Listless, I've spent a lot of time watching TV lately. Sometimes I run out to get M&Ms. That's as industrious as I've been getting. Judge away. I deserve your scorn, and it's about to get worse.
I just watched Grease Live!, the live musical that aired last year. It's set in a 1950s American high school with black head football coaches and black Pink Ladies. In other words, a utopian 1950s America that never came close to existing. I'm of three minds about this choice:
- Does every pop confection have to be historically accurate? Is color-blind casting not progress?
- Somewhere, a white kid who's never heard of Selma now thinks there were black head football coaches in the 50s.
- I found these casting choices and the moral questions they raised so distracting, I couldn't concentrate on the damned show.