#deh rant

[crittercisms]

hate the fact so many people think dear evan hansen is supposed to be “oh! good story good protagonist” when it’s not. every character we follow is incredibly flawed and it’s portrayed that way. it’s your fault if you can’t see OBVIOUS criticism of our main character’s actions through the show.

“but! but the end! he got scot-free!”

he lost the only actual friends he had. he lost the murphy family who he felt was his only family at that moment. before speaking about the letter being his, he already lost alana and jared, and the ONLY person he had after the fact of revealing that the letter was his was his MOTHER. a woman who, throughout the show, he had a strained relationship with.

not to mention did we just ignore good for you, which came BEFORE the letter.

also i think….? complaining that the murphy’s didn’t out evan is SO weird.

in the end of the show the murphy family literally gets doxxed (in the novel, they quite literally SAY where the family lives online, as well as zoe’s number. jfc poor girl), because of something these people believe to be connor’s suicide note, which quite literally doesn’t say ANYTHING bad about the murphy family. people just decide to dox the family because they have the interpretation that the murphy family is all at fault.

can you IMAGINE what would have happened to evan if the murphy family came out about that? it would be SO much worse.

the murphy family is dysfunctional, yes, but they aren’t evil people. there’s a REASON they didn’t come out with it because. they didn’t want evan getting the same treatment as them, no matter how badly he fucked up. because they have REASONING in their brains.

this is so easy to understand and people so lack the skills to think about media in the current day. like no. the show doesn’t explain it to you outright, and it doesn’t come to a perfect ending for you. and it shouldn’t have to if you’re able to understand media to an extent.

[intricate-ritualz]

fics where connor is written as just a strange fucking guy >>>

[nerdle-turdle]

"evan is a bad person" yeah so is everyone that's the point

Heidi is neglectful and gets angry that someone else cares for her son.

Cynthia was trying to fix Connor, and when a method didn't work she immediately moved on to something else and had no consistency, and let him get away with everything. She didn't pay attention to Zoe because she was too focused on Connor.

Larry wanted to punish Connor, and said he was threatening suicide for attention.

Connor was abusive towards Zoe and lashed out at everyone around him, he was paranoid and had anger issues.

Zoe was a stuck-up rich girl who didn't care about Connor's death.*

Jared made fun of Evan and didn't care about Connor's death, only was entertained by the chaos it created.

Alana was using Connor as another thing to put on her list of accomplishments, put out what she thought was his suicide note to hit a monetary goal, and removed Evan (who she thought was Connor's best friend) from the project he started when she thought he didn't do enough.

On the inverse,

Heidi was trying her best to care for Evan as a single mom who was working to provide for both of them and going to school.

Cynthia just wanted her son to be happy again.

Larry genuinely cared for Connor, and was worried that Cynthia was letting him get away with too much.

Connor didn't get the help he needed and was struggling.

Zoe wasn't paid attention to by her parents, and was trying to figure out how she's supposed to and if she's allowed to mourn Connor.

Jared was lonely and insecure.

Alana was unseen and threw herself into her work in hopes that she'd be noticed, and was focused on building up accomplishments so people might care about her.

The entire point is none of them are good nor bad. They're human. We all are.

[gods-favorite-autistic]

People who are like “Omg gen z theatre kids only know *proceeds to list every single musical that came out after 1999*” are the most annoying assholes like hey maybe we just don’t like shit from the 1960’s or we have specific tastes have you ever considered that

[biscuitbakerbecca]

HELP I SPENT SO MUCH MONEY ON THE MERCH AHHHHHH

[supercom-pute-r]

Thinking about how two of my favorite characters of all time have killed themselves, i am recognizing a pattern here...

[maitaiwiththecorpses]

“On the outside always looking in” shut UP Evan Hansen at least you haven’t set up over seven successful couples in your life, one of which got married and has a BABY now while you yourself can’t even find love. Shut. Up. Evan Hansen.

[this-is-ali]

Y'all, it's 2023. Can we please stop pretending it's cool to hate on Dear Evan Hansen?

[roseworth]

it’s so hard being a theatre kid and trying to explain that ben platt is genuinely so talented and he was great in dear evan hansen on broadway but he was nepo babied into the role in the movie when he did not deserve it and now that’s how people know his name

[crittercisms]

[querido-eh-dump]

Periódicamente siento la necesidad de dibujar a estos dos siendo felices. Según yo, está es una recopilación de los bocetos más presentables de la reserva que guardo, más una ilustración.

[rubiatinctorum]

the whole cultural idiot thing is part of why i find a lot of too-online musicals discourse absurd. the wise and brilliant critic is aware that dear evan hansen's evan hansen isn't very niceys, and the founding fathers weren't very niceys, and mr hyde and the opera ghost and sweeney todd aren't very niceys. but the critic also believes that the rest of the audience is a) fucking stupid. and b) so liable to be so mesmerized by the little songs and dances that they will leave the production believing that evan hansen was a hero and alexander hamilton in real life was a hero and erik poto was a hero. at some point we must recognise the other members of the audience were both not born yesterday and are here for an interesting experience, and yes, a crafted story, same as the critic thinks themselves to be, and they will not all pour out onto the streets to do great interpersonal violence because they saw a man on the stage do so.

and it's just like. funny to me. on some level. because as much as it boils my carrots to see bad takes about musicals i enjoy posturing as genuine analytical essay material rather than a scandalized reading of a summary (say essay and i WILL be checking for your thesis statement, your point evidence explanation, etc), it also doesn't escape me that the cognitohazard production that people are saying should not be allowed to exist because of the harm it is perpetuating is also the progenitor of such dangerous lines as "i'm sending pictures of the most amazing trees." PLEASE be real for a minute.

[yououghtaknow]

genuinely kind of terrified as to what will happen to me when i see bare live in three (three!!!!!!!!) days. i will either go fully insane or transcend mortality or perhaps both. either way i will most likely end up full weeping.

[cru5h-cascades]

Y'all I think months after the theater final incident of 2024 I'm starting to realize that Dear Evan Hansen kinda sucks...? Like idk I kinda think the play & movie's message kinda falls flat (the book does a better job at delivering the message the play wanted to though) and some weird choices were made (JARED DOES NEXT TO NOTHING IN EVERY VERSION OF THE PLAY BESIDES MAKING THE EMAILS WITH EVAN. AMANDA KINDA SUCKS AS A CHARACTER. AND THE ENDING ISN'T REALLY THAT SATISFYING IN RETROSPECT.) (there's probably more that I'm not mentioning but that's just a few things I wanted to point out).

Yeah I still think that the songs in the play are neat (for the most part, anyways) (I'm just so sick and tired of Waving Through a Window I had to listen to that song A LOT last year) but the play's story just... no... it's kinda bad. There was some wasted potential there...

[annisrealandsoami]

When I had originally been apart of the deh fandom, I hadn’t thought about the implications of what he did.

Spoilers, obviously. He didn’t mean to lie. Evan had made a dumb mistake, that at the time could’ve easily been fixed.(with an extremely awkward conversation. Or just not continuing the lie.). He instead, doubled down.(rookie move) Okay, he’s now lying to a grieving family. Let’s make fake proof that he’s not. Then let’s make even more fake evidence of a friendship that never existed. Let’s then get so invested in the lie that it over shadows the actual victim. Let’s get ‘Conner’ trending online, and then have to make even more fake evidence. Let’s implode every relationship you have, because of all this bullshit. Then after everything, come clean to the grieving family you have been fucking lying to for all this time.

Not to mention that he dated Conners sister immediately after he died, under guise of his friend. Zoey didn’t even like Conner, but Evan used his supposed connection to him to get close. Zoey just wanted to move on. And Evan couldn’t.

Was it the attention he was finally getting? It’s not even a good enough excuse or reason for his actions.

Conners memory is completely covered with Evan’s bullshit. The orchard is based on Evan’s lies. Like what the fuck?

And I know funerals and memorials are more about the living than they are actually about the dead, but the amount of continuous lies this man said, bonkers.

But when you’re 13, you just listen to the catchy songs and not really absorb the context.

Until randomly you listen to ‘Good for You’ and no longer can understand why Evan did all of it. No longer can sing along to Evan as he laments about how he feeling the consequences of his actions(which was your favorite part to sing for so long.)

There is no redeeming him, and maybe that’s the point. He did make good lasting change, but that doesn’t erase how he got there. How the good does not outweigh the horrendous mistake he made, then continued to make.

And yeah, he painted Conner in a good light, but he still painted over his memory. According to book, Conner was misunderstood, and maybe eventually his family would come to realize that. But to rewrite him? The dude didn’t even write a note. Dead men tell no tales. He was done. And Evan basically wrote self insert fanfiction of them being friends.

Why did I breeze past this? Why was I okay with it? I used to like Evan’s character. Used to relate to him and his social anxiety.

Sorry for ranting, but this occurred to me a while ago and I can’t stop thinking about it.

[doodle17]

I feel in a fankid mood all of the sudden yall should send me some zaquato troop au asks