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11 thoughts on “He Had It Coming

  1. 3

    Um.

    This doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t. It hurts because it shouldn’t go this way, either way.

    At least in part because just last night I got pinged by a friend from high school, to let me know that someone we mutually knew was just beaten to death by her ex-husband. Because, apparently, according to him, “she had it coming.”

  2. 4

    Luna, this song is meant to be painful, as is all of Chicago. That’s why Hunyak is there and why the music surrounding her actual innocence is so different. That’s why none of the murdered men actually are abusive. It’s never meant to be read straight. It’s an indictment of the “had it coming” idea.

    I am sorry that it’s extra painful for you right now, though.

  3. 7

    I haven’t seen Chicago, so perhaps in context this song is more clearly visible as satire. Of course, satire always hsd the potential to be taken as endorsement by some. But there is a murder culture in this country, just like this is a rape culture. I do wonder if videos like this (which are likely to be taken out of context) do more to build up that culture than expose it, by making murder seem both lighthearted and justifiable.

    There’s also something I think of as the Alice effect (after the character in Dilbert): violence from men is scary, but violence from women is funny. This video seems to support that. Our culture of violence obviously harms women far more than men; however, I don’t think it’s really beneficial to anybody.

  4. 8

    brucegee1962, you should probably hold off on pontificating about Chicago until you see it then. (The movie is pretty true to the stage musical, so watch either one.) Otherwise you run the risk of sounding like the people who said Trainspotting glorified drug use.

  5. 9

    Well, like I said, I could certainly imagine contexts where this would make sense (a woman’s prison, for example). I’m speaking more particularly about the context of this Disney mashup.

  6. 11

    I guess this is one of the reasons it totally didn’t work for me. I’ve not only never seen Chicago, I had no idea that a theatrical work called “Chicago” even existed. (Sosueme. Musicals have never been my thing.) This appeared here to me entirely free of context; I could only evaluate it according to what was in it.

    And that was….disturbing; especially in the context that the day had already provided.

    I understand a bit better now that I know that there *is* more of a context to this, and some of what that context is. But. Well. That was how it landed (badly), with only the context which already existed in my life.

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