whizzer-goindown

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Literally just got my needed videos onto my computer/currently engaged in the rewatching phase (I've taken abt 5 years off from this show) but. Soon I'm gonna give Trina and Whizzer's relationship arc the deep dive it deserves

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How Marvin eats his breakfast really emphasises to me the whole food motif through the trilogy. He's just turned 14, so he's decided this is the day he becomes a man, and men don't cook but they get women to cook for them, ergo he asserts his newfound "manhood" by making the first thing he does as he turns 14 aggressively ordering the women on stage to make him breakfast.

In Marvin's mind, cooking = femininity and therefore being cooked for/eating food = masculinity, and this comes up loads especially within his relationships with Trina and Whizzer. It's so fucking interesting analysing this fucked up little guys brain and picking apart what's going on in there

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I may or may not have done a thing

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so we all know that in trousers and falsettos have a ton of musical links, but 2 of my favourites are falsettoland + the dream and everyone hates his parents + my high school sweetheart. its so cool seeing Bill Finn adding in these details to reinforce the themes of the Marvin Trilogy!!

Falsettoland (reprise) and In Trousers (The Dream) have an incredibly similar piano part, especially in the introduction for Falsettoland. In The Dream, Marvin talks about the women “lost their love”, and in Falsettoland, Marvin has just lost his love.

I think Everyone Hates His Parents and My High School Sweetheart are linked in a far more interesting way though. the bit with marvin telling hadon “you are gonna kill your mother” in the former and miss goldberg singing “go ahead, play columbus. stop begging, stop making me crazy, marvin” have the same underlying chord progression and are also similar melodically. The ideas explored here further parallel each other, with Jason and Marvin acting as character foils for each other.

Miss Goldberg is a key adult figure in Marvin’s life — it’s implied he’s not close to his parents, so the attention he receives from Miss Goldberg may be construed as parental in this early stage of the musical (before he convinces himself that he’s attracted to her). Marvin is obviously a key parental figure in Jason’s life.

Jason and Marvin are, in these scenes, both on the precipice of an event that will shape their young adult lives, with this moment serving as the start of a massive motif about growing up (or struggling to) and adulthood. Jason’s struggle with his bar mitzvah is a massive part of Falsettoland, and reaches its peak when Trina and Mendel shove the responsibility of canceling it following Whizzer’s hospitalisation onto him. The bar mitzvah is a motif for Jason coming to maturity, leaving the ‘falsettos’ and joining the real world, where people die and life isn’t always fun and games. In this moment, he is forced to decide whether he should fall into the trap of never growing up the same way Marvin and Mendel did, or whether he should metaphorically “kill his mother”, thereby preventing himself from making his parents’ mistakes and growing up into a functioning adult.

Meanwhile, Marvin is given the role of Columbus by nagging Miss Goldberg in a very childish manner, showing him that he can have whatever he wants from the women in his life if he is enough of an asshole and never grows up. He decides to pursue Miss Goldberg because she is clearly willing to give him power, such as the lead in the play, if he bullies her enough. This is the moment where we see Marvin really grow into the misogynistic, entitled “baby who’s been denied” portrayed in the later musicals. He never grows up afterward, because he’s just been shown here that he can have whatever he wants if he acts childish and entitled enough.

In this moment, Marvin and Jason are faced with the same decision — whether to grow up or not. Marvin, by annoying Miss Goldberg into giving him Columbus, has chosen the latter option. Meanwhile, Jason decides to do the adult thing — acknowledge that the bar mitzvah is stressful, talk to Mendel, and face the challenge. He kills his mother. Marvin doesn’t.

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*four people gave this a Yeah. (It’s me, I’m the fourth person)