Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

…When It’s Clearly Brie Time, Baby

Tags: Musicals, Cheese, Dancer in the Dark, Grammys

I know cheese. I have an unhealthy obsession with pizza, and grilled cheese comes a close second. I know cheese—maybe not fancy cheese, but I know my cheese.

The other month, my girlfriend was channel surfing and stumbled upon the Grammys—more specifically, a performance by Beyonce. As she sang, we both mentioned how the song sounded rather cheesy.

“Oh,” I realized, “it’s probably from Dreamgirls.”

“Ah, okay,” said my girlfriend.

And we were okay with that. But why?

Cheesiness is generally regarded as a bad thing; it’s usually unrealistic, a little romantic (as opposed to realistic or naturalistic), and consequently a little melodramatic. For the most part, we frown upon this, do we not? Most of the time, when we talk about being “cheesy” we’re talking about when a film shows some sort of emotion, or an expression of an emotion or belief, portrayed in a way that, even though we may feel it inside, we’d never choose to express it in such a blatant or truthful manner.

Then why is it okay to justify cheesiness by associating it with, say, a musical?

Does every musical have to be cheesy? Well, I guess that’s sort of the nature of a musical, isn’t it? Unrealistic, somehow over the top, and exaggerated to appeal to our emotions. So I guess it can be okay for a musical to be cheesy, right? I mean, does everything have to be as realistic as possible? Isn’t that why we go to musicals in the first place—to escape?

Now, I will say, that doesn’t mean that a musical has to be cheesy to be an escape. Dancer in the Dark is anything but cheesy; it’s pretty dark, in fact. But many will argue that it is quite melodramatic (and some would go as far as to label it “manipulative”). Either way, I believe that it provides the escape of through its music without getting cheesy.

Or, wait, are those factory dancers cheesy? It depends on your perception. I think they add a little element of cheese because throughout the films, Selma (Bjork) watches classic musicals as her escape from the daily grind, so when she imagines herself singing and dancing, it’s with cheesy dancers all around. Is Lars von Trier messing with us? It seems that as a whole, he’s telling us that musicals don’t have to be cheesy, and they can be pretty disturbing. Yet on the other hand, through Selma’s own escape, von Trier is technically being cheesy. So, does it count? Did Dancer in the Dark fail to be an “uncheesy musical?” Maybe it wasn’t trying to be….

Unless I’m off, my understanding is that we use the term “cheesy” because it describes the “unhappy habit of ripe cheese making its presence known to anyone within sniffing distance.” Okay, so it’s a bad thing, right? So, since when was a bad thing supposed to be good? I mean, we all know that any bad thing, if used excessively or for campy purposes, can turn into something good, but since when was a little or moderate bit of a bad thing okay? Have we no standards anymore?