Yes, in one of the odder twists of life, Mrs. Robbo and I have been invited to attend a performance of “Jerry Springer: The Opera” tomorrow night. The story, apparently, is that Jerry is killed on the set of his show and then visits Heaven and hell. Or something. Says reviewer Gary McMillan:
Attention is bound to be paid to this extraordinary production. Like the cast recording of Avenue Q (”The Internet Is for Porn”), your [sic] not likely to play Jerry Springer: The Opera on your computer at work, but I defy you to rid your mind of songs “Talk to the Hand,” “This is My Jerry Springer Moment,” “Mama Give Me Smack on the A**hole,” “Eat, Excrete and Watch TV,” and “Jerry Eleison”.
Now you’ve probably heard two things about the show. First, that it was a major success in London, running over 600 performances and winning major theatre awards. Second, there have been spirited protests concerning the “religious” depictions in the show, including attempts to stop a national television broadcast and to intimidate local theaters into cancelling productions. This situation reminds me of the first time I saw the movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on television. An opening screen displayed a warning to the effect that some sensitive individuals might find the content and language offensive or objectionable. Which, of course, is exactly the opposite, psychologically speaking. Insensitive folks might well be up in arms, but only “sensitive” individuals would UNDERSTAND the work.
Jerry Springer: The Opera has something to offend everyone, to be sure, if you are of a mind to take offense. This is an hilarious satire of a slice of real-life Americana. It’s a two and a half hour window into popular culture and mass audience taste (and I use the term loosely). Sally Jesse, Montel, Maury, Dr. Phil and so on. God love ‘em all, I hope each one gets an opera of his own.
Yes, Mr. McMillan, ain’t it cool? Let’s display our sophistication by being as vulgar and irreverent as possible! It’s satire, after all, so anything goes! Let’s bait those bourgeois sticks-in-the-mud and dare them to object! Ha, ha! They’ll never do it because the last thing they want anyone to think is that they are somehow…..insensitive to “Real” Art!
Puh. Leeeeze.
Honestly, doesn’t the avant-garde get, well, bored with constantly dropping its pants in front of us and demanding that we be shocked? Then again, I used to wonder the same thing about three-year-olds.
So why on earth are we going, do you ask? Well, because we were asked by some folks who are trying to make an effort to be friends and who genuinely believe that we will find the thing interesting and funny, and we don’t want to be churlish in the face of their hospitality. (I’m hoping that by maintaining this attitude throughout and basically ignoring the barbs that will be hurled from the stage, I can avoid having to go to Confession again on Saturday – I just went yesterday – but somehow I don’t know if that’s going to work out.)
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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August 28, 2008 at 7:23 pm
ScurvyOaks
Camiile Paglia has said it so well:
“Supporters of the arts who gleefully cheer when a religious symbol is maltreated act as if that response authenticates their avant-garde credentials. But here’s the bad news: the avant-garde is dead. It was killed over forty years ago by Pop Art and by one of my heroes, Andy Warhol, a decadent Catholic. The era of vigorous oppositional art inaugurated two hundred years ago by Romanticism is long gone. The controversies over Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Chris Ofili were just fading sparks of an old cause. It is presumptuous and even delusional to imagine that goading a squawk out of the Catholic League permits anyone to borrow the glory of the great avant-garde rebels of the past, whose transgressions were personally costly. It’s time to move on. “
August 28, 2008 at 9:14 pm
The Abbot
One of my favorite Onion pieces comes to mind:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33238
Not that I think that Jerry Springer: The Opera necessarily reaches the truly avant garde. Most likely it’s a simple swipe at America as seen through the haze of Britain’s pretend cultural superiority, which actually no longer exists. Britain slalomed past us on the slippery slope of moral and cultural defeat long, long ago.
August 28, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Mrs. Peperium
Robbo, recalling your Episcopal 101 bible study that the true sin of Sodom and Gomorah was a lack of hospitality, there is a very effective word to employ when one is offered a Sodom and Gomorahesque form of hospitality : No.
Do you really think there is any future friendship with a couple who already read you so poorly?
Today it’s the Jerry Springer Opera. Tomorrow it will be Yanni’s Christmas Show at the Kennedy Center. And when that happens, you can kiss all your erudite musical posts goodbye…no credibilty….nope…nada….gone…zip..zippo….
August 28, 2008 at 11:39 pm
The Bovina Bloviator
The opinion of one who has difficulty navigating the not-so-difficult waters between “you’re” and “your” should be of little interest to most, especially of tripe like this.
August 29, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Mrs. Peperium
Robbo, did you see David Brooks this morning? Yanni got a mention….:
“…We got to know Barack and Michelle Obama, two tall, thin, rich, beautiful people who don’t perspire, but who nonetheless feel compassion for their squatter and smellier fellow citizens. We know that Barack could have gone to a prestigious law firm, like his big donors in the luxury boxes, but he chose to put his ego aside to become a professional politician, president of the United States and redeemer of the human race. We heard about his time as a community organizer, the three most fulfilling months of his life.
“We were thrilled by his speech in front of the Greek columns, which were conscientiously recycled from the concert, “Yanni, Live at the Acropolis.” We were honored by his pledge, that if elected president, he will serve at least four months before running for higher office. We were moved by his campaign slogan, “Vote Obama: He’s better than you’ll ever be.” We were inspired by dozens of Democratic senators who declared their lifelong love of John McCain before denouncing him as a reactionary opportunist who would destroy the country…”
August 29, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Old Dominion Tory
I cannot think of anything more excruciatingly dull than a musical with a pretense to being an opera that recycles–and recycles and recycles–a single, very tired and quite tiresome European-born cliche: America is the font of vulgarity.
As soon as the ratings for “Big Brother” in the UK plunge and the circulation figures for The Sun sink to the double digits, I’ll be content to be lectured on popular culture by patronizing middle-brow Britons. Not before, however.
In the meantime, a question about the Americans who pay good money to be insulted by this thinly-disguised burlesque show. Do they do so out of self-loathing or in order to boast of their cultural (perhaps, moral) superiority over their neighbors? And, if the latter, whither their charity?