Urine the right, kid?
March 6, 2024 4:23 PM Subscribe
My kid just watched his classmates perform Urinetown. He told them he liked it, until the end (which I won't dump above the fold on Ask) which he said was a clumsy "Socialism is bad!" turn. I was wondering if he's right, but I'm a) disinclined to research a musical with any seriousness and b) quite sure this is the crowd that would say so if he has it right. Does he?
I have been in this musical and I'd generally agree. Because in the plot, peeing for free wherever you want (instead of the set up collection of urine to recycle into water) ends in even worse issues than they had before.
Admittedly, you could collect pee without CHARGING for it, mind you....
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:08 PM on March 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
Admittedly, you could collect pee without CHARGING for it, mind you....
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:08 PM on March 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
Yeah he's got it. The second to last line in the show is "hail Malthus!"—the turn is not subtle. The final song outright says that the cruel capitalist system "effectively regulated water consumption" and saved the town from disaster, while the "public trust for the benefit of the people" system caused a drought and suffering.
I enjoy the show a lot, and I think it's a good jumping off point to thinking about sustainability and the social structures needed to maintain it, but it's so clumsily thrown in at the very end in a way that just doesn't work.
That said, I think there's a charitable reading of the last song that is more concerned with making the case that our way of life is unsustainable than it is with critiquing an economic system. This is a show that premiered in 2001, and I'm not sure the politics quite map to ours perfectly (man I feel old saying that). I think you can reasonably take the final song, and the show as a whole, to be imparting a lesson about the harms of society overconsuming our finite resources, something that can occur under both capitalism and socialism, and about creating a cultural mythology about the importance of avoiding that.
But I can't be overly charitable: with the whole "that capitalism sure was cruel but at least it worked" message, it's clearly about economic systems and taking a dig at socialism and not just overconsumption.
posted by zachlipton at 6:46 PM on March 6, 2024 [8 favorites]
I enjoy the show a lot, and I think it's a good jumping off point to thinking about sustainability and the social structures needed to maintain it, but it's so clumsily thrown in at the very end in a way that just doesn't work.
That said, I think there's a charitable reading of the last song that is more concerned with making the case that our way of life is unsustainable than it is with critiquing an economic system. This is a show that premiered in 2001, and I'm not sure the politics quite map to ours perfectly (man I feel old saying that). I think you can reasonably take the final song, and the show as a whole, to be imparting a lesson about the harms of society overconsuming our finite resources, something that can occur under both capitalism and socialism, and about creating a cultural mythology about the importance of avoiding that.
But I can't be overly charitable: with the whole "that capitalism sure was cruel but at least it worked" message, it's clearly about economic systems and taking a dig at socialism and not just overconsumption.
posted by zachlipton at 6:46 PM on March 6, 2024 [8 favorites]
Your kid sounds pretty awesome!
posted by kate4914 at 7:58 PM on March 6, 2024 [11 favorites]
posted by kate4914 at 7:58 PM on March 6, 2024 [11 favorites]
I see that angle but I always read Urinetown as a satire/parody of the broadway musical as a genre (some critics have observed this too), which may add a wrinkle to that interpretation (for one thing, that audiences aren't meant to take away an earnest political message)
posted by CancerSucks at 10:40 PM on March 6, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by CancerSucks at 10:40 PM on March 6, 2024 [2 favorites]
Mod note: One comment removed. Please refrain from commenting if you haven't seen or are not familiar with the musical.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:33 AM on March 7, 2024
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:33 AM on March 7, 2024
Yeah, I think there are potentially multiple layers of irony around the ending, which makes it unclear whether we should take "hail malthus" as the show's opinion. Not least is that (in my somewhat dim memory), the effect of the ending is of puncturing and quickly deflating a kind of triumphal quality? It's a twist. But I wouldn't tell your kid they're wrong at all, just that there are other readings...
posted by Mngo at 8:23 AM on March 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Mngo at 8:23 AM on March 7, 2024 [2 favorites]
Your kid isn't wrong, but I don't think it's as simple as the show disapproving of socialism and taking a swipe at it? Like Mngo said, there is a lot of stuff going on.
(As a minor point, the character delivering the judgment on the new system was a participant in and beneficiary of the old system, so his opinions about how comparatively great that was may not be reliable?)
The twist ending is heavily foreshadowed: the heroes were incompetent dolts through the entire show, and it's suggested that the new boss is not practically different from the old boss. Also, it isn't a happy musical.
My take is that the show is cynical about grand gestures (like people make in a musical), and specifically the idea that smashing the corrupt system and relying on Hope will fix everything. There are external constraints on freedom that must be reckoned with somehow - hence the conclusion of "hail, Malthus!"
Also on a meta level, Urinetown satirized a lot of Broadway, but it's a homage to Brecht and Weill. If someone wanted to condemn socialism, that's not a good foundation to start from; I don't really think the show was trying to go there.
posted by mersen at 11:23 AM on March 7, 2024 [4 favorites]
(As a minor point, the character delivering the judgment on the new system was a participant in and beneficiary of the old system, so his opinions about how comparatively great that was may not be reliable?)
The twist ending is heavily foreshadowed: the heroes were incompetent dolts through the entire show, and it's suggested that the new boss is not practically different from the old boss. Also, it isn't a happy musical.
My take is that the show is cynical about grand gestures (like people make in a musical), and specifically the idea that smashing the corrupt system and relying on Hope will fix everything. There are external constraints on freedom that must be reckoned with somehow - hence the conclusion of "hail, Malthus!"
Also on a meta level, Urinetown satirized a lot of Broadway, but it's a homage to Brecht and Weill. If someone wanted to condemn socialism, that's not a good foundation to start from; I don't really think the show was trying to go there.
posted by mersen at 11:23 AM on March 7, 2024 [4 favorites]
Sorry for the essay! I have a little more on the Brecht/Weill part.
Threepenny Opera, and specifically 'What Keeps Mankind Alive' (Wikipedia) is useful context for Urinetown, framing cruelty and immorality as a natural consequence of scarcity created by unrestrained capitalism. (Suggested solution: redistribution of wealth.)
Urinetown extrapolates that stopping mankind's cruelty without maintaining objectively limited natural resources will kill everyone.
Neither show is about solutions, but (IMHO) Threepenny Opera points firmly in the direction of socialism, and (also IMHO) Urinetown basically follows its lead.
posted by mersen at 4:34 PM on March 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
Threepenny Opera, and specifically 'What Keeps Mankind Alive' (Wikipedia) is useful context for Urinetown, framing cruelty and immorality as a natural consequence of scarcity created by unrestrained capitalism. (Suggested solution: redistribution of wealth.)
Urinetown extrapolates that stopping mankind's cruelty without maintaining objectively limited natural resources will kill everyone.
Neither show is about solutions, but (IMHO) Threepenny Opera points firmly in the direction of socialism, and (also IMHO) Urinetown basically follows its lead.
posted by mersen at 4:34 PM on March 7, 2024 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:28 PM on March 6, 2024 [1 favorite]