La Cage Aux Folles Tony’s Performance, “I am what I am”

Here's a link to the wikipedia article, if you'd like to read more about the musical -- I recommend it!

I chose this performance based on our discussion from last class about imitation and what it might mean for somebody to sing a song as somebody else. In the story of La Cage aux Folles, Georges and Albin are a gay couple, Georges is the owner of St. Tropez drag nightclub while Albin is the lead drag performer who goes by the alias of “Zaza.” The themes include coming to terms with your identity and familial LGBTQ+ acceptance, but interestingly there’s much to be said about imitation. Plato argues that music is dangerous, takes us into our bodies and away from being rational human beings, but this song for Albin is empowering and allows him to live a more authentic, arguably rational life. Plato claims that when listening to music, we “become” the other rather than ourselves, in somewhat of a metamorphosis, but Albin uses music in a more Schopenhauerian sense to become closer to who he is and the Will. The lyrics and costumes play on concepts of illusion, imitation and truth. Plato would likely enjoy the simple lyrics of the song, as they don’t contain many embellishments or “trills,” which express, “Life’s not worth a damn ‘til you can shout out, ‘I am what I am!’”

“So if you give music the chance to play upon your soul, and pour into the funnel of your ears the sweet, soft, lamenting modes we were talking about a little while ago, if you spend your whole life humming them, bewitched by song, then the first effect on a nature with any spirit in it is to soften it, like heating iron, making it malleable instead of brittle and unworkable. But if you press on regardless, and are seduced by it, the next stage is melting and turning to liquid – the complete dissolution of the spirit. It cuts the sinews out of your soul, and turns it into a ‘feeble warrior’” (Plato 103).