29.

AUGUST 2021

“THE PROM”:
HUMOR IN RELATION TO MODERN
AMERICA

PATRICK SAM
4173454
Democracy of Laughter
Table of contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1

2. What is “The Prom”?...................................................................................................... 1

a. The plot of “The Prom”............................................................................................... 1

b. The real-life stories behind “The Prom”..................................................................... 2
3. The humor of “The Prom”. ............................................................................................. 2

a. How is it created? ........................................................................................................ 2

b. What is it used for?...................................................................................................... 5
c. Is it successful? ............................................................................................................ 7
4. Conclusion. ...................................................................................................................... 7

5. Sources. ............................................................................................................................ 8
 1. Introduction.
The 2020 Netflix Movie Musical “The Prom” is a Movie based on a 2016 Musical of the same
name. It follows a group of Broadway actors, that travel to a small town in Indiana, where they
plan to fight for the rights of Emma, a lesbian student that was not allowed to attend Prom with
her girlfriend Alyssa, in order to salvage their flatlining careers.

Netflix describes the Movie as a “comedy” among others and its general tone is very
uplifting and fun. However, it not only tries to make fun of America as it currently is, but also
highlights important issues not only for LGBTQ+ youth but the American society as a whole.

2. What is “The Prom”?

a. The plot of “The Prom”
The plot of the Musical can be separated in multiple overlining story arcs: The first Arc spans from the
beginning of the musical to about the end of the song “Tonight Belongs to You” [00:00- 57:20]. This
whole section is dominated by comedic and happy songs like “It´s Not About Me” or “Tonight Belongs
to You”. This can be attributed to the fact that there does not seem to be real stakes at this point of
the story. While the movie starts off with Emma being disallowed from Prom, at the point the
Broadway stars arrive at the town, the case has already been brought to the state´s attorney and is
seen as a civil rights case [Just Breathe, 1:58-2:13], making their arrival seem pointless. It is highly
characterized by the stars trying to preach acceptance and generally acting over the top and detached
from the situation, by e.g. singing a self-written song about acceptance at a Monster truck rally. It even
seems like Emma will be going to Prom with her girlfriend Alyssa towards the end of this arc.

This feeling however ends when the big twist of the movie is revealed: The fake prom. The movie
starts to feel less high energy and comedic the second “Tonight Belongs to You” ends and the viewer
sees Emma and the Broadway stars standing in an empty parking lot. As soon as it is revealed that
Emma is the only student attending the school prom while every other student at their school is
attending a different, private one. This moment starts the other two story-arcs of the Musical: Emma´s
story and her way to throwing an inclusive Prom which is filled with more serious, slower songs like
“Alyssa Greene” and “Unruly Heart” and The Broadway stars individual ways of changing personally
and the way they help, which is characterized by more uplifting songs like “The Lady´s Improving” and
“Love Thy Neighbor”. Both those story arcs lead to the last song “The Night Belongs to You” and the
end of the movie.

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 b. The real-life stories behind “The Prom”.
But does the Musical really represent what actually happens in America? In an 2018 interview
with NBC news, Chad Beguelin, the person who co-wrote the musical the movie is based on
said, that “the idea was sparked by theater producer Jack Viertel, who kept encountering similar
stories in the news.” [Kacala]. He went on to explain that “He had seen several instances where
[…] same sex couples were banned from their prom. […] Every once in a while a few months
will go by, and then someone will email us another […] high school that decided that no gays
or lesbians can come to the prom”. However, that is not the only source Beguelin mentioned
for the musical. One of those sources is -then vice President- Mike Pence. “He said he especially
wants those, like Pence, who are not known to be proponents of LGBTQ rights to come see the
show.

Even though Beguelin stated, that there is not just one specific inspiration for the
Musical, there is one specific story that feels very similar to the story of “The Prom”: the story
of Constance McMillen. McMillen´s school decided to “cancel its senior prom rather than
[letting her], a lesbian student, bring a female date.” [Simpson] However, “the school urged
parents to organize a ´private event´ in lieu of a prom.” Similarly to how it plays out in the
musical, McMillen´s story ended in a situation, where “A parent-organized prom happened
behind her back- she and her date were sent to [an event] at a country club in Fulton, […] that
attracted only five other students. Her school principal and teachers served as chaperones”.

But not only the storyline of the fake prom is used in the Musical. Similarly to McMillan,
Emma decides to go public with her story during the movie- albeit more reluctant and in a
different way. Not only that: The movie ends with an inclusive Prom held by Emma and the
school. While McMillen did not hold her own LGBTQ-Inclusive prom, the “American
Humanist Association” released a Press release that they intended to hold an LGBTQ+ inclusive
prom after the original prom was canceled, but before the Fake Prom was held.

3. The humor of “The Prom”.

a. How is it created?
As usual with Musicals most of “The Prom´s” story and comedy comes from its songs. One of
the biggest sources of the Musical´s humor is intentional tone deafness. The two biggest
examples for that would be the songs “It´s Not About Me” and “The Acceptance Song”.

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 The latter is probably the most blatant example of this. Starting 35 minutes into the movie,
the song is performed at a Monster Truck show. The tone deafness can be observed through
many different things. First of all, the scene before that [The Prom, 0:33:40] acknowledges the
fact that the song is not good in the first place. On top of that the conversation about the venue
they get to perform in clearly shows the fact that the Broadway stars are not in touch with the
area they are currently in assuming it would be “one of those beautiful ante-bellum theatres”
[34:40]. This sets the tone for how the scene is going to play out. From this point on, the viewer
almost expects something to go ridiculously wrong, which leads to a payoff when they are
presented with the song in itself. It starts off with lines like “Flowers accept the rain and grow
more beautiful” [“The Acceptance song”, 00:06- 00:10”] and “Babies accept their mother´s
breast so they can grow strong [00:12-00:17]. While both of these things are instances of
“accepting” they do feel like a weird comparison to make at a Monster Truck Rally. While these
two are just slightly missing the point they are trying to convey. The real tone-deafness of the
song comes in the next line where Trent (the character that wrote this song) sings “I accept that
I was born a handsome man” [00:19-00:24] which not only very clearly shows, that he is more
focused on himself than Emma, the supposed actual reason they sang the song, but also how
little the song actually has to do with preaching acceptance. It´s at that moment, the viewers
can clearly see, that it´s pretty much advertising the Broadway stars in a very wrong place,
rather than trying to teach the small town they are at.

Moving on to “It´s Not About Me”, the song also presents itself as very intentionally tone
deaf. The scene this song is sung in [The Prom, 19:57-26:40] starts out with the PTA-Meeting
mentioned in “Just Breathe” discussing the state attorney´s decision, that they have been to hold
an inclusive prom, right as the discussion goes on to Emma stating, that she “just [wants] to go
to prom like any other kid” [21:30-21:33] and Principal Hawkins asking “What exactly is it that
you find so frightening about gay people?” [21:40-21:49], the stars storm the meeting with a
few people in tow, causing a commotion and talking about holding a rally. This moment not
only directly delivers a punchline to the principal´s question, but also shows how off the actors
are when it comes to doing what Emma wants.

While this scene shows how unaware of the situation the stars are, the actual song following
it shows another thing, the musical pulls it´s comedy from: satire. “It´s Not About Me” is a very
ironic title in itself. From a pure word count perspective, Dee Dee uses “I”, “me” or references
herself around thirty times whereas Emma does not even get mentioned or referenced ten times.
But just the wordcount is not the only thing, that shows, how little Dee Dee actually cares for

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the situation at hand. Lines like “I wanna tell the people of- whatever this town´s called” [It´s
Not About Me, 0:08- 0:16] “I read three quarters of a news story and knew I had to come”
[0:23-0:28] and “Stealing the rights of a girl who is an LGBQ-Teen. I´ve been far to angry to
google what those letters mean” [1:00-1:11], show that she not only did not even bother to
finish the news story about the situation or even learn the town´s name, but also does not seem
to know a lot about what LGBTQ actually stands for, even mixing up the acronym. Dee Dee´s
general lack of interest for the situation also shows when she not only forgets Emma´s name
[1:16-1:18], but also walks up to the wrong girl [The Prom, 24:05]. This scene serves as a
commentary on the way many celebrities try to gain more popularity by commenting on a cause
they barely know about. Supporting people and stories is something a lot of famous people do
in America, it has also happened in Constance McMillen´s case with people calling her school
district the “Meanest school district in America” [Simpson], a “judicial failure” and many more
things. The song (and a big part of the first half of the movie) satirizes this culture and finds its
comedy in calling out many people that stood with a cause to gain publicity rather than actually
care for the situation.

Another song that finds its comedy in calling other people out and making fun of it is “Love
Thy Neighbor” [1:28:23-1:33:51]. This time however, it is not celebrities being called out but
a group of people that justify their distain of gay people by using the bible as reasoning -hence
the name “Love Thy Neighbor” as a reference to the biblical phrase. In contrast to “It´s Not
About Me” and “The Acceptance Song”, this song does not create its comedy out of intentional
tone-deafness but rather delivers its humor in a very clear joke-structure of set-up and
punchline. A few examples would be “Kaylee has a small tattoo. That Tattoo would be taboo.
Kaylee guess what waits for you” [0:08- 0:19] setting up the punchline and “an eternity in the
fiery pits of hell” [0:20-0:23] delivering it, “Shelby you seem sweet to me, but if it has come to
be you´ve lost your virginity” [0:24-0:35] and “we´ll be stoning you and your family as well”
[0:36-0:39] interacting the same way, and “Let´s hope you don´t masturbate, ´cause the
scripture says well have to cut off your- hands” [2:14-2:21]. All these follow the structure of
using things the individual characters do as a setup and following it up with biblical
punishments for that as a punchline. While the joke format sets the tone for how the song creates
it´s comedy, the way in which it is presented is also a big factor in how the humor is created.
The song in itself is a very upbeat dance number, which highly contrasts what is actually sung
about. Having a huge upbeat dance number while singing about teenagers burning in hell,

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getting stoned to death or having their hands cut off showcases a third way the musical generates
comedy: by being completely over the top.

Two great examples for that would be “The Lady´s Improving” [The Prom, 1:20:50-
1:23:25] and “Barry is Going to Prom” [1:37:11- 1:39:43]. Starting with “The Lady´s
Improving”, the song in itself does not have a lot of jokes or funny comments, however its
humor stems from the situation it is sung in: Dee Dee gets rejected by Principal Hawkins and
instead of leaving or talking about it, she performs a rendition of one of his favorite songs in
his office. While this in itself is not objectively over the top, what gives this scene its comedy
is the combination of Hawkins´ disapproving look and lines like “It´s like having a fantasy I
don´t want to have” [1:22:04], as well as the male students waiting to see the principal joining
in and performing the original choreography from the show [1:22:52] and the staff in the
background watching. The whole scene presents itself as not taking itself too seriously and
being willing to go very over the top, which creates its humor.

Similarly to “The Lady´s Improving”, “Barry is Going to Prom” creates a lot of humor
through the over the top ridiculousness of its situation. It is situated right after Emma and her
girlfriend Alyssa break up in the Musical. More precisely after Emma asks Barry to be her date
to the inclusive prom. Barry sings about how excited he is to be going to prom, which in itself
is a very normal, non-over the top thing to be happy about. However, looking at the context,
the idea of a man in his mid-forties singing a song about how excited he is to go to prom with
a underage lesbian student is comedic in itself. Barry even acknowledges this in the song by
singing “my date is a High School Lesbian, still it´s fine” [Barry is Going to Prom, 1:53-1:58].

Looking at all these examples one can say, that the musical creates its comedy through
intentional tone-deafness, Satire and calling out people as well as the comedy of the situations,
its songs are performed in.

b. What is it used for?

After looking at the way, the movie creates its comedy and some ways it is used, it is now time
to look at what else it uses it for. One thing the musical´s comedy is used for is separating the
different story arcs. Looking at the three main story arcs presented it becomes apparent, that the
comedy is used to separate them tone wise. This is especially prominent in the second half of
the movie, where the actor´s more comedic songs like “Love Thy Neighbor” or “Barry is Going
to Prom” that represent their parts of the story highly contrast the more serious tones of the

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songs in Emma´s storyline like “Alyssa Greene” and “Unruly Heart”. The comedic and happy
tone of the Broadway star´s side is also what defines the whole first half of the musical, in
which the only not cheerful and comedic songs the viewer is presented with are “Dance With
You”, which is used to introduce the viewers to Emma´s girlfriend Alyssa and their relationship
and “We Look to You” that introduces us to the budding relationship between Dee Dee and
Principal Hawkins.

However, structuring the musical is not the only use for the movie´s comedy. As we´ve
established, most of the first half of the movie feels upbeat and comedic, all the way up to its
final song “Tonight Belongs to You”. This is because the comedy in this movie is also used to
make the serious parts hit harder. The best example for this is when the twist of the fake prom
happens. The characters and viewers came fresh out of a 5:26 upbeat, happy song with a big
dance number just to be confronted with the seriousness and emotional hit that the fake prom
presents, underlined not only by Principal Hawkins and Emma finding out, that the Broadway
stars only came to help in order to salvage their reputations but also by Emma singing the reprise
to “Tonight Belongs to You”, in which she not only repeats the formerly happy and upbeat
melody slower but also swaps out the essential “tonight belongs to you/us” of the original to
“All along tonight belonged to them” [Tonight Belongs To You-Reprise, 0:27-0:37].
Considering the fact that this is the first scene in the movie that is completely serious and neither
happy nor comedic, the sudden lack of comedy is used to strengthen the impact of this scene
on the viewer.

Another time the comedy of the movie is used to underline the seriousness of a scene is
for Alyssa´s solo “Alyssa Greene” [The Prom 1:25:39- 1:28:18] that directly follows Dee Dee´s
song “The Lady´s Improving” [1:20:50- 1:23:25]. As mentioned earlier, the Lady´s improving
is very over the top and upbeat, which automatically gives the viewers mood a boost, returning
to the overall mood of the first half. However, this change in mood is very temporary as it
highly contrasts the seriousness and vulnerability of Emma´s talk with Alyssa as well as the
subsequent song and (temporary) breakup. Just like before, the fact that the upbeat nature of
“The Lady´s Improving” so harshly contrasts the more serious tone of the scene surrounding
“Alyssa Greene” makes the latter not only more impactful but makes it feel more serious.

The final example for this usage of comedy to strengthen the impact of the more serious
songs would be the scenes from “Love Thy Neighbor” [1:28:23] to the end of “Unruly Heart”
[1:43:40]. As mentioned earlier in this essay, both “Love Thy Neighbor” and “ Barry Is Going

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to Prom” are very upbeat and comedic, which -very similar to “Tonight Belongs to You” in the
first half of the movie- sets the viewers up to be excited and happy, seeing the bullies reformed
and having redeemed all the actors from their tone-deaf actions of the first half, the general
mood of the movie is reset to a hopeful and happy point. But instead of continuing on with this
mood into the big final number, the viewers get presented with “Unruly Heart”, which also
starts off as a hard, serious reset just like “Alyssa Greene”, but pretty quickly turns into a more
hopeful- yet serious- scene. Situating one of the slower and more quiet songs of the musical at
this point supported by the comedy and happiness of the songs that came before it make it
possible for the viewer to not just have “another sad serious moment” but rather carry the good
feeling through the song into the final number.

But why is the humor used like this? The answer becomes apparent when looking at the
scenes the humor strengthens the impact of: The break-up, Alyssa´s story and Emma telling
hers. All three of those scenes are scenes that directly reference struggles of actual people (like
for example Constance McMillen). It becomes clear, that the comedy is intended to strengthen
those scenes´ impacts in order to showcase how problematic they actually are. It is meant to
help the viewer emphasize stronger with the characters.

c. Is it successful?
The question that comes up now is, whether the musical is successful in its use of its humor.
While it is hard to decide whether a scene or characters are more or less relatable to everyone,
one can look at the intention and the execution of it. Looking at the way the musical is
structured, it is to say that it is successful in presenting the serious scenes as very serious and
the humorous as just that. It is also to say, that the humor does in fact contrast these scenes well
which does give the more serious scenes of the movie more of an impact in the context of the
movie.

4. Conclusion.
All in all, it is to say that “The Prom” uses its comedy not only to call out the behavior of
different people, like in “Love Thy Neighbor” and “It´s Not About Me”, but also tries to make
the viewers think about the reality of gay students in the southern states of the US. Looking at
the inspiration and similar cases to what has happened in the musical, it becomes clear, that it
is supposed to satire parts of the modern American society and showcase many things that are
wrong in them through comedy.

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 5. Sources.

“Humanists Prepare to Hold LGBT-Inclusive Prom in Mississippi”. American Humanist

Association. March 12, 2010. https://americanhumanist.org/press-releases/2010-03-humanists-
prepare-to-hold-lgbt-inclusive-prom-in-miss/ . Accessed 29.08.2021. Press Release.

Kacala, Alexander. “Creator of gay Broadway musical, 'The Prom,' invites Mike Pence to the
show”. NBC News. Dec. 18, 2018. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/creator-gay-
broadway-musical-prom-invites-mike-pence-show-n949536?icid=related . Accessed
29.08.2021

Simpson, Jake. “Lesbian Couple Sent to Fake Prom”. The Atlantic. April 06, 2010.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/lesbian-couple-sent-to-fake-
prom/341100/ . Accessed 29.08.2021

The Cast of Netflix´s Film The Prom. The Prom (Music from the Neflix Film). Maisie Music
Publishing, 2020. Spotify,
https://open.spotify.com/album/5016dF1FF2mrEtD38l4QiN?si=Yn6oZhykQ3O9PRLgPcZwg
A&dl_branch=1

The Prom. Directed by Ryan Murphy, Netflix, 2020