SIDEBAR: Requested Changes
On Nov. 22, director Jacqui Conn sent a list of requested changes to Music Theatre International, the license holder of “Legally Blonde The Musical.” According to email records, MTI immediately nixed a proposal to cut the song “Gay or European.”
Some of the requests appear to have been aimed at erasing references to gays and lesbians. At the end of the letter to MTI, Conn said those changes were intended to address recent “instances of students harassing other students because of certain stereotypes. The administration does not want it to seem as if we are glorifying making fun of someone who may display these traits. The characters will remain just as they are written, but we did not wish to make it seem like the words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ were an insult to someone.”
On Dec. 3, the musical’s authors responded to the list, offering alternatives for some requests while denying others.
They said they had “seen some of the press” about the postponement before being contacted.
“What a terrible mess they’ve made of this,” they said in the email response. “I’m so sorry for the kids and their teacher who worked so hard on this show, and I don’t want this production, which was mishandled by the school, to set precedent for changes in the future so that parents or administrators who are ‘uncomfortable’ with a song about gayness get to cut it because of their discomfort.”
Until the records request by The Forum, school officials had only spoken vaguely about what they found objectionable enough to postpone the musical the night before it was set to go on stage. Below is the complete list.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The contents of the requested changes have been printed in their entirety, including any references that some found objectionable. The remedies offered by MTI have been summarized.
1. Omit “And by Mr. Huntington’s standards, all masturbatory emissions where the sperm is clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment.”
“We think changing ‘masturbatory emissions’ is silly.”
2. Omit “Emmett nailed the pool boy.”
Allowed the omission.
3. Use lyrics from “Legally Blonde Jr.”
version only for the opening stanza of “Bend and Snap.”
Allowed a change to one line, but no others.
4. In “Blood in the Water,” change from “Your guy goes free and he can get you high and laid” to “Your guy goes free, just so long as you get paid.”
Offered a different alternative.
5. In “Blood in the Water,” instead of “You lesbians think you’re so tough” Callahan would say “People like you think you’re so tough.”
Offered a different alternative.
6. In “Positive,” change from
“Bust out the Lap Dance and you’ve won” to
“Bust out the dance moves and you’ve won”
Offered a different alternative.
7. Change the line “Since when does finely tuned ‘gay-dar’ count as a legal victory” to “Since when does calling someone out of the closet count as a legal victory.” This particular line we were hoping to change because a student felt fundamentally wrong about publicly outing a person.
“We cannot speak to the lines outside the song like Gaydar but I think it doesn’t make sense for Warner’s character to go from peevish to suddenly worried about outing someone. The outing of the perjurer is already discussed earlier.”
8. Omit the song “Gay or European”
“I think if we would not cut ‘Gay or European’ in a country where being gay is illegal and punishable by death, we are not going to do it for Missouri. Nowhere else has a theater or school interpreted this song as ‘glorifying making fun of’ gay people. I’m heartbroken to learn that students at this school have harassed other students for being gay, and confused that the administration’s response is to ask to cut a song about people confronting their stereotypes about gay people. We will not allow this song to be cut.”
