The fascinating thing to me about Cabaret is how it reveals ambivalence & guilt about sexual freedom and gender norms. That’s why Fosse’s version in early 70s was a big deal then & endures now. The anxieties which spawned the musical had grown exponentially. #TCMParty 1/x
I think Cabaret belongs with things like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, which portray repression as actually demonic, but “conjured” by another bad thing: weakening of patriarchy, thus “society out of control.” Big topic of pop culture 1960-80. Maybe THE topic. 2/
Which is a neurotic distortion. In addition to increases in female power, there are two distinct things going on in Weimar: postwar sexual openness (good), and TONS of prostitution caused by poverty (bad).
But it’s all rolled into one, as a cautionary tale. 2/x
But it’s all rolled into one, as a cautionary tale. 2/x
The question should be: why is men wearing eyeliner or women getting jobs such a trigger for mass neurosis? Gender fluidity is a human constant.
I think, sadly, the answer is Christianity & the subterranean guilt it carries from its destruction of pagan/polytheistic Europe. /end
I think, sadly, the answer is Christianity & the subterranean guilt it carries from its destruction of pagan/polytheistic Europe. /end
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