The Cadets - 2014

[Rifuarian]

Sorry, you need to read your history, and read today's history being made. We're so good at forgetting.

Politics, patriotism, nationalism, and militarism have been intimately entwined in the US since it became an imperialist power on the international stage in the late 19th century. And well before that too, since before the founding of the country, we were imperialists, as we also forget that we used military might to commit genocide and ethnically cleanse hundreds of tribes of indigenous people as we colonized this continent? Why do you think people like Mark Twain started the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898 - to oppose imperialist wars like the Spanish American War (sold on a lie, and in which the US invaded and annexed the Philippines, in a war that killed between 200,000 and 600,000 civilians, including massacres of entire villages)?

Why do you think a Marine Major General like Smedley Butler - two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and the most decorated soldier in US history, but whom you'll not find in high school history books - wrote pamphlets like "War is a Racket" (watch this video reading of excerpts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0

Speaking of Central America, do you also know what the US, through the CIA and military, was up to in that region during the 80s, under the administration of one of the presidents quoted in the Cadets' show? Look it up. But most people won't, and probably just want to pretend it didn't happen, and just remember Reagan's pretty words written by his speechwriters.

I'm not injecting politics into DCI and DCP, even though the censors here busily try to pretend I and others are doing so. (Let's not be Orwellian and allow free speech here. Thank you.) The Cadets design team are. They're forcing politics and politicians and propaganda and patriotism into art, and taking words and images out of any context whatsoever, and that deeply disturbs me. It also ultimately never works as high art, which is why, even though the Cadets are no less skilled to a person than the Blue Devils, that they're getting convincingly beaten in every caption. Blue Devils are doing high art - no message other than "this is beautiful" and "this is true". Bravo, Devs.

What the Cadets design team fails - repeatedly - to understand is that you simply can't wave the flag or hoist pictures of the capitol building and quote politicians and not simultaneously carry the baggage and the real, and often tragic HISTORY that accompanies it. You can't ignore the fact that most of the rest of the world sees that flag very differently, rightly so, as we directly conduct war or proxy wars while civilians are targeted with drones or artillery or F-16s and all in the name of "freedom".

Since DCI is a kids activity, how "free", exactly, are the kids who have been dying this summer, while the Cadets are on tour, at the hands of US drones in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or taxpayer-funded F-16s and US made artillery and shells in Gaza, and now, even as I write this, who may die as we begin to bomb, yet again, Iraq, which is no longer a functioning country after our invasion, and which, besides the hundreds of thousands of killed and wounded on all sides, will cost us between $4-6 TRILLION dollars (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/study-iraq-afghan-war-costs-to-top-4-trillion/2013/03/28/b82a5dce-97ed-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html)

That's a lot of bake sales and bingo nights for books or band uniforms.

If the Cadets would have stressed Copland's truer and more artistic - and wordless, musical nature, in his Fanfare for the Common Man, Appalachian Spring, Tender Land - which glorifies the real civic beliefs and sacrifice of regular americans, and let that understatement and more abstract storytelling rule the day, the design would have worked better. It would have been more true to Copland's music, and to the message about democracy, freedom, justice, and civic responsibility, that I'm sure the Cadets team, and all fans, me included, believe in so profoundly.

Much of what you say is true. Nonetheless the US was decidedly anti-militarist until WW2. Any American historian worth his salt (no, not Howard Zinn, sorry) will tell you so.Tiny standing army and navies during peacetime, smaller than most any other advanced nation (including the likes of Chile). Didn't even have an army for the first few decades of its existence, and when that army existed it was mostly regarded as a joke. Only until the 1940s did the government and people decide it would take more than two oceans and the British navy to keep America safe. And why do you think there were such massive protests to America's half-###ed forays into imperialism? Or why WWI ended up being so universally unpopular? Or why there was such a massive isolationist movement in the 30s?

It's okay. My students, left and right, have a hard time dealing with this because it doesn't fit their favorite narratives. It's hard to let go. And anyways you're reading too much into this show. I give you an A for effort, but all it is is standard Hopkins-esque OTT schlock. Same stuff that kept them from winning in 07.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Rifuarian

[2000Cadet]

Please stop responding to Granny idiot. Just a troll.

Namecalling is definitely not helping.

[JKT90]

My take on the show is I like it, minus the narrator. I would ditch him and keep the prerecorded comments from the President's. Obviously too late for that....

Edited August 8, 2014 by JKT90

[chris ncsu]

Granny is not a troll. If I remember, she celebrated Angels & Demons and I think claimed credit for it, and I THINK gave GH a big wet granny kiss for it.

[zigzigZAG]

Yes, Granny and Hop have a long, illicit, steamy love-hate affair going. They were caught once in July 1984 in the back of the bus playing Tony and Maria. I'll leave it to your imagination who was who.

I've read "her" posts for some years, and they're always focused on pushing the design team to do better, criticizing when due, praising when due.

[2000Cadet]

Granny is not a troll. If I remember, she celebrated Angels & Demons and I think claimed credit for it, and I THINK gave GH a big wet granny kiss for it.

She absolutely did. She celebrates it when she loves it and rips it apart when she hates it.

[afd]

Then it must be dementia.

[chaddyt]

Granny is 'da bomb diggety.

Aplenty.

[ShortAndFast]

Posted Today, 07:31 AM

drangin, on 08 Aug 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

Just want to avoid yap-yap-yap. Narration ruins shows for me.

Not for me. Like anything, it can be used well, or not. IMO most of the corps are using it well this year, inc The Cadets.

Actually I was really struck at the theater how much better corps have gotten in general with voice and voice acting. Cadets narrator is probably their best effort on that front. I also thought Colts was a compelling use, although obviously they needed to find a talented actor to make that work.

[jonwoody]

Much of what you say is true. Nonetheless the US was decidedly anti-militarist until WW2. Any American historian worth his salt (no, not Howard Zinn, sorry) will tell you so.Tiny standing army and navies during peacetime, smaller than most any other advanced nation (including the likes of Chile). Didn't even have an army for the first few decades of its existence, and when that army existed it was mostly regarded as a joke. Only until the 1940s did the government and people decide it would take more than two oceans and the British navy to keep America safe. And why do you think there were such massive protests to America's half-###ed forays into imperialism? Or why WWI ended up being so universally unpopular? Or why there was such a massive isolationist movement in the 30s?

It's okay. My students, left and right, have a hard time dealing with this because it doesn't fit their favorite narratives. It's hard to let go. And anyways you're reading too much into this show. I give you an A for effort, but all it is is standard Hopkins-esque OTT schlock. Same stuff that kept them from winning in 0