Broadway star Adam Jacobs is a very special snowflake, indeed. Just ask him.
Last week, late-night host Stephen Colbert did a riff on the Proud Boys, that testosterone-poisoned collection of sociopaths described by the Encyclopedia Brittanica as a “neofascist white nationalist organization… noted for their misogynistic and anti-Semitic rhetoric, QAnon-related beliefs, their support for U.S. Pres. Donald Trump, and their propensity for street violence.”
In particular, Colbert poked fun at the organization’s anthem, “Proud of Your Boy,” from the Broadway musical Aladdin, in which Jacobs played the title role for nearly three years. You can see Colbert’s routine on Youtube; the Proud Boys sequence starts at about the 8:24 mark, and the specific bit that has Jacobs all hot and bothered starts at 10:06.
Colbert mocks the dissonance between the Proud Boys machismo self-image and the considerably less than macho song they have adopted as their anthem. He sarcastically suggests that the anthem, which “is healthy to sing… at least once a night,” is intended to “present healthy, masculine vigor,” and that the “alpha-song anthem… sets testosterone ablaze!”
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| Adam Jacobs as Aladdin, being all macho and stuff |
Colbert does a little mock twirl of his own, pulls his suitcoat off his shoulders, twirls again, and, with exaggerated gestures, shouts “Hell, yeah! Tough guys! Lions, not sheep! Original Broadway cast recording! Our patriarchal neofascism just wants to be [switch to singing to the tune of a song from The Little Mermaid] part of your world!”
Curmie has never been a huge Colbert fan, but this is actually a pretty good bit, and if anyone deserves to be skewered on national television, it’s the Proud Boys.
But you’ve long since figured out where this story is going, haven’t you, Gentle Reader? Jacobs decided to take offense, and posted to Instagram:
Not funny @colbertlateshow. I understand the point you were trying to make with the Proud Boys, but completely emasculating me, mocking my work (and all musical theatre artists) all while using my image without my permission, is a poor way to go about it. I had always thought @stephenathome was a friend to the Broadway community but it sure doesn’t seem like it in this clip. #PoorTaste
How is your comment inane, Adam? Let me count the ways. (The usual apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.)
#1. You say you understand the point, but you obviously don’t. One would have hoped than an actor would know how to read a text.
#2. There is nothing in Colbert’s sketch that “emasculates” you or your work, or that of other musical theatre artist. Nothing. It might have done so had Aladdin been supposed to be a tough-guy role, but Colbert is establishing a contrast between the Proud Boys’ self-image as alpha males and the reality that not all masculinity is constructed in that stereotypical, misogynistic, and sociopathic fashion.
Even one of the first commenters (thank you, _monsteraa_) on the Instagram post, which, after all, would be seen mostly by your fans, points out that:
He’s mocking a specific idea of masculinity - a dumb alt-right misogynist version of it. Healthy masculinity comes in many forms and Colbert knows this. Not to mention, Stephen Colbert is very much a theatre person, having worked both on Broadway and alongside theatre his entire career. The joke was not aimed at you and your masculinity, Adam.
We might also mention that Stephen Colbert himself is not exactly an exemplar of the kind of masculinity the Proud Boys purport to embrace.
#3. Colbert is definitely a “a friend to the Broadway community,” and your desperate desire to be a victim doesn’t change this.
#4. I know you’re a Broadway star and all, but here’s a newsflash: it isn’t always about you.
#5. Let me get this straight: you think that you should control the rights to your image and performance—rights you no doubt signed away to Disney long ago, probably for no little financial reward. You can be assured that Colbert’s producers procured the rights to that brief clip from the people who actually control them. On the other hand, I’ve got 20 bucks that says you didn’t get permission from Colbert to use a clip from his show in your petty little display of paranoia and narcissism.
The foregoing will do for now, although Curmie does have a bone to pick with whatever Jacobs fan called Colbert’s shtick “mean-spirited.” First off, of course, it is: towards the Proud Boys. Secondly, even if you can contort the bit into somehow mocking Jacobs, have you ever seen a Colbert sketch that couldn’t be described that way? Only the victim of the barbs would be different… and Jacobs is only a victim in his own mind and in the opinion of idiot fans who feel compelled to rush to his defense even though he’s spewing hogwash.
This also goes for the folks at onstageblog.com, specifically Chris Peterson and Greg Ehrhardt.
At least the latter acknowledges that Colbert doesn’t owe anyone an apology (“it’s comedy”), but he feels compelled to say moronic things like that Colbert “scoffed at the idea of the songs and performers from ‘Aladdin’ being masculine.” He did not. He said nothing whatsoever about the performers, merely suggesting that Aladdin, the character, wasn’t an example of toxic masculinity; Curmie would have thought that was a good thing.
And does Curmie really have to go over basic concepts like the difference between actor and character that he used to cover in about the third lecture of a non-major Theatre Appreciation class?
As for Jacobs himself: if you want to be treated like a man, be one—and this is not at all a gendered comment. Curmie has no problem whatsoever with your version of masculinity, but it’s time to grow the fuck up. There’s a difference between men and boys, and age 38 is a little late in the game to understand that. If you want people to stop thinking you’re a snowflake, maybe you should try not behaving like one.
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