Author: Maryana

“With a storm in the wind, what would you do?”

As I was reading all of my classmates’ blogs from last week, I saw how a lot of them wrote about stuff they adored or were hyper-fixated on. I think I’ll do the same, so… Cabaret (1993), right?

I FREAKING LOVE CABARET AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I literally start trembling violently whenever somebody brings it up—that’s how down bad I am for this musical. I know somebody reading this may have no idea what I’m talking about, who that man is, why I titled my blog, or what the quote underneath even means. I PROMISEEEEEEEE I’ll get into that. Let me just explain what the musical is about first. (SPOILERS!!!!!!)

Without getting too in-depth, the musical has this beautiful opening where the Emcee, Alan Cumming, welcomes the audience to the KitKat Klub. A nightclub or cabaret, if you will, for people to escape their worries. Hence, “Leave your troubles… outside!” Anyway, we meet the rest of the Emcee’s crew: Rosie, Lulu, Frenchie, Texas, Fritzie, Helga, Bobby, Victor, Hans, Herman, and finally Sally Bowles.

After the opening, we’re introduced to the main protagonist and another supporting character. Cliff Bradshaw, a “starving author” trying to find somewhere to write, and Ernst Ludwig, a man who smuggles valuables from different countries. Ludwig refers Cliff to Fraulein Schnider’s residence to live in exchange for being taught English by Cliff. He agrees, and there a friendship is born.

When he gets to Fraulein Schnider, she lends him the room for only 50 marks. Then leaves Cliff by himself to celebrate the New Year with her love interest, Herr Schultz. Did I mention that the year is 1944?

For context, Cliff is in Berlin, Germany during the mid 1940’s. I’m sure you all can put two and two together. So, if learning about the rise of the N*zi Party isn’t your thing, now’s the time to click off this blog, because it only gets worse from here. And honestly, that’s what I love the most about this peculiar musical. It gradually gets worse without the viewer realizing until it’s far too late.

Back to the storyline though, while Cliff is adventuring through the city, he finds the KitKat Klub and meets Sally Bowles. A beautiful young woman who is whoreish, trashy, and uneducated. They hit it off and move in after a few days. During that time, Sally obviously has feelings for Cliff and tries to make advances until she finds out that he’s a homosexual. Even then, Cliff and Sally still stay side by side.

Time passes, and Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz are engaged and throwing their party. Everything goes well until Ernst Ludwig arrives. He’s disgusted and disappointed that Fräulein wants to marry a Jewish man, so he walks out, but Cliff grabs his arm before he leaves. There, the N*zi symbol rested on his arm. Cliff is obviously horrified because he read Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a book published by H*tler about his beliefs and plans for New Germany.

To get Ludwig to stay and enjoy the party, a guest sings “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” — a fascist song disguised as patriotism. Apparently, the only people who care are Fräulein Schneider and Cliff, as they watch in terror. In contrast, Herr Schultz and Sally turn their heads to dismiss the Nazis. This scene shows the main characters’ perspectives without overdoing it, and it gets me so misty-eyed. 

When I say EVERYTHING goes to crap after that scene, I really do mean it.  Fräulein Schneider calls off the wedding because she’s stuck in survival mode, and rightfully so. Marrying a Jewish man at that time would mean certain death even though he was literally her soulmate.

On the other hand, Sally Bowles gets pregnant by an unknown man, and when Cliff finds out, he encourages her to keep the baby. He wanted to step up and be the father because he adored the idea of them being a family, so Sally reluctantly agrees. Unfortunately, she couldn’t bear the pregnancy any longer and went behind his back to have an abortion. Cliff was destroyed yet still wanted to be with Sally.

He was already planning on leaving Berlin to flee to the United States and wanted Sally to come with him. She obviously declines, and they fight about what’s going on in the political world with some iconic lines.

“Ugh, you mean POLITICS. What has that got to do with us?” from Sally.

“Sally, don’t you understand? If you’re not against all this, you’re for it… or you might as well be.” and “SALLY WAKE UP! THE PARTY IN BERLIN IS OVER! IT’S BEEN A LOT OF FUN, BUT IT’S OVER NOW!” from Cliff.

He leaves Sally with a train ticket out of Berlin. He advises Sally to use it before walking out — for good. He also urges Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz to flee from Berlin too, but they both refuse.

Herr Schultz believes it will “pass over” while Fraulein Schneider claims that she’s in too deep but is resilient and will survive. I got my quote from her song “What would you do?” In my opinion, today’s world is scarily similar to Cabaret. As a teenager, I feel like Cliff and Fraulein Schneider simultaneously — wanting to leave my country because I see dystopian aspects everywhere, but how? I don’t have the money or passport to go somewhere else for a while. I’ll just have to wait it out or defend myself as she implied.

I also got my title from this scene. People often joke about history repeating itself, so I thought it was neat for my title hinting at familiarity.

The story ended as history decided it to — the rise of the N*zi Party and genocide taking full effect. One of my favorite parts about this play is how similar the introduction and ending are, yet the ending is obviously corrupted. The orchestra sounds rough, and the choir has lost its liveliness — almost sounding like shouting soldiers. It’s all so uncanny.

Everyone who stayed in Berlin died. Even the Emcee. We see his final moments — teasing the audience by taking off his trench coat as if he’s naked underneath. When he finally removes it, instead of a nude body, the crowd is met with a much smaller frame dressed in Jewish prisoner attire. He sings “Goodbye. See you soon.” In German, before posing as if he were crucified. The lights cut off, and that was it.

When I first watched Cabaret, I was fifteen years old and extremely confused. I understood some parts of the story, but I still missed so much. The play purposefully blinds its audience with sexuality and gender expression to distract from the actual issue at hand. Cabaret has affected me in many ways — good and bad. I’m more open-minded, compassionate, and likely to speak out in retaliation (curse and blessing).

I’m so glad I get to share my love for this play. It feels like I got my jitteriness all out now. Thank you so much for reading this, and sorry it went on for so long</3333

For the past few days, I’ve been sitting at my computer trying to write this blog with nothing in my head. It’s not writer’s block, though. You give me a prompt, and I’ll give you 1,500 words minimum — I’ll write a poem three pages long with a beautiful rhyme scheme too. It’s not that I can’t write — it’s just that I’ve never been given so much creative freedom before. I just wish I could have more freedom in other parts of my life too.

I often find myself thinking about the dynamics of teenagers and adults when in reality, I should be doing my algebra homework. Grown folks see us teenagers as kids and treat us as such. We’re obviously annoyed and we try to defend ourselves against them, usually resulting in some sort of punishment. Phone privileges taken, grounded, or even a smack somewhere. I feel like I’m wrongfully persecuted sometimes.

It’s not that we want to be little pricks, we just want to be recognized as real people. Me and my friends see each other as individuals that can take care of ourselves while being respectful and giving a helping hand. I even see that with other teenagers I don’t know. The way they watch their surroundings, use their money, and even being resistant to changes they know is wrong.

When I say teenagers want to be recognized as real people, I’m not saying that all of us are being treated like garbage. What I mean is for us to be taken seriously. Our mental health, our grief, and our insecurities. Whenever I get upset, I don’t want to be called sensitive, emotional, or hormonal — and if I do get upset, I don’t want anyone mad at me for having emotions. That’s so belittling.

When I was 13, I had to process grief — alone. It had hit me like a freight train, no warning, no goodbyes. I had lost my dog who had grown up with me and was my best friend. I’m not sure how I did it, but I got up the very next day and went to school like nothing had happened that Sunday morning. If I cried, I’d be called weak. If I tried to isolate myself, I would be perceived as disrespectful or rude. 

This obviously affected my mental health negatively. I was lonely and social media told me everyone was doing better than me. They had more money, clearer skin, healthy/long hair, a nice body, and even the love of their life. Everything I had been wanting or wasn’t even aware that would be essential to me later in life was being presented to me and left me feeling humiliated. I grew insecure, anxious, and easily provoked overtime.

I know the people reading this can definitely relate to the feeling of being insecure or anxious. I know my audience may have been in a situation where they were spoken for or talked at instead of talked to. Which is why I thought of writing this blog.

I’m not trying to bash people with a fully developed frontal lobe but cut us some slack. We’re not asking for a million dollars, we just want full independence, freedom to express ourselves and trust that we’ll be okay on our own. If someone spoke for an adult even though they are capable to talk themselves, the adult would grow frustrated and eventually lash out — it’s no different from people in adolescence.

Before I end this blog, I just wanted to add that I feel like we live in a Peanuts parody — me and other people my age. For those of you who don’t know, I’m sure you’re all familiar with Snoopy and Charlie Brown from your childhoods —The beagle who can literally do anything and his bald-headed owner.

I say that we live in a Peanuts parody because the children are the main characters of the show, not the adults. The kids get to control the atmosphere and plot while the adults are in the background. Speaking of the adults in Peanuts, they sound like trombones or some kind of brass instrument whenever they speak and I think that really supports the point of the show, which is giving kids their own voice, space to exist and time to learn.

I am a huge fan of horror. It doesn’t matter if it’s psychological, serial killers, supernatural, folktale, etc. I love horror with a burning passion. I have only one complaint though — it’s all so repetitive.

Before I even geek out, I want to define “the perfect horror” in my own definition. Horror is supposed to frighten, disturb, or scare an audience — it has many subdivisions and that’s okay. If it’s psychological horror, I want to see the main character spiral and lose their mind while I’m being scared too. If it’s apocalyptic, I want to see an invasive species take over while I cower in fear too. If I’m not slightly disturbed or scared — I don’t think it did a well enough job. But that’s my opinion as a veteran in this genre.

I’ve watched horror movies and read books since I was in elementary. Recently I’ve found that the jump scares or suspenseful scenes don’t scare me as much as they did years or even months ago. I can predict cliche lines, cues, and even deaths. Some movies or books are a poor excuse for gore while others shouldn’t even be classified as horror to begin with. Even with some of the most popular subgenres of horror — analog horror and Minecraft horror.

Analog horror did me dirty to say the least. I watched Mandela Catalogue right before it blew up. It had me second guessing my own faith for a few months before I became fully grounded in it. Satan himself — deceiving humanity to be their savior while wearing the skin of Gabriel was a bold start. It was so similar to the actual story of the birth of Christ that it messed with my head. To be fair, I watched this when I was way too young — eleven years old to be exact. So of course it damaged me mentally, but I feel like it can still be classified as the perfect horror.

The Walten Files reminded me of the fear “Five Nights at Freddy’s” gave me when I was even younger. Obelisk, Vita Carnis, Greylock, The Return of the Pumpkin Rabbit,  and even The Oldest View, had me shook to my core. There’s so many other series that have had a lasting impact on me. There are also some that didn’t give me the scare I was looking for, but I’m not here to bash or discredit someone’s work. I just want to talk about the perfect horror.

To anybody who loves Minecraft as much as me, we all know horror isn’t new in this game. Especially with a silly Herobrine sighting in every video uploaded in the early 2010s. The “newer” version of Minecraft horror is the player being stalked by a humanoid creature. It stalks, it howls, and then it hits you once or twice in a chase and you’re dead. It was unique and utterly terrifying at first — but so repetitive.

I’ve been obsessed with these horror genres since middle school. So many videos and so many years. Even though I still love a good scare from these subgenres, I’m tired of it.

I’m tired of the horror mods that look identical and do similar methods from the mods before them. I’m tired of some analog horror series not having any real depth to them. Just a quick cash grab or a cheap way to scare people. Why can’t I watch something completely different? In recent videos, the most unique horror mod to come about was the “Long Horse” mod by Lookout2DD.

The fact that the horse didn’t attack when the player was nearby was already odd, but when it was revealed that the horse is far more superior than the player had me stunned. I saw that the horse had removed the “Save and quit to title” button from the player, it was haunting — not to mention that it could literally see and chase him in spectator mode. And the way it was modeled is what really got me. I don’t know if it’s the eyes, face or the gory sight of its elongated neck, but I hate looking at that thing. The horse lived up to its name of being long necked. Personally, I feel like that Minecraft horror video was perfect.

Again, I’m not here to spew hate to the videos or series that didn’t scare me, I’m just ranting about an issue (that really isn’t an issue, but still an issue) that I have. Thank you to the people who took the time to actually read this!!<333