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Post by jaqs on Feb 13, 2019 13:44:47 GMT
Showing up at someone’s work place, uninvited, after 1 date is inappropriate. Even more so when the other person on the date declined to set another. That is all the book and not the actor.
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Post by argon on Feb 13, 2019 13:52:08 GMT
I loved lots about the show a great deal, but danieljohnson14 is completely right, that bit is a serious mis-step that could SO EASILY have been fixed with a little re-writing and really SHOULD have been. Also, the best pie jar is the banoffee one, you can put that on the posters if you like. When I saw the show in NY weeks ago with Sara, Gavin and the original Ogie (Christopher Fitzgerald) in the cast, I must say I never for a moment felt annoyed or disturbed by the whole Dawn-Ogie interaction. Not only does he probably have THE worst singing voice I have ever had the displeasure of hearing in a professional production of a musical, My sentiments exactly
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Post by ctas on Feb 13, 2019 13:54:47 GMT
I haven’t seen the show (and likely won’t) but the Dawn plot always unsettled me in the film. Especially given what happened to the brilliant Adrienne Shelly who played the role in, wrote and directed the film. It seems really distasteful to have not only retained that but (judging by comments here and “star casting” as Ogie) padded the plot out more too.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 13:57:10 GMT
MoreLife completely respect your opinion. I don't agree with it, which is fine, that's the thing with opinions. Saying a man genuinely cares for a woman is all well and good, but all stalkers and harassers genuinely care for their victims too. I don't think it helps that Jack looks and is about twenty years older than Laura and Laura looks about sixteen either as it made it even more creepy. I actually don't blame the Jack or Laura (despite how terrible he was) at all for this. I watched a Broadway bootleg recording of that song with Christopher and again his understudy, I still found it incredibly uncomfortable to watch.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 14:24:39 GMT
I don't care how much Ogie genuinely cares for Dawn (after a five minute date), she explicitly and unambiguously asks him to leave the diner, so he replies to that by bursting into a song about how he loves her (after a five minute date) and how she is never going to get rid of him. My unease with the character springs *entirely* from the book, and I don't think there's an actor alive who can overcome that. Maybe that kind of persistence in the face of flat rejection was still seen as cute in 2007, but we're increasingly unwilling to stand for it in 2019 and I wish the book had been tweaked with that in mind.
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Post by MoreLife on Feb 13, 2019 14:33:55 GMT
MoreLife completely respect your opinion. I don't agree with it, which is fine, that's the thing with opinions. And I absolutely respect yours Personally, I have recently found a lot creepier - and I have felt definitely more uncomfortable watching - 'Aspects of love', but I'm definitely taking your point on board.
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Post by stuartmcd on Feb 13, 2019 14:36:31 GMT
The only problem I had with the Dawn/Ogie part was Jack’s performance. I never at once found it uncomfortable. If the persistence had continued for the entire show with her genuinely not wanting it then I could understand but it was over with in one song. It was clear to see that both characters had a lot in common and would be perfect together and that Dawn just needed to get past her nerves. I never felt any kind of threat from Ogie or that he would ever be looking to harm or hurt her. Is it much different to scenes of guys standing outside a girls bedroom with a speaker in the air?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 14:42:53 GMT
The difference is, Dawn said on the date she didn't want to see him again, then he showed up again at her work and she showed physical signs of discomfort and told the girls he was a weirdo but they pushed her to go and chat to him anyway. She then reinstates that she never wanted to see him again and he still doesn't listen, and she asks him to leave and he STILL persists. In this day and age, what a bad message to put out there for women but also men. And I actually found the choice for her to marry him damaging rather than a smart choice, as for me, I couldn't help but think of Dawn as stupid for marrying this weirdo but also think badly of her friends and Ogie for their involvement.
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Post by stuartmcd on Feb 13, 2019 15:01:14 GMT
As an example is it much different to Legally Blonde where Elle follows a guy to University despite him showing no interest and being engaged to someone else. Yet she continues to persist.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 15:02:47 GMT
Top tips for any straight guys on this forum: if a woman asks you to leave her alone, please leave her alone. Please don't show up at her workplace, please don't play a boombox outside her bedroom window, please don't do ANYTHING you've seen in a film unless you were watching a really unusual film where a woman tells a guy to leave her alone and he actually leaves her alone, in which case please feel free to do exactly what you saw in the movie, and leave her alone. Just because something looks cute to you in a film doesn't mean it is cute in real life, nor does it mean that women will find it cute.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 15:07:54 GMT
I think it's important to not put that on just straight men though. That's why I think the story is damaging to women as well as men. If it were a woman in Ogies shoes, or a gay man, or a gay woman, it would still be messed up, so it's a horrible message to give off.
In the same way, shame to those other two Waitresses for pushing her into doing that. Never do that to your friends people, whoever they are!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 15:08:36 GMT
I'd say they were top tips for anyone really. Not just straight guys.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 15:11:36 GMT
Oh sure, but a gay guy or a straight woman is way less likely to be doing these things to a woman. (And Elle's "reward" for following Warner to Harvard was character growth and realising that she neither wanted nor needed him anymore, whereas a man's "reward" for similar behaviour in films is nearly always "getting the girl". Hollywood is very heteronormative, a big fan of the gender binary, and also full of horrible behaviour that shouldn't really be imitated by real people ever...)
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Post by stuartmcd on Feb 13, 2019 15:14:02 GMT
The same has to be said of a number of musicals though. I loved Come From Away a lot more than I did Waitress but there’s a line in CFA that makes me way more uncomfortable than I ever was in Waitress. The English guy mentions the fact that it was probably the alcohol talking when Dianne says they should get married. So he goes to buy more alcohol to get her more drunk promoting the use of alcohol to get a woman to like you.
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Post by 49thand8th on Feb 13, 2019 15:17:14 GMT
I don't care how much Ogie genuinely cares for Dawn (after a five minute date), she explicitly and unambiguously asks him to leave the diner, so he replies to that by bursting into a song about how he loves her (after a five minute date) and how she is never going to get rid of him. My unease with the character springs *entirely* from the book, and I don't think there's an actor alive who can overcome that. Maybe that kind of persistence in the face of flat rejection was still seen as cute in 2007, but we're increasingly unwilling to stand for it in 2019 and I wish the book had been tweaked with that in mind. I HATED this whole storyline the one time I saw the show on Broadway. I'm glad I went (because Erich Bergen was the reason and he was fantastic), but romanticizing and humoring stalking was not fun at all. This was a huge barrier for me when it came to liking the show overall, and I'm going to have to be enticed back with someone I really, really enjoy if I ever do return.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 15:19:04 GMT
That's a fair point but I don't think the 'end result' should matter a jot, whether that's "getting the girl" or "character growth" or whatever else.
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Post by 49thand8th on Feb 13, 2019 15:30:13 GMT
That's a fair point but I don't think the 'end result' should matter a jot, whether that's "getting the girl" or "character growth" or whatever else. Who are you replying to here?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 15:50:07 GMT
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Post by stuartmcd on Feb 13, 2019 15:53:34 GMT
This is something they announced a while ago. It’s something they do now and then on Broadway.
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Post by 49thand8th on Feb 13, 2019 16:10:34 GMT
Yeah, that's nothing new.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 16:22:37 GMT
Oh ok apologies I didn’t know that
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Post by LaLuPone on Feb 13, 2019 16:24:59 GMT
Ok so I've just started watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend (literally only the first few episodes so can only go off what I've seen so far) but how is what Rebecca does here any different than Ogie? She follows her crush across the country and starts turning up at random places where he's going to be even though he's clearly in a relationship.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 16:31:15 GMT
Ok so I've just started watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend (literally only the first few episodes so can only go off what I've seen so far) but how is what Rebecca does here any different than Ogie? She follows her crush across the country and starts turning up at random places where he's going to be even though he's clearly in a relationship. I've never seen it so I can't judge that show. But this kind of messed up thing, we see happen in TV, film and theatre. But I just think, in 2019 (or 2016 when this show went on Broadway), its just so insane to me it was chosen to not handle it with anything other than humour. And then, in 2019, it wasn't reworked or anything. It's such a negative thing too to have the two other women push her into going along with her stalker. It's so wrong.
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Post by 49thand8th on Feb 13, 2019 16:35:13 GMT
Ok so I've just started watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend (literally only the first few episodes so can only go off what I've seen so far) but how is what Rebecca does here any different than Ogie? No one's been saying anything about CxG here (I don't watch it either, but I'm familiar with the premise). But its absence from the discussion also doesn't nullify criticism of Ogie/Dawn's storyline in Waitress any.
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Post by stuartmcd on Feb 13, 2019 16:35:18 GMT
Ok so I've just started watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend (literally only the first few episodes so can only go off what I've seen so far) but how is what Rebecca does here any different than Ogie? She follows her crush across the country and starts turning up at random places where he's going to be even though he's clearly in a relationship. I've never seen it so I can't judge that show. But this kind of messed up thing, we see happen in TV, film and theatre. But I just think, in 2019 (or 2016 when this show went on Broadway), its just so insane to me it was chosen to not handle it with anything other than humour it seems. And again, in 2019, it wasn't reworked or anything. It's such a negative thing too to have the two other women push her into going along with her stalker. It's so wrong. That’s fair enough but then you need to make that criticism of all shows and not just Waitress. Such as the example I gave above about Come From Away.
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