âWhy do you hate gay people?â asks Andrew Rannells in âThe Prom,â the Netflix movie about Broadway actors who try to help a lesbian teen attend her school dance.
The students around him assert that, despite their condemnation of their queer classmate, theyâre good people. Itâs just that theyâre Christian, and their religion considers homosexuality a sin. (Premarital sex, masturbation and divorce are also called deplorable, but thatâs different, right?)
The scene then kindly highlights the hypocrisy of gay-hating Christians, and genuinely bridges what some real-life Bible thumpers consider an insurmountable ideological divide. How so? By quoting the Good Book itself in the show-stopping number âLove Thy Neighbor.â And a spectacular dance break in the middle of a mall doesnât hurt.
âI love that this song basically says you canât cherry-pick what you believe of this religion, which is supposed to be rooted in kindness,â says director Ryan Murphy. âGrowing up, I was a gay kid, going to Catholic school in a small town, being told I was going to rot in hell. I remember saying to my parents at a very early age, âDoesnât God love everybody?ââ
Ryan Murphyâs adaptation of the Broadway musical âThe Promâ brings James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Kerry Washington and Keegan-Michael Key to the dance.
The show-stopping moment has been in the works for a decade â long before the material would become a feature film, also starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Kerry Washington and Keegan-Michael Key.
The creators of the original stage musical needed the storyâs liberals and conservatives to realistically inch toward a common ground. The character who attempts to facilitate is Trent, an actor who graduated from Juilliard and âreally, really loves to hear himself talk,â says lyricist Chad Beguelin. (Rannells has firsthand experience: âI did date someone who went to Juilliard, and he would definitely drop it into conversation all the time. It is a real thing.â)
Throughout what composer Matthew Sklar calls âa white guy gospel songâ in the vein of theologically minded musicals âGodspell,â âJesus Christ Superstarâ and âChildren of Eden,â Trent spends the verses pointing to transgressions the teens commit, and forgive, on a daily basis.
He then reminds them that, according to Jesus, âThou shalt love thy neighbor as thyselfâ is one of the two greatest commandments. In other words, ââLove thy neighborâ trumps them allâ â a line repeated throughout the catchy chorus.
The show was in the midst of its pre-Broadway tryout in Atlanta when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. âA producer asked us if we were gonna change the lyrics,â recalls Sklar. âItâs a song about being understanding and loving to others, and it has his name in it, over and over again. The irony was too good, we were like, âLetâs leave it.ââ
Onstage, the number had Trent (Christopher Sieber) preaching to loitering teens in a 7-Eleven-ish parking lot. âWe couldnât do that in the movie because 7-Eleven turned us down and wouldnât let us use their [branding],â says Murphy.
Instead, the moment unfolds in a mall, the watering hole of suburban adolescents; specifically, the Northridge Fashion Center (standing in for the filmâs Indiana setting), with an escalator that leads to an eye-catching fountain. (Murphy obsessed over a shot in which the camera pans to a set of suspended jumbotrons which, at one angle, resemble a massive cross.)
Casey Nicholaw, who also directed the stage show, choreographed the entire routine around the fountain, which was reprogrammed, repainted and outfitted with platforms. He even got Rannells to do a jazz split â a throwback to his breakout role in âThe Book of Mormon,â their previous collaboration.
âDancing is certainly not a skill that I have,â admits Rannells. âI was 41 at the time, trying to keep up with these dazzling 20-year-old dancers doing backflips. I had to sit down a few times, because Peepaw needs a break!â
The spectacle showcased upwards of 100 people, not counting locals simply strolling through the mall, which remained open throughout the shoot. It was filmed in February, when government-mandated shutdowns were still weeks away. Since then, âcrowd scenes have become the new pornography,â says Murphy.
Though the lyrics of âLove Thy Neighborâ havenât changed from stage to screen, some introductory dialogue satirizing Fox News was left unshot at the last minute. âWe didnât want to alienate anybody from the message of the movie,â Murphy explains.
The creative team isnât necessarily nervous about a backlash from conservative viewers, who expressed outrage when the showâs Macyâs Thanksgiving Day Parade performance in 2018 brought the broadcast its first same-sex kiss. Rannells and Nicholaw braced themselves for a similar reaction when âMormonâ debuted, âbut there wasnât as much pushback as we expected, because we were talking about being kind to each other,â says Nicholaw. âAnd itâs hard to argue with that, especially if the product is good.â
The song and dance âmight change some minds or at least put some questions in peopleâs heads and give them something to think about,â says Rannells. âThe golden rule of âtreat people how youâd like to be treatedâ is somehow, miraculously, the one everyone forgets, even though itâs the most basic.
âThis song is really just saying, try to be nice people, you know? Donât be a dick,â he adds with a laugh. âThat was the alternate title. Apparently, thatâs too controversial though.â
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