On April 1, 2020, Adam Schlesinger became one of the first major celebrities to die from COVID-19. As the tributes poured in, it became clear just how much he had given the world over the past 25 years. You may know him for the Oscar-nominated title song of the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do! (1996). Maybe it’s his work with Fountains of Wayne, who had their own Grammy-nominated hit “Stacy’s Mom.” Even in the world of theater, he had penned the music for the John Waters adaptation Cry-Baby and was working with Sarah Silverman on a musical adaptation of her memoir “The Bed-Wetter.”
The man was nothing if not prolific. Not only that, but he had a singular gift for managing to create quirky music without it falling into novelty. He captured deeper human emotions while diving into the comical and even the absurd. The reason that “That Thing You Do!” endures is that while it’s intended as a one hit wonder song, it has a catchy melody that sticks with you. There’s something tangible about it that immediately moves your body while having something limited about its appeal. Schlesinger had this empathy inside of him that spoke for the geek in all of us, who understood media on a fundamental level and knew how to parody it with gravitas.
If you had to ask what his magnum opus was, there are several candidates. He is known in so many fields that he probably would’ve been an EGOT within the next 20 years. It definitely helped that he had been nominated for each and with The Bed-Wetter (originally scheduled to open a few months from now) could’ve even gotten him a Tony win, leaving a coveted Oscar just out of his grasp.
But if you were to ask me what he deserves to be remembered for, there really is one answer. Just in terms of scope, The CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a revolutionary series that should grow in stature through new generations discovering it on Netflix.
The mastermind to the series is Rachel Bloom, who stars as Rebecca Bunch in one of the few high concept shows to be broadcast on a major channel. Rebecca moves to West Covina, CA in order to chase Josh. As the title suggests, she is a crazy ex, doing everything to get back with him. While the hour-long romantic comedy series is subversive in other ways as it skewers tropes, the highlight has been its musical numbers.
Whereas most shows would get by with having one every few episodes, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes for the jugular. Bloom is there every episode breaking out into songs that tear apart the fabric of this universe. Sometimes it’s rooted in reality, but the segments that resonate the most come when we escape into Rebecca’s head, seeing a world full of fancy that recalls every possible type of music genre. If the style has a beat, you best believe that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has parodied it, finding something deeper and more earnest in the comedic approach. It’s as much about the punchline as advancing story with cathartic subtext.
While I would encourage everyone to watch for Bloom, there is something that should be applauded about the music component. Much like Glee before, every episode was proceeded by the music released as singles, eventually collected on album collections. If you don’t have time to work through this incredible show, just pop on a few of the songs (or better yet, watch the videos) and you’ll understand what is great. They satirize style, but Bloom’s commitment makes it go down easier. It even has future Tootsie star Santino Fontana As much as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a group effort, a lot of credit should also go to Schlesinger.
With his collaborators, they crafted 157 songs over the course of four seasons. With plenty of highs and lows, the series has created one of the richest collections of comedic songs, rivaling Weird Al Yankovic and The Lonely Island just for consistency. While there’s a joke rooted in every line, the earnest commitment makes these more timeless.
One of Schlesinger’s finest hours comes in the season two episode “All Signs Point to Josh… Or is it Josh’s Friend?” During this point in the show, Rebecca is trying to determine whether she is in love with Josh or his friend Greg. This leads to a parody on the idea of “love triangles,” which of course leads to one of the best numbers thanks to a literal interpretation of that phrase.
The song “The Math of Love Triangles” is set up as a parody of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). The sequence “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” remains one of Marilyn Monroe’s most famous moments as it sets into place a series of tropes about the dumb blonde. Monroe is sexy, perceived as dimwitted, and drawn to men for their wealth. She stands within a crowd of men, not paying attention to them as she swoons over diamonds. It’s something that has been parodied time and again, whether it be Madonna’s “Material Girl” video or just this year in Birds of Prey (2020).
So, how does Crazy-Ex Girlfriend update it? Along with changing the overall color scheme (Monroe’s is more of a passionate pink whereas Rebecca is in a shiny blue dress), it’s going to be a dumb brunette story that pits two concepts against each other.
For Rebecca, she is discussing the social idea of a love triangle. Her back-up singers are going on at length about various forms of triangles. These worlds butt heads throughout the entire song as it’s clear that Bloom doesn’t want to learn about geometry. She would rather just live in her blissful curiosity about which man she should date. Meanwhile, the back-up singers take turns responding with concern for Rebecca’s ability to focus before returning to this upbeat number about the different kinds of triangles and how Rebecca cannot be the center of a love triangle because “a triangle has many centers.”
Even with a more Trojan Horse approach, Schlesinger has crafted a song that every math nerd could love. Alongside Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements” and Weird Al’s “Word Crimes,” this is a great example of mixing comedy with knowledge in ways that make you want to learn both the melody and the facts.
One of the best passages comes early when the back-up singers present Rebecca with an image of a scalene triangle. Her response?
That's astute
So I need to decide which man's more acute
The song’s full of these small puns, showing that while Rebecca claims to have a learning disability, she is able to twist the terminology into something clever. The whole song is constantly having fun with this with even the back-up singers at one point singing:
We're tired of all your tangents
That's also a triangle pun
A math major could do a better job dissecting every last lyric, but the fact that Schlesinger has found the connection between math and love is noteworthy. Both are important functions in our lives and while it doesn’t do all that much to create a better understanding of love triangles, it does plenty to show just how confusing the dumb blonde trope that Monroe popularized actually is. How could a person not understand how to listen and learn from those wanting to better her life? She’s clueless and is likely to just give in to her dumb romantic behavior regardless.
The song even reaches a masterful achievement when it manages to go highbrow and lowbrow at the same time, capturing mathematics with euphemistic language:
Rebecca: Ooh, are you erect?
Singers: No, 90 degrees
Rebecca: That's really erect!
Yes, it’s that kind of show. Considering that part of Monroe’s charm was her ability to throw in similar double entendre, it makes sense that this would be here. Even then, it’s not a lazy phallic joke. It’s one that conflates math with Rebecca’s disregard for the world around her, only obsessed with love as she tries to make sense of anything. It becomes clear that she won’t listen to anyone, even for less complicated ideas. With that said, it would be far less interesting than tearing apart one of film history’s most tired clichés and breathing new life into it.
That is the charm of this show. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend isn’t just a romantic comedy. It’s a chance to question the media that we consume and how it wires our brain. Schlesinger’s ability to find the brilliance in a dumb idea only shows how he was capable of satirizing Monroe while understanding the damage of believing that every woman needs to fawn over a man. Rebecca can’t be that dumb, but she plays it as a way of showing how love can distract us in harmful ways. It just happens to have some of the greatest math puns.
Also, if you have some free time on your hands, please take some time to visit the Genius page for this song. It’s not exactly groundbreaking, but there’s something amusing about every math reference getting an annotation that explains in detail what they’re about. Very little has to do with the nuance of the song in relation to the show.
One more joke before I move forward. Since this song is taking place in Rebecca’s head, in a world of fantasy, does that mean that this song is an imaginary number?
Anyways…
With exception to variety shows, I don’t think that there’s any show that would have the audacity to pull off what Crazy Ex-Girlfriend achieved over four seasons. The idea of packing a show with several musical numbers, breaking from realism for three minutes at a time, takes such an effort that makes the show far more ambitious than its competitors. Again, they’re all not gems but there are reasons that their bigger numbers have withstood multiple listens. Even outside of context, you can understand the joke of the song while dancing along to the fun melodies. This show feels like a miracle, of the right forces coming together at the right time to make a satire that put in the extra effort.
It’s also worth noting that it’s a show that explores mental health in rather compelling ways. It doesn’t all have to do with the musical numbers, though it is commented upon as to why Rebecca escapes into her head. The very term “crazy ex-girlfriend” is even deconstructed in the first season’s opening song. The fact that the show manages to do all of this while taking some effort to be serious within its comedy about darker issues allows the show to resonate and grow as the seasons progress. What starts as a basic satire of desperate woman following a man to the west coast ends up being a touching look at how we grapple with our personal well-being.
 |
| Adam Schlesinger (right) with Rachel Bloom |
There are countless ways to remember Schlesinger. He just had one of those careers where everywhere you look he seems to be there. You just didn’t notice because it was in the effort of making other’s art shine better. Would Crazy Ex-Girlfriend be half as good without him? Well, Bloom is charismatic enough to pull it off – but probably no. His personality informs his work with such clarity that it makes sense why he has been assigned to so many great projects. He’s even written pop hits for bands other than himself, including The Click-Five’s “Just the Girl.”
He probably could’ve done a lot more had he gotten the career he greatly deserved. That doesn’t mean that he didn't do everything to make his presence known while alive. To me, there is something crucial about his involvement with Bloom’s series that would be impossible to remove. Without him, the show would be less funny, likely unable to hit the peaks of humor with as much success. Most of all, there wouldn’t be a brilliant Gentlemen Prefer Blondes parody involving math equations butting heads with dumb blonde jokes. It’s so subversive and becomes richer the more that you think about it. That’s how his whole career was. It becomes more interesting the longer you stay with it.
Comments
Post a Comment