A lonely girl aswirl Lost in blinding light: so, um, let's talk about DIANA: the Musical

Per the suggestion of a few friends, I finally listened to DIANA: The Musical.

And, you know what? It was not bad. 

In fact, as much as the vitriolic snark that circulated about the Netflix proshot and the Broadway show itself would have you believe otherwise, it was not the 'disaster' that had been promised.

For transparency's sake, I have not watched the Netflix proshot. I have only listened to the cast recording.

DIANA was vaguely on my radar during its lifetime. I am not the kind of (insufferable) person who only listens to showtunes, and so I wasn't going to be someone to rush out to listen to it. I had heard a few things about it: the costumes were good, the costumer was not, and that the show itself was "bad."

I thought it was a rather enjoyable, perfectly fine listen. It was not the best thing I had ever heard, although you can tell everyone singing was doing their damndest with what they had been given to work with. I am actually not even quite sure why it had garnered that level of  negative response, if I can be perfectly honest. I think that the nastiness aimed at the show was grossly disproportionate to the actual flaws of the show itself. Was it flawed? Yes. Was it clumsy? Yes. Could it have benefitted from another out of town tryout? Yes. Was it really that bad? Also, no.

First of all, let start out by saying that Jeanna is absolutely everything and I will hear nothing bad about her. Vision of loveliness, once in a generation voice, the perfect person to play Diana. Case. Closed. That is such a huge responsibility for an actor to take up the mantle for--and then--to do it with such poise, grace, and, most of all, empathy, cannot be understated. Many people have forgotten that Diana was not always a beloved figure. In fact, during her lifetime, the British press hated her; much of her lasting legacy is due to not only how much the British common people loved her, but how much Americans, a lot of whom were marginalized, adored her. I hope someday someone who is much smarter than me does an anthropological study on how colonized people love Diana, and see her as one of us. (The amount of Yolanda/ Selena  to Elizabeth/ Diana memes when the Queen died last year, to start with--also, side bar, those were amazing, and I love seeing people united like that, hahaha.) Even almost 30 years since her passing, Diana is still seen as being "one of us." 

Secondly, I know that there were so many complaints about the music in the show, when I didn't particularly think it was that bad! It was just reminiscent of a lot of 80's commercial jingles or television theme songs from that time period. I didn't think it was the crime that Twitter was making it out to be. They were just okay. They weren't amazing, but they weren't as abysmal as they were being hailed as. Again, it just seemed as though the dogpiling on this poor show was grossly disproportionate to the actual quality of the show. (Then again, I don't think that the lyrics of "Finishing the Hat" are particularly that great, if I can be honest.) It just sounds like 80's music--the album cuts, not the megahits. "Happiness/ Simply Breathing" (which I thought was great, by the way) would have been right at home on maybe a Martika or a Culture Club album. I can totally listen to DIANA: The Musical's cast recording in the background the way I would listen to 'Songs From the Big Chair' or 'Forever Your Girl.' (ALTHOUGH, I do not think all of the lyrics of DIANA were that great, either. Lines like “I may be unwell but I’m handsome as hell,”--especially given their context in the show-- are... not great.)

I think my biggest take away from the experience of listening to DIANA: The Musical is that it is so hard to gage how good something is or isn't anymore. I feel like honest reviews, constructive reviews, helpful feedback, or accurate assessments no longer exist. You either have a camp of people who are paid to be overly effusive towards something (often influencers who are paid to be so), or you have people who committed to hating it. There is absolutely nothing in between; there is nothing genuine anymore. If someone had told me, "hey, they made a musical about the life of Princess Diana using period accurate early 1980's  pop music," I would have listened to it way sooner; DIANA: The Musical just sounds like the "Dare!" by The Human League, not the cataclysmic disaster the reviews and Tweets made it seem.

And, you know, maybe I would feel differently had I seen the Netflix special. Maybe seeing it is as bad as they say. But I cannot help but wonder if so much of the negative attention that it got was from people who wanted attention from their negative comments, people wanting to go viral (barf) from the the "wittiest" nasty tweet of them all. (Honestly, what a stupid aspiration.) I might never see the Netflix special, and it might be a better listen than a watch.