I love a good spectacle. The
more moving light fixtures and set pieces in a production, the happier I am to
sit in the audience and gape. So, sitting in the audience of Bat Out of Hell, watching flames and
confetti shoot across the stage, I was almost awed enough to ignore some of the
more concerning parts of the actual story.
Almost.
This isn’t
going to be a rant about how Strat pulls a Twilight
and stares at the teenage protagonist through her bedroom window despite
being much older than she is, or how the whole thing is once again handwaved with
the Forever-18 trope. It could be that, but it isn’t.
No, my concern
with Bat Out of Hell is that, despite
being developed largely in the last three years, the musical plays out like a
1970’s orgiastic love-note to the worst parts of Rock and Roll heteronormativity.
I first got
an inkling that something hinky was going on when Alex Thomas-Smith’s character
was introduced. “Tink” is an effeminate and infantilized member of the Lost,
one who seems not to be involved in any of their serious conversations, one who
is repeatedly called their “pet.” He’s also quite clearly queer. Not even
merely queer-coded, as is so often
the case in rock musicals. Tink tries to kiss Strat mere moments after his
first entrance, and sings a sad number about his unreciprocated affections in
Act II. Tink is definitely not
straight.
Which is
why I cringed so very, very hard when
I realized what was going on. “Clap if you believe in fairies,” takes on a vastly
different tone when you’ve cast your Tinkerbell as a jealous gay teen. Particularly
one who is not only a POC but also defies typical masculinity. Tink encapsulates
some of the worst stereotypes about young and effeminate gay men, not only when
the original Bat Out of Hell album
was released, but also today. He whines, he’s jealous, he’s hopelessly in love with
our dashing male lead and also hopelessly clueless that his affections will
never be returned.
Strat, of
course, is superficially gallant, even in the face of Tink’s desire. He pulls
back, but only far enough to prevent the kiss. He rejects Tink, but with a
softening, “You’re my best friend.” He keeps Tink at an emotional distance, but
physically close. In short, he throws the poor gay boy a bone.
The problem
with this is that he also clearly doesn’t respect
him. When Tink comes to Strat with his fears that he’ll never fit in with
the rest of the Lost, never have a place, Strat placates him with the noncommittal,
“You’re special,” and then roughhouses with him, knocking the two of them over onto a bed. It’s hard to blame Tink for
being confused as to Strat’s feelings for him when Strat seems so intent on
confusing him. And then, when Tink reacts negatively to Raven’s presence—seemingly
out of both jealousy and a perfectly
legitimate fear that Raven puts them all in danger from Falco—Strat tells
him to “grow up already.” It’s a cruel barb already, but made all the worse by
the fact that his inability to mature is precisely what Tink has been so insecure
about all along. And because Strat knows that. Ultimately, the romantic slight
and obvious hopelessness of Tink’s love turns his number, “Not Allowed to Love,”
from the anthem to queer persistence from within the margins that it could have
been played as into the sad and somewhat deluded song of a foolish child.
Ultimately,
Strat’s hot and cold-running affection actually gets Tink killed. Driven to desperation
by his jealousy, he betrays the Lost—in yet another instance of Tink fulfilling
gay stereotypes of disloyalty and foolishness, I might add—and dies in the
process. For a brief moment, it seems as if this might mark a major turning
point in the show, as Raven and Strat find their first real point of
contention. And yet it is almost instantly resolved, as the screen shows us a
quick flash of “6 months later” and the pair reunite within mere minutes. Even
Falco is ultimately absolved for the death, baptized back into the religion of rock
and roll, washed clean of his sins. Ultimately, Tink’s death serves as little
more than a brief moment of character development for Strat. He becomes the
all-too-common Sacrificial Gay, dying to move the plot forward so that a
straight man can get closer to his emotions for a second or two.
Strat isn’t only a problem for Tink, either. At
times he seems to embody the gender-blurring rock and roll persona of a Freddy
Mercury or David Bowie figure, with his almost waifish appearance and soaring
vocal range. He gyrates around the stage in tight pants, staring soulfully about
him, challenging anyone to naysay him. And yet, Strat is ultimately just as
much an enforcer of traditional gender roles as Falco. He chases after Raven
not because he knows anything about her as a person—they’ve never spoken, it
would seem—but because she represents some idea of feminine purity to him. The
lyrics of the title number make this painfully clear:
“Oh, baby you're the only thing in
this whole world
That's pure and good and right
And wherever you are and wherever
you go
There's always gonna be some light…”
In other words, he wants Raven because he thinks she can
bring some sort of meaning to his bleak existence.
Except, why
is his life so bleak? He has friends who clearly care about him deeply. He has
his beloved motorcycle. He even has some semblance of a purpose, in leading the
Lost and fighting against Falco. The closest the show comes to an explanation
is hidden somewhere behind his repeated refrain. “On a hot summer night, would
you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?” He asks the question
several times, to several different characters, and is sorely disappointed each
time they fail to come up with a response. The implication, then, is that Strat
is somehow creatively and emotionally unfulfilled, without a partner who can
match him. Only Raven—whom, I will reiterate, he doesn’t know—is apparently capable of providing the right response.
And what does Strat have to offer Raven, really? She points out the obvious problem—that
he’ll never age, remaining eternally youthful while she lives out a normal
human lifespan—before the show handwaves this with a charming “I Would Do Anything
For Love” number. But Strat’s apparent devotion doesn’t change the fact that he
can never relate to the struggles of growing older she will face, the same struggles
her parents sing about earlier in the show. What’s more, Strat doesn’t seem to
really do anything. He lives in the
subway tunnels with a bunch of teenagers and their motorcycles. Hardly a sustainable lifestyle for anyone who
isn’t a perpetual reckless teen. Raven is proposing to literally spend the rest
of her life wasting away to be with a man who can never fully relate to her,
but who claims to desperately need her. The show endorses the longstanding
narrative, especially common in rock and roll, of men who can only be fulfilled
by women who are willing to go along with their creative endeavors, who will
worship them so fully that they are willing to be sacrificed entirely. To offer
their throats to the wolf with the red roses. She is sacrificed on the altar of
Strat’s male ego almost as thoroughly as Tink.
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