On Culture

When I was growing up I had a certain view about high brow and low brow culture. To me low brow started with TV and then went to movies (such as anything by Mel Books). Movie such as Chariots of Fire could be high brow but "artsy" movies were still at the bottom of the high brow totem. You had movies, then novels, then broadway plays and then poetry. I'll freely admit that my cultural appreciation never extended to poetry (unless you include limericks).

Today my world view of popular culture is getting turned on its head by the fact that most new Broadway plays seem to be based on old low brow movies. Spamalot, the play based on the Monty Python movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, just had a huge opening on Broadway.

If you look at other Broadway plays you'd see The Lion King, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and The Producers as some of the top plays. The Lion King is based on a cartoon for cripes sake.

It isn't going to get any better either. Dolly Parton is working on turning the movie 9 to 5 into a Broadway musical and get this - The Lord of the Rings is also being turned into a musical.

Add to this the fact that the rest of the Broadway shows seem to be based on pop music (Momma Mia on the music of ABBA and Moving Out on the songs of Billy Joel are examples) and you would have to think that Shaw and Wilde must be spinning in their graves.