Five Musicals that have Revolutionized the Genre in the Queer Community

By Laurine Payet

From the stage to the movies, musicals have been part of the queer culture for decades now. Although mainly picturing straight romances with cisgender characters, the LGBTQ+ public has had a huge impact on the rise of musicals. Broadway is also the home for a lot of queer artists to showcase their talent and work, sometimes putting a light on queer stories. We picked five musicals – theatre and movies - which revolutionized the genre with iconic soundtracks, characters or storylines.

1 – The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Adapted from Richard O'Brien’s 70s masterpiece ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, the movie happens to be the longest-running release in film history, after debuting as a commercial failure. At a time where being homosexual was still illegal and considered a mental illness, the sexual freedom and gender expression portrayed in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, added to the pictured gay male gaze were crucial in the making of such a reference for the LGBTQ+ community. The influence of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is still an ongoing powerful movement in helping queer individuals flourish through their identity. The Rocky Horror is still being played on stage worldwide, in original experiences where the audience watches the movie alongside the live acting and interactive dances. The soundtrack featuring dancing bops such as ‘Time Wrap’ and ‘Sweet Transvestite’ is now deeply anchored in queer culture.

2 - Mamma Mia! (2008)

Featuring a storyline made of straight main characters mainly, it is still without surprise that Phyllida Lloyd conquered the LGBTQ+ crowd with Mamma Mia!. Now a classic, the movie is written and based on Catherine Johnson’s 1999 theatre show, already a smash hit in the West End and Broadway before it made it to the big screen. The soundtrack exclusively features ABBA songs and is the skeleton of Mamma Mia!. The gay following of ABBA is one of the reasons for the attraction around the movie within the queer community. While the highly exaggerated and camp nature of the performances led to bad reviews of the movie, it is what conquered the gay public, more likely to accept the alternative genre that was that type of theatrical work in the late noughties/early 2010s. The feel-good classic also ends on the coming out of Harry Bright, one of the dads, played by Colin Firth. After the second movie in 2018, the franchise is rumoured to be in the production of a third act.

3 - Glee (2009 – 2015)

Co-created by openly gay and famous Ryan Murphy, the Fox series Glee is a classic in a lot of genres. From teen TV shows to musicals, Glee is a reference and so is its soundtrack. With a total of 6 seasons and 121 episodes, the show has a huge count of 754 different performances of song covers. The Glee cast has recorded an incredibly vast range of songs, from Britney Spears and The Beatles’ specials to entire tributes of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As well as having been a story to look up to for teenagers shamefully interested in music and theatre, Glee was one of the first and the only teen shows at the time to have a lesbian couple as their main characters, encouraging a lot of young women to normalize embrace their queer sexuality and identity. Some may perceive it as bad, but Glee was eccentric in its own way, both funny and sarcastic but corny and sincere. The Glee cast however seems to have been unlucky, losing three of their colleagues - Cory Monteith to drugs, Mark Salling to suicide after being arrested for possession of child pornography and recently Naya Rivera in a terrible boat accident at Lake Piru.

4 - La La Land (2016)

One of the most recent musical movies to be named is obviously La La Land. Starring the famous on-screen Hollywood couple Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, the movie was an instant success. With a romance based in a mysterious period that feels like a modern version of the 40s, Damien Chazelle has created an incredibly intriguing but beautifully coloured city that is supposed to be Los Angeles. Written by Whiplash’s composer Justin Hurwitz, the soundtrack won the Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for "City of Stars".

5 - Kinky Boots (2012)

Based on a true story and a movie by Tim Firth and Geoff Deane, the musical Kinky Boots debuted in Chicago in 2012. It tells the story of Charlie Price, who partners with drag queen and cabaret star Lola to save the shoe business of his father, by creating eccentric high heel shoes. Helping with the creative side of the business, Lola also brings the queerness to Kinky Boots alongside pop icon and big LGBTQ+ ally Cindy Lauper who wrote the music and lyrics for Kinky Boots.

What makes musicals so timeless is the power of music. Indeed, while the theatre is somewhere to go to every couple of months, and a movie is to be watched once every few years, the soundtrack sticks and creates classics.