Emo the Musical: What the heck did I just watch?

Have you ever sat down and wanted to watch something that would throw you into a pit of confusion and anger? Of course you haven’t! That’s why you’ve probably never watched Netflix’s “Emo the Musical.”

The music began, the strange lyrics started, the dialogue moved forward and I found myself asking: “Is this real?”

The first thing that caught me off guard: the musical was incredibly cheesy and stereotypical. The self-proclaimed emo characters were dark in every sense, with heavy eye-liner and strict opposition to everything resembling positivity. The Christians were annoyingly insistent on Church and baptism, while failing to practice what they preached.

Through it all, I was just hoping for someone to root for. Someone, anyone, who was more than an extreme side of a stereotype. Just one Christian who lived a good life and led by example, or one emo who displayed some element of actual depth.

But there wasn’t such a character. So I struggled on.

The story follows an emo high schooler named Ethan. He is expelled from his high school after a failed suicide attempt (which turned out to be fake anyways) and is sent to Seymour High. There he meets Trinity, a Christian girl who he develops a crush on. But, look out—emos and Christians do not get along! Ethan can’t be an emo and date a Christian girl, and his new band becomes very upset with him when he tries.

Sound like a dramatized version of every high school movie ever? It is. But don’t worry—there’s music. This musical is filled to the brim with fantastic songs about all sorts of relevant topics, like lips that are good for eating sandwiches, new financial years, inner darkness and how it is okay to give up.

None of the songs fit into any sort of story or make any sense. You are essentially forced to sit there and let them happen to you.

In this way, the musical checks all the necessary boxes. Cheesy high school romances that never come full circle? Check! Gross characters that ensure you only watch the movie once? Check! No perceivable plot? Bingo!

There is no coming back from this movie. You will be shocked. You will be horrified. You will be offended.

Then, you will hear that it was all satire to begin with.

You will be stunned, because the movie took itself so seriously and is listed under Wikipedia as a drama and romance flick.

Oh no. You have been fooled. You, like me, got far too offended too fast over something that was all a lie. At least you get to joke with your friends at lunch, since they also thought it was a serious attempt at drama.

But now we have learned. Sometimes what seems like a mistake can be a humorous lesson to society if viewed the right way.