Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Humanities and Cultural Studies

Major Professor

Brook Sadler, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Andrew Berish, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Daniel Belgrad, Ph.D.

Keywords

Hierarchy, Interracial, Marriage, Musical, Rent, Social

Abstract

In examining the musical Rent by Jonathan Larson (1995) and its film adaptation by Chris Columbus (2005), most scholarly work and analyses have focused on the work’s identity as a queer text. I assert that elements of this musical have been overlooked for its depth of racial and class hierarchies. Utilizing sociological theory and interracial relationships, I will examine characters and musical numbers to explore diversity and class positioning.

I will explore Rent for themes of racial, gender, and sexual identities and how they are presented through the friendships and romantic relationships of the eight principal characters (alphabetically): Angel, Benny, Collins, Joanne, Mark, Maureen, Mimi, and Roger. Through this exploration, I propose that Larson’s work and Columbus’ film adaptation are aspirational in the new millennium: envisioning an egalitarian society irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual identity. The ensemble of characters easily intermingles regardless of socio-economic status or social identity as they are united in goals of love and friendship. I submit that the harmony represented in the multicultural community is simultaneously progressive and also traditionalist, as the couples reflect the racial hierarchies and confirm the social mobility through interracial coupling.

While Rent is known for its empathetic recognition of individuals with HIV and AIDS both in and out of the homosexual community, the cultural artifact should be examined for other societal aspects as the United States approached the new millennium: including race and social standing. Larson’s Rent reveals the blurring of social hierarchies through romantic pairings, a contemporary trend of mixing racial identities, a forecasting of interracial relationships where women of color couple out of race and then up in social position, black men couple out of race, and the burgeoning economic trends for women and people of color. The content confirms the social and racial hierarchy, along with how social positioning can be fluid through status exchange in coupling with someone of a higher or lower social position. None the less, Rent promotes a value of utopianism. For the 1990s, Rent’s progressive casting redeems the musical. Thus, Rent is both aspirational and inspirational, while simultaneously confirming that social hierarchies exist, should be acknowledged, and apply themselves through interracial and interethnic relationships in the United States.

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