If nothing else, the movie of Cats has triggered a lot of conversation with friends. A few hated it. A few didn't hate it but didn't love it a lot. I'm not sure anyone I discussed it with really liked it though most agreed that it wasn't as bad as some said and that if you went to see a movie based on the musical Cats, the movie you got was exactly the movie you should have expected.
The word "schadenfreude" came up a number of times. Are you familiar with that word? Here's a definition I cribbed off Wikipedia just in case you aren't…
Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.
There's a famous quote that goes "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." If you're curious as to who said it and you search via Google, you'll see it attributed to dozens of different people — enough to assume that we'll probably never know who originated it. Maybe lots of them did independently of one another because it's a pretty obvious observation about human nature.
As the years go by, I less and less like to see schadenfreude and am ashamed that I ever smiled or felt glee at someone's troubles, failures or humiliation.
Now, this doesn't include a few things…like when I feel someone has wronged someone (me, included) and some twist of fate closes down their business or gets them fired or sends them to prison or otherwise means that they can never do that wrong thing again to me or anyone. I think it's okay to be elated by that and sometimes when I predict it and it happens, I'm just plain pleased that I was right.
But as I get older and (I hope, I hope) wiser, I less and less like that sense of delight some display when a certain TV show gets canceled or a certain movie fails — a movie or TV show that never harmed anyone except maybe to take up some of their time with a disappointment or cost them the admission price. (And come to think of it, I may have witnessed more schadenfreude at free screenings than at showings where everyone had to shell out for a ticket.)
Years ago, we did on modem-accessed Newsgroups what we now do on modern-day social media — i.e., debate and discuss. I participated in a number of forums devoted to comic books and animation, plus one about Broadway musicals that was at times waist-deep in schadenfreude. There was a lot of it on the comics 'n' cartoon forums…
…but on the Musicals forum, a show would open, get pasted by the critics, post its closing notice…and you could practically hear the erections of some as they gleefully gloated at their keyboards — and this from people who professed to love musical theatre. Audiences had been unhappy, money had been lost, actors and others were thrown out of work, careers had perhaps been damaged…and these people were so, so happy. It bothered me so much I had to get off that forum.
Read this passage from the book, The Street Where I Live: A Memoir by Alan Jay Lerner. Mr. Lerner is writing about the first out-of-town preview of a show he wrote with Frederick Loewe…
It was the custom in those days for agents, actors and various members of all branches of the theatre to attend out-of-town opening nights to "wish you well," which is theatricalese for "hoping you die." They would all assemble for a quick bite before the curtain in a restaurant called Kaysey's, across the street from the theatre. To illustrate the collective attitude, there was one agent who always arrived for out-of-town openings with scripts under her arm and a flashlight so that she could read during the second act. As I was leaving the restaurant, one of the "dear shits," as they were lovingly known, stopped me and said: "How is it, Alan?" I remember my answer distinctly. I said: "I have no idea what the reaction of the audience will be, but I genuinely believe it's the best musical I ever saw." I realized it was a cruel thing to say but I could not help it. That was how I felt.
The musical, in case you haven't guessed, was My Fair Lady and when it made it to Broadway, it would be one of the biggest hits ever there and a lot of critics would say it was indeed, the best musical they ever saw. But people attended it hoping it would be a disaster because, I guess, if it was a success, it wouldn't be their success.