Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
[THEME MUSIC]
GLEN WELDON: You know the musicals Cabaret and Chicago, with songs by Kander and Ebb. You probably don't know their musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, though. Now's your chance to check it out. There's a new adaptation in theaters starring Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna.
AISHA HARRIS: In an Argentinian prison, one man tells his cellmate the story of his favorite old Hollywood musical starring the silver-screen goddess he worships. That's J.Lo. I'm Aisha Harris.
WELDON: And I'm Glen Weldon. And today, we're talking about Kiss of the Spider Woman on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
WELDON: Joining us today is entertainment journalist Cristina Escobar. She's the co-founder and editor-in-chief of LatinaMedia.Co. Hey, Cristina.
CRISTINA ESCOBAR: Hello, hello.
WELDON: Welcome, welcome. Also with us is NPR producer Corey Antonio Rose. Welcome back, Corey Antonio.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE: I'm glad to be where you are, Glen.
WELDON: Glad to have you here. Kiss of the Spider Woman takes place in Argentina in 1983. Diego Luna plays Valentin, a revolutionary imprisoned and tortured by the military dictatorship. A new inmate arrives to share his cell, a queer window dresser named Molina. He's played by Tonatiuh. Molina idolizes Ingrid Luna, a classic Hollywood movie star played by J.Lo. His favorite movie of hers is a musical called Kiss of the Spider Woman, in which she plays both the leading lady, Aurora, and the villain, a jungle spirit known as the Spider Woman.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
INGRID: (SINGING) Of the Spider Woman In her velvet cave You can scream But you cannot escape
[END PLAYBACK]
WELDON: Night after night, Molina regales Valentin with the story of the movie, and we see that movie come to life in glorious, melodramatic technicolor, with J.Lo, Luna, and Tonatiuh playing the key roles. Kiss of the Spider Woman is an adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical written by Terrence McNally, with songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb. It represents the first time this story, which has been a book, a stage play, a movie, and a Broadway musical, has been presented with an all-Latin cast. It was directed by Bill Condon, who directed Dreamgirls-- yay-- and the live-action Beauty and the Beast-- boo.
[LAUGHTER]
WELDON: It's in theaters now. Cristina, did you get caught in her web?
ESCOBAR: Yes, I did get caught.
WELDON: OK.
ESCOBAR: I absolutely did. You know, going into this film with these huge Latino stars, knowing we don't get that many shots at this type of film, I was nervous. And about halfway through the movie, I was really nervous because there's all these changes in tones. It switches between this dark gray, dreary prison cell and this beautiful, bright technicolor experience. And switching is difficult as an audience. It's difficult to care about both places. It's difficult to toggle and hold the emotional threads. But I want to say, by the third act, they had gotten me. They had gotten me emotionally. I felt like the performances really came together. You know, there are some tropes about how LGBTQ folks are portrayed and the sort of access to happiness that, you know, can be problematic. But I also want to say that, like, the love story in this is portrayed beautifully in a way that still feels radical, something we don't see on screen very often. And by the end, they just totally had me, and I walked away buzzing, thrilled.
WELDON: Hmm, OK. Corey Antonio, what do you make of Cristina's thoughts about the shifts in tone? They are dramatic.
ROSE: You know, the musical, the stage musical is very much not structured the same way as the film, where you're kind of unsure-- is this reality? Is this fantasy? What are we looking at? And I thought that it worked really well to not only separate the two landscapes, the Argentinian prison and this technicolor fantasy land, but I thought that, also, just, like, taking out the singing prisoners--
[LAUGHTER]
ROSE: --and a lot of the campier elements of the original musical in favor of sort of these darker, bleaker moments, where we really see the harsh realities of being in a prison in the '80s in Argentina, I thought that it really elevated the storytelling. And it took me out of the space. Usually, Kiss of the Spider Woman, I'm like, what is going on?
[LAUGHTER]
ROSE: Who is this lady? Are we watching the film? Or are we watching the film of the film? Are we watching the musical of the film of the musical?
WELDON: Sure.
ROSE: But there were no questions with this viewing, which I really appreciated. It felt like they were taking all of the haze off of the story.
HARRIS: Yeah, I think that conscious decision actually works in its favor.
WELDON: I agree.
HARRIS: Glen, I'm pretty sure that there's going to be at least one or two people listening to this who are already, you know, spinning their web and want to entrap you for saying that this show is not memorable, does not have memorable music. I, for one, agree with you. But I think the fact that this show does not have its "Mein Herr," it doesn't have its "All That Jazz," it doesn't have that one standout song, there is one song that is sung in the prison. That one is "Dear One/Querido"--
WELDON: Yeah.
HARRIS: --which, that is sung by a couple of prisoners. We don't ever see those prisoners again. And it comes at a really emotional moment. It's also very brief.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
PRISONERS: [SINGING IN SPANISH]
[END PLAYBACK]
HARRIS: But other than that, I think because we have that separation, why it works is that once we go to these escapist places, and it's J.Lo, and it's beautiful costumes, and you're giving us "Singing in the Rain," an "Get Happy" from Summet Stock, and, like, all these, like, you know, nods to old classic Hollywood movies, that makes me more forgiving of the songs being not memorable because I'm just like, it appeals to me in the same way that I think it's supposed to appeal to the character of Molina, which is, it is pure escapism. Like, I don't have to actually, like, remember these songs. I do remember the visuals, and they serve as an escape within this world that, I think, helps to balance those tones and works really well. And, you know, I think, Tony, to you and Diego Luna, they are the emotional core. And I think that, to me, even though the music is not great, and it's challenging all of my beliefs that, like, in order for a musical to succeed, the musical numbers need to be good, I think that the fact that their relationship grows and changes and shifts and is so complex is what makes this movie succeed for me. And I really, really enjoyed it.
WELDON: OK. So I have thoughts about the songs, as you might imagine. But first, we got to talk about the people who are singing them. I want to say, from the gate, Tonatiuh is the real thing.
HARRIS: Yes.
WELDON: They are a star.
HARRIS: Yes.
WELDON: They clean up really well, especially when they have to play the role in the musical. Their mannerisms and diction switch into old Hollywood. They fit right in. And they move like a musical-theater star, which is important. If they, at any point in a dance number, have to extend a hand to J.Lo, they do it with the flourish and precision of a trained dancer, in a way that Diego Luna-- I love Diego Luna.
HARRIS: Who doesn't? [LAUGHS]
WELDON: He's a naturalistic film actor. That's his training. He has trouble kind of locking in. And he lives in the close-ups, but if there is a long shot, if there's a dance number, and he extends a hand to J.Lo, he's basically thrusting a ham hock in her face. You know, he's not trained for this.
[LAUGHTER]
WELDON: You can't get a lifetime of theater dance training in the time it takes to prep for one movie. J.Lo locks into the dancing, of course. And of course, the internet, being the internet, has already had their say. There was an interview on CBS Sunday Morning where she said she thinks she has a voice more suited to the theater, and the internet, being the internet, said, girl, you got a voice more suited to dancing in the theater. But let's be real. I would disagree with Aisha. Musicals live or die by the songs. They are the engine. They are the structure. They are the story. And I think they're lacking here. Talk to me about them.
HARRIS: To be clear, I agree with that. But this movie has challenged me. That's what I'm saying, Glen. But yes. Continue, continue.
ESCOBAR: I went and listened to the soundtrack of this film twice in preparation for this, and it is not something that I recommend. It was rough. It was rough. The songs are not standalone numbers. I think J.Lo does fine. I think Diego Luna can't really sing. God bless his heart for putting himself out there. He does great in the acting portion of this.
WELDON: Absolutely. The close-ups.
ESCOBAR: Yep, mm-hmm. But I feel like the film does still work because, as Aisha said, the music is, in many ways, separate. It's not as integral. its an escape, a dip out of reality. And, like, maybe it would work a little better even one of the songs was something you could hum afterwards, but they're not. They're kind of like old musical timey, horny, like, little silly things. And--
WELDON: [LAUGHS]
ESCOBAR: --you know, it is what it is. They feel like kind of background, nothing.
ROSE: Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I mean--
[LAUGHTER]
ESCOBAR: You like them?
ROSE: I think that the problem with this film is that the way the songs are packaged, the delivery is not memorable. And when I listen to the Vanessa Williams cast recording, it sticks with me. It's cute. It lives up to a musical-theater standard. I think the problem is that there are no phenomenal voices in this production, in this film--
WELDON: Yeah.
ROSE: --except for Tonatiuh.
WELDON: Mm-hmm.
HARRIS: Yeah.
ROSE: And that makes these songs not memorable because there are no long notes held. There is no real vibrato. Everything does have that studio clean finish. And you don't get that--
WELDON: Right.
ROSE: --moment that you get in some of Bill Condon's other musicals. I'm thinking of Dreamgirls, Jennifer Hudson. This time, Effie White is going to win.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: Mm-hmm.
ROSE: Like--
ESCOBAR: Yeah.
ROSE: --there are no moments where you're like, oh, I am watching musical theater on film from the vocal perspective. You get that from the dancing. You get that from the beautiful gowns.
[LAUGHTER]
ESCOBAR: The wigs.
WELDON: Careful. Careful.
ROSE: And I think one of the things I left the theater thinking was, wow, J.Lo, beautiful gowns, transcendent dancing.
HARRIS: Yeah.
ROSE: The vocal was never going to be there.
WELDON: Yeah.
HARRIS: Sorry. Noted. I need to listen to the Vanessa Williams cast album because--
ESCOBAR: Yeah, same.
HARRIS: --I also listened to the Chita Rivera original-- and I love Chita. She was a legend. Let's not get this twisted. But like, that cast album is not doing anything for me in the same way this is not doing it. And-- well, not in the same way, but in a different way. Like, Chita Rivera, she was a triple threat. Now, was she a singer along the lines of like-- I don't know-- Barbra Streisand, or what? Like, no. But like, she has a very powerful voice, and she could use it. When you think about some of the biggest Hollywood musical stars of the Golden Era-- Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly-- like, they couldn't really sing. Like, their voices were limited. But they knew how to sell a song. They could use their voice in the limited capacity to sell the song. And J.Lo-- I love her dancing, beautiful, looks great, but she's not up to selling these songs in the way they need to be sold. And she has quite a few songs. She has a lot of songs. Like, it's not like she just has one or two. So I think it's notable that she shows up here, and she is only in the fantasy world. She does not appear-- at least not, like, in a real way-- in the real world. And so I think it's really interesting because she is the marquee name here, but she is not the star. And that's a choice. And I think the choice-- it both suits her. But also, I wish we had someone who could sell these songs a little bit better.
ROSE: Janet Jackson could have did this.
HARRIS: Mm. But that would have been a whole different thing.
WELDON: That's a whole different thing. That's a whole--
ROSE: Something totally different.
WELDON: But I don't know if these songs are easy to sell. I'm here to tell you that I approached this like Cristina. I listened to these numbers, this whole soundtrack and other soundtracks, before, during, and after this movie, hoping that-- because sometimes you walk out of a theater, and you're not humming anything. And sometimes it just takes, you know, some songs more listens to worm their way into your brain. I gave them plenty of opportunities. Nothing did. I just-- all I kept hearing was the simplicity, which surprises me from the folks who did Cabaret and Chicago and even The Rink. I mean, I notice it in the lyrics. I don't know anything about music. But again and again, these songs land so hard on the terminal rhyme of each line, which is what you have to do, I guess. But you know exactly what the next line is going to be. If you hear "tides low ebb," you know that "caught in her web" is coming around the corner. And the magic of a musical number is that those rhymes are there to provide the structure and the form but also to reassure you that there's craft involved here, right, that we got your back. But if they never surprise you, if they never bring you up short, if they never go beyond the first draft, like, first entry in the rhyming dictionary, you're left with "meat, street," "miss, kiss," "gloom, room," "hiss, kiss." You're always one step ahead of the lyrics, which isn't satisfying because every musical phrase gets resolved as precisely as you'd expect it to.
ESCOBAR: Yeah.
WELDON: So tension gets introduced and immediately reduced. And nobody comes to art, musicals included, to have our expectations precisely met. God, I needed something--
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: --out of left field, something here.
ESCOBAR: The songs are not where this movie is going to deliver that for you. Like, they're just--
WELDON: Yeah.
ESCOBAR: --not.
HARRIS: Yeah.
ESCOBAR: And like, you know, I hear you all comparing it to Bill Condon's past works, which I think is fair, but when I was watching it, I was comparing it to Emilia Pérez, which is the other big, like, quote unquote, "Latino movie, musical awards juggernaut thing."
HARRIS: I forgot about that movie [LAUGHS] already.
ESCOBAR: Yeah. I wish I had, too.
WELDON: Wanted to forget about that movie.
ESCOBAR: [LAUGHS] And watching it compared to that, like, none of those songs were hummable. And this movie--
WELDON: Sure.
ESCOBAR: --had an emotional core. It had something to say about what it was to be in a certain place and time in Latin America. It had representation that felt meaningful in a way that just resonated off screen in Tonatiuh's performance. And also, Diego Luna's continuing playing of this revolutionary, like, there were notes that sang out from this film-- maybe "sang" isn't the right verb--
[LAUGHTER]
ESCOBAR: --that reverberated--
WELDON: OK.
HARRIS: We get it.
ESCOBAR: --echoed--
HARRIS: [INAUDIBLE]
ESCOBAR: --out from this film into the real world that made it more powerful and more strong in a way that, like, that other film that we can forget about just didn't, right? And that's where the meat of the film is. You got to kind of just let the songs go.
ROSE: But that's hard for a musical.
HARRIS: Yeah.
ROSE: That is, like--
WELDON: This is the thing. It's a musical.
HARRIS: Yeah.
ROSE: Especially because this has already been a book, a stage play, a film.
WELDON: Yeah.
HARRIS: Maybe this is just an exception, but like, I guess I'm able to overlook the songs because of that central story. And for me, what I liked about this adaptation is that, even though it is set in 1983, and it's set in the past, and it feels as though it's in touch with sort of our current sensibilities, especially when it comes to-- Cristina, you kind of hinted at it earlier, but there's this idea around, like, queer stereotypes. And, you know, Molina is very proudly apolitical, so he says, and is, like, obsessed with divas and is, like, basically a walking stereotype. And then you have, of course, the Valentin character, and they're clashing. And what I found interesting was how it feels very much in conversation with something we're talking about now, which is, like, whether you're queer, whether you're Black, or a person of color, like, how much do we put into this idea of, like, "resisting," quote unquote, everything that's happening through pop culture and art and, like, putting all of our energy into that? Like, I'm going out dancing. I'm resisting. Like, it's, like, a fraught conversation. And I feel like this movie, in many ways-- and this is, like, a common thread throughout every iteration of this, but it feels especially like it wants to be in conversation with that idea now. And I kind of like the way that played out in this film. And I'm curious how that kind of struck you all in terms of its, like, discussion around art as resistance or art as just a way of, like, expressing yourself and attaching yourself to that.
ROSE: Yeah. I think there's definitely something to be said in the film about the power of art to really heal you. And I can't experience Kiss of the Spider Woman without making comparisons to The Drowsy Chaperone because I feel like thematically, there is something there where it's like--
WELDON: Sure.
ROSE: --those songs that you are supposed to leave a musical going back to with your head, those stick with you, and those are there for your times of duress, for your times of peril where you can have something to lean on. And I think that I didn't catch as many stereotypes in my viewing of the film. I thought that Molina-- Tonatiuh's performance as Molina was actually incredibly nuanced for the stage of--
HARRIS: Yeah.
ROSE: --queerness that they were embodying as far as when I walked into the theater, maybe two minutes in, I was like, oh, that's not a boy. They don't carry themselves like a boy. They don't move through the world as a boy. That's not a boy.
[LAUGHTER]
ROSE: And without spoiling too much, like, that is made evident within, like, the first 15 minutes of the film. They're like, oh, I want to be a woman. But to be able to portray that part of your transition where you know that if you had the resources to get what you needed to get done, done, you know how it would look, you know how it would feel, you know how it would move on you. And I found that to be incredibly enthralling in the film because they found a way to tie that concept to this idea of diva worship. And it gave it something past just, like, oh, gay men love divas. And she became a possibility model in this place where, you know, Molina is literally psychosexual torture at the hands of these guards, at the hands of the warden and what have you. And-- I don't know-- I just-- I found it delicious. I loved it.
ESCOBAR: He doesn't just stand with Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna. He owns this production.
HARRIS: Oh, this is his movie.
ESCOBAR: It is--
HARRIS: Absolutely.
ROSE: Absolutely.
ESCOBAR: --his through and through, and he kills it. You are with him every step of the way. I don't think that he is a stereotype. He is able to really embody something that feels fresh and beautiful. And his love story with Diego Luna, and how that is portrayed, and how it grows feels really subversive in this moment that we're in to have it portrayed in that way, where a traditionally masculine type guy falls for him. It feels great. It feels wonderful and affirming and just really lovely.
WELDON: Yeah.
ESCOBAR: And I think that's where the power of this film is.
WELDON: Yeah. Definitely the power is in that relationship, in Tonatiuh himself. And also, one of the other reasons I'm going to be recommending this film, even though I think the songs just lay there, is the orchestration, the choreo.
ESCOBAR: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
WELDON: All the stuff it's supposed to evoke, these old Hollywood musicals, they're firmly in place. Because on one level, that's kind of a bit, right? We're not parodying these old musicals, per se, but we are leaning into the excess of it all. There's so many harp arpeggios. You mentioned the big brassy horns. It's melodramatic. It's over the top because it has to be, because it's doing work, right? We need to understand why Molina is obsessed with this movie and this woman. We are seeing it through his eyes. So all of that lushness can be simultaneously kind of silly and funny, but it's serving the story. It's serving the characters. And the look of this thing in those musical moments, there's a scene near the end where the main characters confront the Spider Woman, and it's in the jungle with mist, and it's clearly a set. It's clearly a soundstage because, of course, it needs to be--
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: --because everything about that setup, that blocking, the framing of it is absolutely pitch perfect, could have been lifted out of a 1940s Lupe Vélez movie, and not for nothing. That also ties into the fact that there's not an infinite budget for this movie, right? This film was made outside the studio system. That means the sets don't disappear into the distance. There is a definite analog quality that is necessary because that's what this movie's about, because they're paying homage to a B-movie, right? The movie that if you went to the movies in the '30s or '40s, it's the second half of a double feature, right, the movies of Dolores Del Río and Lupe Vélez, Latin stars that didn't get the huge budgets and the huge promotions from the studios, but were always kind of in the wings to be employed like this and to make movies like this. And I think that's working so well that, even though I couldn't hum a tune if you paid me, I still recommend this movie a lot.
HARRIS: Yeah.
[THEME MUSIC]
WELDON: Tell us what you think about Kiss of the Spider Woman if you're feeling at the tide's low ebb. You can find us on the world wide web and Facebook and Letterboxd. And that brings us to the end of our show. Cristina Escobar, Corey Antonio Rose, Aisha Harris, thanks so much for being here.
ESCOBAR: Gracias.
HARRIS: Thank you.
ROSE: Thank you for having us.
WELDON: And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. You get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour, or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Janae Morris, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon. And we'll see you all next time.
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