Let’s try to think of the dumbest idea for a musical. The dumbest idea anybody could ever conceive. “Animal Farm: The Musical.” “The Spanish Inquisition: The Musical.” “The Black Plague: The Musical.”
All of these sound wonderfully terrible but, as we have seen time and time again, reality beats out imagination every single time.
Be prepared for the newest Frankensteinian-monster Broadway show: “The Duck Commander Family Musical.”
Yes, there will be a musical about the family featured on the reality television show “Duck Dynasty.”
Of course, part of me wants to say this is yet another example of entertainment and commercialism taking over an art form.
Granted, it’s an art form that has become more beholden than most to pulling in revenue.
Yet, I feel that is just too pretentious to say because, in the end, I think this idea is just an absolutely awful idea. Nothing more than that.
One of the musical’s composers, Steven Morris, said, “the specificity and the strangeness of the family’s lives and home are a great fit for a compelling musical.”
Really?
Apparently some consider actors bouncing across the stage being idiots compelling material for a musical.
It appears to be a sign that the first song of the musical is likely to be called “Faith, Food and Family.”
Or what it should be called, “Homophobia, Lots of Food and a Family Likely Held Together by a Television Show.”
Actually, I don’t think it’s the fact that it’s this particular family that bothers me.
I think it’s that they’re making a musical out of a reality television show. In other words, they are making an entirely constructed product out of another entirely constructed product.
It is two degrees of scripted presentation removed from the actual family, which could be good or bad.
It’s just that, if I want to go see a musical that will leave me entertained and will restore some faith in the goodness in humanity, I doubt “The Duck Commander Family Musical” could offer any of that for me.
Further, if “The Duck Commander Family Musical” is successful, what other horrendous musicals will be made from reality television shows? “House Hunters International.” “The Biggest Loser.” “The Kardashians.”
For the good of mankind, please don’t make a musical about the Kardashians.
If you are a fan of the television show, good for you, but keep it a television show.
Let it be popular in that dark corner of reality television.
Don’t bring it to Broadway. Don’t make it a musical.
Just don’t.
allenjo@indiana.edu
