Usually, paying too much attention to what critics say about a book, movie, or even a performance is a waste of time. At best, reviews are one informed person’s opinion about an artistic endeavor. At worst, they are uninformed and unformed diatribes by those who can’t writing about those who do, while trying to pass off cruel snark as wit.
But the headlines on the reviews of the Funny Girl revival, starring Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice, which opened on April 24 sucked me into a full reading. “Funny Girl Rains on Its Own Parade”…”Beanie Feldstein struggles in Broadway revival”…”Beanie Feldstein falls flat on Broadway”…well, you get the gist.
There were comments about Ms. Feldstein lacking the chops to play the part in a high school production, much less on Broadway, or even that it wasn’t her fault for being bad in the role as she shouldn’t have been cast in the first place. But the real common thread of the negative reviews was that Ms. Feldstein is decidedly not Barbra Streisand.
Now I’ve not seen the show, so it may be that some criticism is completely justified. But Ms. Feldstein is supposed to be playing Fanny Brice, not Barbara Joan Streisand playing Barbra Streisand playing Fanny Brice. We’ve recently seen this same kind of kvetching about Nicole Kidman playing Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos as a person distinct from Lucy Ricardo. Even Viola Davis has been burned for her performance as Michelle Obama in The First Lady.
What all of this has in common is the danger associated with playing a part that is so deeply ingrained in public consciousness that one is doomed to come up short with a significant number of people for whom one is performing. That brings me to what we might call Funny Boy. Or boys, in this case.
Arguably the two most high profile elected Republicans who don’t have splainin’ to do concerning last year’s attempt to overthrow the government are governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas. They both seem to have aspirations to be their party’s nominee for president in 2024.
To augment their chances, the funny boys look as if they are trying to reprise the role that Donald Trump played to get himself into the White House. It’s almost as if they are working to outtrump Trump, a task that inherently denies the characteristics that make the former president unique—whether you like him or not.
In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, it’s important to remember that Donald Trump had not ever been elected to anything. His rhetoric could be overblown and bombastic, or engaging and refreshing, depending on one’s political point of view. But nothing he said or did had any real life consequences to voters—at that point—as he had no governing power.
As actual governors of two of the three most populous states, home to 15% of the country, the funny boys are moving talk to controversial action. So why take on that political risk at this time?
The talking heads seem to have decided that this is political posturing in advance of the 2024 primary season, which will effectively begin in earnest as soon as the pesky 2022 general election is over. Accordingly, governance as performative politics is executed to attract those Trump supporters who will vote in the Republican primary that the funny boys will need, assuming Trump himself isn’t seeking the nomination.
But Abbott’s misstep on the border related to unnecessary, redundant truck inspections have cost the state $4.2 billion in GDP and the nation lost nearly $9 billion, according to The Perryman Group, a Texas-based economic analysis firm.
The jury is still out on the DeSantis feud with Disney, but it could end up costing Florida taxpayers as much as $1 billion to assume bond debt to allow the dissolution of the “independent special district” in which Disney World sits. If good policy is good politics, what the hell is this? Is it the funny boys putting their own ambitions ahead of the job voters elected them to do today? Is this the exact dissatisfaction with elected officials of both parties that sent so many voters to Trump in the first place? You tell me.
The most blistering of the Funny Girl review headlines was “Barbra Streisand’s shoes are too big for Beanie Feldstein to fill”—which could apply to the funny boys as well.
Or to put it another way, we could paraphrase the late great Senator Lloyd Bentsen. We’ve lived with Donald Trump. We know Donald Trump. Governors, you’re no Donald Trump.
