same problem.
39	** Again Goethe's ''Faust'': "Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie / Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum." ("Dear friend, all theory is gray / And green the golden tree of life.") is a popular quote. It also sounds nice. Only problem: The guy saying it is [[{{Satan}} Mephistopheles]].
40	* Some fans of ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' actually believe that ''Wicked'' is the actual story of what happened and hate on ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', and making the Wicked Witch out as a total victim, and Glinda as a manipulative ChessMaster. This was ''not'' Creator/GregoryMaguire's intention in the book the play is based on. He stated he wanted to heighten the mystery of the witch, not explain her. Elphaba is actually an AntiHero and WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. What makes it even worse is that ''Wicked''/''Wizard Of Oz'' is ''not'' a chicken/egg situation. ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'' and [[Film/TheWizardOfOz its famous movie adaptation]] came first.
41	** This depends a lot on whether you consider the book ''Wicked'' to be a different story from the musical ''Wicked'' - which a lot of people who are only fans of one of those do. In the musical, Elphaba is a fairly straightforward hero, albeit a KnightInSourArmor and ultimately a TragicHero. Fans who consider Glinda to be manipulative and evil are definitely [[RonTheDeathEater misguided]], though; Glinda was good and a true friend to Elphaba, even though she was the Wizard's PuppetKing.
42	** Much of Elphaba's negative traits are removed in the musical. In the book, Elphaba began as a KnightInSourArmor, but after leaving Shiz, she became a WellIntentionedExtremist and was ultimately DrivenToVillainy, and did in fact become evil. In the musical, she just gets really, ''really'', angry but snaps out of it and reconciles with Glinda.
43	* Creator/HenrikIbsen's intention in Theatre/ADollsHouse was to show that HumansAreFlawed '''no matter what their gender/social class/etc. are'''. Allegedly, when a group of Norwegian feminists praised the play in words that sounded a lot like what radfems say in modern times, Ibsen's reaction was summed up in a FlatWhat.
44	** Theatre/PeerGynt has got a ''lot'' of this. This spineless bastard of a cheating, slave-trading, troll-mating scrupulous liar has become somewhat of a Norwegian amalgam. His redemption at the end of the play doesn`t help much. The fact that Ibsen wished to ''satirize'' Norwegian attitudes seems to have been completely lost on later generations, and a "Peer Gynt reward" given yearly to somebody who has made Norway more known outside the country is a case in point. Not that people who actually read the play thoroughly don`t snark about this fact a lot.
45	* The most famous quote of ''Theatre/NoExit'' is "Hell is other people!", showing [[ItWasHisSled the famous plot twist]] that the characters' IronicHell is just being stuck in a room with each other forever. It's often brought up was a justification for antisocial behavior, but the point of the story was that all the main characters are enormous jerks who are incapable of forming positive relationships. It wasn't that ''all'' social activity was bad, just social activity with toxic people. The whole message of the play is that you create your own world, and acting like an antisocial jerk is just going to make you miserable. Indeed, right at the end of the play, the locked door of the room the three protagonists are in flies open, implying that they could leave anytime they wanted. But they don't, because they're all such terrible people that their vices keep them trapped.
46	* There are a few ''Theatre/BeMoreChill'' fans who think having a SQUIP ''would'' be helpful and cool, especially for those who struggle in social situations. The musical makes it pretty clear that [[BrainwashedAndCrazy the side]] [[DrivenToMadness effects]] seriously outweigh the short-term benefits.
47	* Much like the other adaptations, there are fans of ''Theatre/{{Beetlejuice}}: the Musical'' that ship Beetlejuice with Lydia. This sect of the fandom is particularly odd because there's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwdE-mqXgNc an entire song in the musical]] when Lydia [[spoiler:agrees to marry him only as part of a plan to kill him]] dedicated to mocking the senseless idea of her being attracted to him, as well as highlighting the pedophilic overtones of the ship.
48	* People occasionally misinterpret ''Theatre/{{Chicago}}'' as feminist, most notably taking the "they had it comin'" refrain of "Cell Block Tango" at face value to frame it as a song about fighting abuse. In reality, the show is a satire on the American prison system and the media circus that surrounds it. And while there's a good share of {{Asshole Victim}}s described in "Cell Block Tango", most of the murders are cases of DisproportionateRetribution - one of the killers murdered her husband because he wouldn't stop blowing bubbles in his bubblegum.
49	* A lot of atheists love ''Theatre/TheBookOfMormon'' despite the show having a message of being accepting of religious faith and showing faith in God in a very positive light. The whole point of the show is that religion is a guide, not a strict list of commands to follow. Elder Cunningham does a lot of in-universe {{Ass Pull}}s to help the people of Uganda find hope, and this is presented as the correct decision. Even then, the Ugandans are well-aware that what Elder Cunningham said is all just stories and not literally true, but they find hope in it anyway.[[invoked]]
50	* ''Myth/WilliamTell'', as adapted by Friedrich Schiller or Gioachino Rossini, is quite unambiguously a tale of freedom and justice triumphing over tyranny and despotism, as symbolised by Tell refusing to [[CargoCult bow down to a hat that the Duke Gessler had planted atop a pole (also known in German parlance as the 'Gesslerhut')]]. The only famous person who seemed to have completely missed the point was a certain UsefulNotes/HermannGoring, who had two Catholic priests arrested and sent to Dachau Concentration Camp for refusing to greet him, where they were forced to repeatedly salute Göring's cap on a pole, in clear homage of Gessler's hat.

Context MisaimedFandom / Theatre