With my admittedly limited knowledge of musical theater, I have to wonder if it is meant for idiots. Take away the music of Rock of Ages, and you get a very trite plot, with inconsistent characterization, and a lot of bewildering issues, such as why a group of anti-rock activists feel so threatened by a cover band. As a story, we are talking about a big mess. On the other hand, the songs are far superior to the average musical film, so there is that.

The real issue though is the message of the film. I just can’t tell if it is supposed to be spoofing rock and the culture or the opposition or the corporate influence, or if it means exactly what it seems to be saying or if it is intended to be ironic. I mean, this is a story about a musician presented as the embodiment or avatar of rock and roll, whose quest for the ultimate great rock song culminates in the “discovery” and performance of what has become one of the most overplayed songs in Hollywood, “Don’t Stop Believing”. Though, I have to admit, as someone who has never been a big fan of the song, it is starting to grow on me with every TV show and movie in which I see it performed.

In another confusing bit, the female lead character (played by Julianne Hough, who seems a bit in danger of becoming genre-typecast with her only notable movie credits being this and a remake of “Footloose” ) is encouraged to become a stripper in what seems to be an appeal to the versatility and freedom of expression offered by the “art”, but this scene is juxtaposed with her love interest separately being pressured to give up his rock persona and embrace a more commercialized style of performance. So is the girl really being encouraged to break out of her small-town, good-girl shell in order to find her inner rocker (and if stripping is really the way to finding your inner rocker, maybe the church ladies have a point? ), or is her transition supposed to highlight the “prostitution” the male character is succumbing to? Shortly after that scene(s), the two characters meet, and the girl tells the guy “I’m a stripper” and he replies that he is in a boy band, which she notes is worse. Because musical theater fans might not have got that subtly portrayed joke until it was explicitly stated in dialogue?

What is more interesting in my mind, which that part touches on, is this apparent petulance on the part of performing artists that the entertainment industry can be described using either of those words. They really seem to resent that they are asked to entertain or that they are part of an industry. Sure, they would prefer to be a member of the “receive approval, admiration and lots of money for saying and doing whatever I feel like” racket but who wouldn’t? The rest of us accept that we have to give something to get something, and we don’t use our jobs to whine to the customers about having to serve them.

“Rock of Ages” compares commercialized music to prostitution while overlooking the fact that in some eras, all actors and popular musicians were viewed as near-equivalents of prostitutes (IIRC, that’s why Shakespeare didn’t use actresses – not out of sexism, but because you just didn’t induce a decent woman to perform on a stage). And when you paint your face, put on clothing you’d never wear in normal circumstances and do or say absurd things solely for the visceral gratification of strangers, you are not in much of a position to go around flinging the prostitute label.

Another thing I found instructive was the portrayal of the other antagonistic force in the movie, religious opposition to rock music, wedded to (literally in this case) political clout. For such badass rebels who don’t care what anyone thinks, the artistic community sure does get agitated when they are not universally embraced. I mean the whole point of rock and roll (especially the vision of rock and roll as promulgated by works such as this film) was a thumb in the eye of traditional values and religion. They are pretty much complaining that religion and family values types are having the audacity to fight back. What is more, the film is set in 1987 and released this year, and in either time, complaints about the threat posed to rock and roll and its millionaire musicians and producers by Christianity either smacks of absurdity or suggests there is actually something to this Christianity stuff after all, like maybe they do possess some profound truth or are tied in to some greater force in the universe. How else could such a universally reviled or mocked group pose a threat to what is pretty much the entertainment and cultural establishment in our society?

The old truism comes to mind, whereby people are probably guilty of the fault they are most inclined to accuse others of. A murderer is most fearful of threats to his life, while a thief is most careful of his own possessions, and so on. If we were to apply this to “Rock of Ages” and so many other works that depict a clash between the excitement and life of the big city and the values and parochial aspects of small town flyover land, we might draw some interesting conclusions about all these artists who belittle the small towns and portray protagonists “escaping” their small town upbringing, after being “stifled” or silenced and censored or mocked for their nontraditional ways. Also, their attitude toward Christianity and traditional values and how those things are so bad and they impose suffering on the heroes or seek to tear down and destroy the heroes.

First of all, those characters representing the small towns, family values or Christian morality are always somewhat hypocritical. Like Catherine Zeta-Jones’ character, they are secretly infatuated with their targets or their hatred is inspired by rejection. Zeta-Jones’ anti-rock crusader is brought down when a picture of her youthful indulgence in “sex, drugs and rock & roll” is displayed on live TV, even as the rock star she is picketing recognizes her and alludes to their one-night stand years ago. Rock is saved, because its archenemy happened to have a devastating skeleton in her closet! Hooray.

Yeah, no. Plots like this display nothing more than colossal ignorance of the enemy: a Christian who had her past experiences in the rock scene would be broadcasting that from the housetops, both to give themselves the “been there, done that” credibility and to play up to the “greater rejoicing over one sinner who repents than 99 who remain pure” bit from the Bible. There’s a reason the Prodigal Son is probably the best known parable of the Gospels. After having filthy hippies sneer “don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it” at them for decades, Christian activists would LOVE the chance to put up a spokeswoman who can say “I have tried it, and our way is still better!”

What’s more, it is the entertainment industry that runs on such ephemeral phenomena as “buzz” and “reputation” and it is the careers of entertainers that can be destroyed by uncovering flaws in their public personas. Their fantasies of how their enemies might fall are only the projections of their own eventual fates when they get old or ugly or lose “it”.

Secondly, if you turn around the “our enemies secretly love us/want us/resent our rejection of them” trope of such fare, and combine it with their disdain for small towns, middle class institutions and traditional family values, we can infer that beneath every badass rocker or hedonistic star or avant-garde auteur filmmaker, is a rejected kid who just wants Mommy and Daddy to open their arms and tell him “Son, I still love you, even if you would rather play with that damn guitar or act out your little plays in front of a mirror than engage in our traditional past-times in our suburban home,” or have their fellow small town dwellers say “Kiddo, it’s okay that you suck at sports and wear makeup. We still admire you and are looking forward to catching up at the local high school reunion.”

On the other hand, it does take a certain amount of cojones to make and release a film about rebellion, artistic integrity and originality, which protests commercialization of contemporary music, all while featuring numerous songs of time-tested popularity, mainstream acceptance and commercial saturation. Let us express our individuality by extending our pinky & index fingers while sticking out our tongues in a fashion identical to what people have been doing since before we were born! Yeah!! ROCK AND ROLL, BITCHES!!!!!!