Variety: "Youth-driven MTV and tradition-bound Broadway may seem like strange bedfellows.
But the television showcase MTV is about to give 'American Idiot' is almost sure to boost the profile of Green Day's Broadway tuner, particularly among young auds that are a core demo for the show."
6 comments:
Well here goes MTV again. It really is amazing the amount of draw the station skill gets, since it is no longer as music centered as it once was. As for support of new and upcoming youth shoes, I know Legally Blonde was a relative success, so it should be interesting toe see what happens with American Idiot. It sounds like this special shoudl be interesting.
I think as far as advertising for 'American Idiot', this is the smartest way to go. It seems that 16-24 year olds are the ones that are most likely to go see this show. As for me personally, the only draw of this show, is because I HAVE listened to the album. If I hadn't, this show would probably be a confusing way to spend 2 hours of my life, from what I have heard of the musical. This also might be a great opportunity to bring in a younger audience that might think musicals are just for older people. Who knows, pitching this on MTV might just be the best thing for Broadway in a while.
While the article makes a very good point about how good an advertising opportunity the MTV special is posed to be, I feel that this may be a little bit counter to what the base meaning of the play is intended to be about, but far be it from me to make a Green Day selling out joke/comment. I'm sure that the MTV special will do a phenomenal job of putting people in seats, and if it is anything like "Blonde," it may be enough to really push the show into something that lots of people see.
I feel like 'American Idiot' in a way is kind of selling out. In my opinion, if I ever made a show the last network I would ever let cover it would be MTV considering all the trash that they put on their network. Then again, MTV is a really good way to draw in younger audiences and it is "music television" although now a days they've diluted their reputation by adding so many reality television shows. The sets and costume from the 'American Idiot' site look really futuristic and saturate so I'm excited to see how that will turn out.
While there is definitely an argument to be made that this is another step in over-monetizing theatre without much artistic merit (yes, there is still headroom in that department,) I think there's an equally valid argument that it is making a traditionally elite, inaccessible form a bit more open to average folks. Certainly, most green day fans can't practically get to broadway or get tickets for the show, so exposing them to some element of it could be nice. This is the same way I feel about movies of big shows. I'm sure they don't maintain all of the integrity, but at least I get to see the concept of the show, which I never would have been able to see as long as it required hundreds of dollars in airfare and tickets.
This special is a great way to draw a younger generation into theater--I just wish MTV was promoting something with a little bit more substance. I do not know a lot about "American Idiot," but from what I have read it seems doubtful that this performance is particularly artistically groundbreaking. There is nothing wrong with fluffy theater as long as it is in small quantities, and there seems to be a lot of fluff out there these days.
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