But while Phantom is a bad musical...simultaneously the people who become fans of it are fans not because they literally love it, but there is an ironic quality to loving it. Note when I say ironic I am not meaning how most people use ironic most of the time.

You see Christine is in a horror movie and has been for her entire childhood, teenage years, and young adulthood. She is trying to navigate, grow, and thrive despite living in a world of scarcity yet in her dreams she sees a world of plenty and beauty. She is trying to escape this horror movie. And during this escape from a crappy childhood, she thought her daimon / spiritual guardian who was literally an angel (for she is religious and it is the late 1800s) she learns nope it is just a creepy man. A creepy man who does weird things we think impossible to do without technology / electricity in an era prior to electricity. Thus people literally believe magic is real in this horror story.

Christine has no people she can really trust, her boyfriend / childhood crush is also an asshole he is just not a murdering asshole like the Phantom is. Her caretaker / adopted parent we find out later is in league with the Phantom and does not go to the authorities even though he is murdering people.

The Phantom of the Opera is like "Nightmare on Elm Street" or some other 1980s slasher film. While it is 1980s horror it also has the earnestness of musicals, the dramatic, ear worms, plus the over the top music of musicals. This musical is like those childhood drinks we called Suicides where you mixed several flavors of soda pop, it is overwhelming with its intensity of the things it throws at you. Not necessarily good things, but an intense experience none the less.

In sum Phantom of the Opera is a dumpster fire, but it is a fun dumpster fire.

-----

It is on my mind for every Friday to Sunday during Quarantine Andrew Lloyd Webber is releasing one of his musicals FOR FREE that was taped on his youtube account " The Show Must Go On!" (with partnership with Universal.) A new musical goes up Friday, and it will only remain visible for 48 hours before being taken down.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmPjhKMaXNNeCr1FjuMvag/videos

I missed the Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat musicals (which would be great to see during the easter time of the year), but I got to (re)-see the Phantom of the Opera one which was a few days ago.

Sidenote: Webber is a chaos demon who will make everyone go mad the more they see of him and his "product." ALW is quite the chaos goblin!