Glitter (2001) and Thoughts on What Can Help a Musical Succeed

Glitter.  This movie has torn at me for days now, since I watched it.  You’ll be reading this long after I write it, so I’ve probably gotten over it by now.  Who knows, though?  Glitter is, perhaps, one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the displeasure to watch, and I’ve seen a lot of movies that people consider bad, terrible, or unwatchable.  So I’ve had my fair share of movies that you would think I would despise.  But this one hit a note (no musical pun intended) that hurts oh so badly.

I’m not going to spend this whole time griping and complaining about Glitter, however.  I want to use Glitter as an extreme example of why some musicals fall flat when brought to the big screen, or when written as a movie.  Now, I don’t have all of the evidence to back up any of the claims that I will be making throughout this post, so if you disagree with anything that I write, that’s okay.  This is just my opinion.  It will differ from yours, especially if you are a diehard musical fan.  Let’s get our disagreement started.

Musicals are a tough genre to bring to movies.  To create a good musical means to balance many different aspects.  If one aspect is off balance, the whole movie can collapse and leave a bad taste in the viewers’ mouths.  Every genre has its difficulties, but I think that the musical genre might be the most challenging of any genre.  The following are some of the reasons that I feel this way:

1.       The filmmaker needs to convey the musical aspects to the viewers in a convincing way.  In a stage play, there is a certain aura of mystique and magic that makes musicals more believable.  It might well come from the fact that the audience is there.  They are a part of the experience.  In film, that connection is not there.  The movie needs to create its own way of having the musical exist.  They must build their world so that the singing does not feel out of place.  One of the easiest ways to do this, and the way that Glitter sets up the musical aspect, is to set the movie in the music industry.  The people do not randomly break into song, but rather perform as a part of their life and career.  This is one positive thing I can give to Glitter.  It made the music part feel fully integrated into the rest of the movie.

2.       The performers in the movie need to be able to both act and sing.  It is painful to have a good, famous actor shoved into a musical when he or she cannot sing, but must sing a song.  I feel bad for the actor when their turn to sing comes along.  It hurts to hear them not do well.  The same goes for the opposite direction.  If a singer is brought onto the musical because their voice is great and they will be singing music, they should be able to act as well.  I don’t want to watch a singer in a musical who cannot emote, or has no chemistry with anybody else in the movie.  One of the biggest stumbling points of Glitter was having Mariah Carey act.  She missed the mark on most of the emotional beats of the movie.  She would try and show emotion, but it tended to be forced and stilted.  She didn’t have much chemistry with the other actors in the movie, and everything began falling apart.

3.       Sometimes an entire musical is performed in song.  For the musicals that aren’t entirely song, the portions in between the songs have to be just as strong as the music.  The plot needs to move through both song and spoken word.  If either the songs or the spoken portions of the musical do not have meaning, then there is no reason for them to be in the movie.  Glitter does make both the music and the spoken portions of the movie meaningful to the overall plot, which is another good point for Glitter.  If only the plot hadn’t been so forced and boring.

4.       Like any movie, the plot of a musical has to be good.  There needs to be a reason that people are going to watch the movie.  It needs to be at least somewhat relatable so that the audience connects with the characters.  Any movie, musicals included, that don’t have a good plot tend not to get an audience.  Here is the weakness for Glitter.  The plot is not all that relatable.  A girl has an amazing voice and gets a record deal.  Her boyfriend is her manager.  Who will connect to this idea?  It isn’t relatable.  And it does not get fleshed out enough to be entertaining.

5.       Create the songs around the plot, not the plot around the songs.  I’ve seen a few musicals that began with the songs and then created the plot to fit those songs in.  The plot of the musical no longer feels natural when the songs were created before the story that they tell.  The story feels like a way to get from one song to another instead of the songs and the spoken portions feeling equal.  The songs in Glitter were created well before the movie was written.  Not that the music was too much a part of the story.  The problem was that since the songs were already done, the entire movie felt like an advertisement for the music within it.  It was a boring hour and forty minute advertisement for a few Mariah Carey songs that aren’t mediocre.

These are only five of the reasons that I think musicals are more difficult to succeed with in movies.  The genre of musicals seems to be the genre in which I find the highest highs and the lowest lows.  The fluctuation due to the difficulty of making them is something that I don’t see in too many other genres.

Movies like Glitter might be the low lows of the movie landscape, but they don’t dissuade me from watching musicals.  Like I said, musicals are the lowest lows and the highest highs.  With talent behind them, something amazing could come from a musical.  I always look forward to a good musical.  In some cases, this backfires and gives me one of the worst hours and a half in my life.  Other times, it gives me some of the greatest joy in the world.  It all comes down to how the movie is made, and how much effort the people involved in the movie put into it.  

There are some notes to make before the end of this, so stick with me:

• Glitter was nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards in 2002.  These nominations include Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screen Couple, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Supporting Actor.  Glitter won for Worst Actress.
• If there are any movies that you would like to suggest for the Sunday "Bad" Movie, leave a comment.  Or you could message me on Twitter.
• Thank you to @ErinCandy for this week's suggestion.