History MisaimedFandom / Theatre

* 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 aria ''Va Pensiero'') as a manifesto in favour of Italian unification. It was nothing of the sort.

* People who use the phrase 'Hell is other people' to summarize their [[HumansAreBastards misanthropy.]] It comes from the play ''No Exit'', which was about how defining yourself by others' expectations will cause you suffering equal to being in hell. In this context 'Hell is other people' is a sad indictment of the speaker rather than people in general.
** Soooo... a good quote for the ''thoughtful'' misanthrope?

* The Tea Party faction of the Republican Party likes to use "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" from ''{{Cabaret}}'' as a rally song for "taking back the country." It is unknown how many of them know that the song was used to symbolically represent the rise of '''NaziGermany'''. Many not in the Tea Party find it fitting anyhow.

** He gets about as much of this as every other villain who has a tendency towards [[MagnificentBastard Magnificent Bastardry]] and a fair amount of FetishFuel in their build, really. But somewhere along the line (right 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 the silent movie; the Phantom was so ''hideous''!"

*** Probably it has to do with misinterpreting the ending. Instead of thinking "Wow, those kids were hotblooded idiots" or "wow, these kids had shitty luck", people think "Oh, what a loyal pair! Imagine, loving each other so much that they can't live without each other and are joined in death as a 'fuck you' to their parents who ''just didn't understand''!"
**** ''Romeo and Juliet'' gets two helpings of CompletelyMissingThePoint, usually because people who talk about it seem to have not read it. One the one hand, you get the aforementioned MisaimedFandom who seems not to realize that Romeo and Juliet die, and it's a tragedy (hence, it is called The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin seriously]]). On the other hand, you have people who assume it's not actually a love story and that Romeo and Juliet are just stupid teenagers who should have listened to their parents, even though those parents are too busy being locked in a completely pointless feud to really do any sort of parenting (which is a big cause of why Romeo and Juliet's relationship is doomed) and even though their lines about being in love are some of the best poetry Shakespeare's written.

**** ''Romeo and Juliet'' gets two helpings of CompletelyMissingThePoint, usually because people who talk about it seem to have not read it. One the one hand, you get the aforementioned MisaimedFandom who seems not to realize that Romeo and Juliet die, and it's a tragedy (hence, it is called The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin seriously]]). On the other hand, you have people who assume it's not actually a love story and that Romeo and Juliet are just stupid teenagers who should have listened to their parents, even though those parents are locked in a completely pointless feud and even though their lines about being in love are some of the best poetry Shakespeare's written.

** Mother Courage from the play ''Mother Courage and Her Children.'' 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 personal survival over love, loyalty, and decency.

** Mother Courage from the play ''Mother Courage and Her Children.'' 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 who might otherwise be decent to choose personal survival over love and loyalty. In fact, his entire style of theatre was meant to discourage audiences from judging individual characters as 'good' or 'evil' and to encourage them to look instead at how culture and economics force people to choose between personal survival and being a decent human being.

** Mother Courage from the play ''Mother Courage and Her Children.'' 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 who might otherwise be decent to choose personal survival over love and loyalty. In fact, his entire style of theatre was meant to discourage audiences from judging individual characters as 'good' or 'evil' and to encourage them to look instead at how culture and economics force people to choose between personal survival and being a decent person.

** Mother Courage from the play ''Mother Courage and Her Children.'' 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 who might otherwise be decent to choose personal survival over love and loyalty.

** Mother Courage from the play ''Mother Courage and Her Children.'' Admired by the audience for her courage, perseverance, and resourcefulness -- but Bertolt Brecht wanted her to be a detestable personification of the evils of capitalism. She doesn't give up her business even after ''her three kids are killed in the war'', after all.
*** This is likely due to ValuesDissonance. People today would probably be looking at her through a feminist lens, as a woman who is courageous and progressive for persevering in her career when society expects her to care more about her children.
**** It doesn't help that Brecht gave her a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming when she rejects a job offer that would have forced her to abandon Kattrin.

* In JohannWolfgangVonGoethe's version of ''{{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, sa said, and also named "Bürger Frosch" (citizen frog), and rather supposed to be a JerkAss like Archie Bunker. Oh wait, Bunker actually had the same problem.

**** Like the line "My only love sprang from my only hate," which points pretty strongly towards her being a stupid teenager (she's falling in love with the boy most likely to make her parents angry -- pretty standard teenage rebellion right there). The idiocy of the Capulet/Montague feud doesn't automatically make Romeo and Juliet more noble.

**** ''Romeo and Juliet'' gets two helpings of CompletelyMissingThePoint, usually because people who talk about it seem to have not read it. One the one hand, you get the aforementioned MisaimedFandom who seems not to realize that Romeo and Juliet die, and it's a tragedy (hence, it is called The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin seriously]]). On the other hand, you have people who assume it's not actually a love story and that Romeo and Juliet are just stupid teenagers who should have listened to their parents, even though those parents are locked in a completely pointless feud and even though their lines about being in love are some of the best poetry Shakespeare's written.

* [[ANaziByAnyOtherName The Tea Party]] likes to use "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" from ''{{Cabaret}}'' as a rally song for "taking back the country." Wether or not they're aware that the song was used to symbolically represent the rise of '''NaziGermany''' remains to be seen.
** Considering how media-savvy (and, thus, presumably keen on irony) Tea Partiers seem to be, I wouldn't be all that surprised if they indeed were.

* Bertolt Brecht: inventor of Epic Theater, staunch hater of Capitalism, and victim of terrible MisaimedFandom.
** When ''The Threepenny Opera'' first premiered in Berlin in 1928, it was a satirical indictment of the bourgeoisie, although it was wildly popular with this particular social class.

* ''The Threepenny Opera'' is a remake of John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'', 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, Boswell and Johnson were debating about what exactly it was supposed to have satirized.

** It certainly doesn't help that most kids born in 1975 or later are [[WeirdAlEffect only familiar with the tune]] via the zany [=McDonald's=] parody "It's Mac Tonight!"

** "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" already suffers from MisaimedFandom by ''actual'' Neo-Nazis.

** He gets about as much of this as every other villain who has a tendency towards [[MagnificentBastard Magnificent Bastardry]] and a fair amount of FetishFuel in their build, really. But somewhere along the line (right 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 a collective facepalm in the phan community than someone saying something like "I didn't like the silent movie; the Phantom was so ''hideous''!"

*** Probably it has to do with misinterpreting the ending. Instead of thinking "Wow, those kids were idiots", people think "Oh, what a loyal pair! Imagine, loving each other so much that they can't live without each other and are joined in death as a 'fuck you' to their parents who ''just didn't understand''!"

* Arguably, the Phantom in ''{{The Phantom of the Opera}}'' has a dreadfully MisaimedFandom. In the book, he was a frightening monster. In the musical, he usually leans toward AntiHero.

** It gets even worse when fans ship the Phantom with Christine and go on about how Raoul 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 madman who murdered, stalked her, scared her half to death, and threatened to kill her boyfriend if she didn't marry him.