Tales of Wonderlost

zuky:

illegalplumpudding:

zuky:

blackamazon:

latinegrasexologist:

illegalplumpudding:

norm lewis. aka The Foxi Papi

catdaddy. i saw him in porgy and bess this summer, he’s fucking delish!

Yes!!!!

Norm Lewis really should have been cast as Valjean instead of Javert — as I argued last month, according to my reading of history and Hugo, Jean Valjean should be Black.

i agree w/you zuky—i like norm lewis WAY better as Valjean than I do Alfie Boe (although i think only alfie boe is capable of singing bring him home)—but having said that, I find a lot of really amazing nuances to his portrayal as javert—he really made me sympathetic to “javert” as a condition of humanity—as well as i just liked that he exposed the tragedy of what people of color go through having to deal with and confront the unjust ways that white supremacy favors white people with “rules”—the whole—if you just follow the “rules” you’ll be a winner! and the way he portrayed javert, you could very easily see that just isn’t true. as a person of color that has been “tricked” by those “promises” The Rules swear are fair and equal and applied to all in the same way—it was a deeply personal performance for me to watch. we have a choice in how we react to injustice, i guess is what i’m trying to say…

but yes, i think that he DEF should play valjean—seeing as all those leading men have played multiple roles within the play….

No doubt, Norm Lewis was a tremendous Javert, and I love your reading of his performance in the context of white supremacism. Some might miss the fact that Javert is not a villain, he’s a sympathetic character, much more so in the novel than in the musical (because of time constraints of the musical format). Victor Hugo is credited with being among the first European novelists to capture this complexity, to go beyond hero vs. villain, good vs. evil, and to portray how life and the corrupt world have put these two human beings on a collision course which must destroy one or the other (which is actually a standard part of Asian storytelling). This is a big part of what has made Les Miserables as timeless as it is.

I remember seeing it for the first time as a French TV miniseries when I was 11 and living in Paris; I still vividly remember certain scenes from that version. Then I read it, both in French and in English. I saw several other movie versions, mostly French but one Hollywood version in English with Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman. I saw the musical three times in LA and four times in NY on Broadway. When I got the CD when I was 17, I transcribed every single word into a notebook in sheet-music format so you could see overlapping parts. Yeah, that’s called obsessed. :D I might even go see the newest movie version at the theater tonight, but I need to make sure my mind is cleansed of any Les MIs fatigue so I can appreciate it for what it is.

saw him on tv play javert and he was amazing. his voice is heavenly. refuse to see the movie becausw it’s all white people. thanks zuky for explaining how it’s realistic (and probable) that jean valjean is black but whitewashed (link above).