You Know What’s Awesome about The Flash Musical Episode?
Barry Allen is depicted as a guy — a straight guy (as far as canon goes) — a straight guy who is a superhero — who unabashedly, unashamedly likes musicals!
They could have gone for the “Let’s make the macho hero sing and watch him be embarrassed and snarky about sharing his feelings” route that some modern musicals and musical episodes go (see: Flynn from Tangled, Spike fromBuffy’s “Once More with Feeling”, most of the heroes and villains of “Mayhem of the Music Meister!”). The Supernatural musical episode doesn’t even havethe guys sing — the singers are all teenage girls.
But Barry Allen is shown from the start of this episode to love musicals. Old fashioned, cheesy musicals like Singin’ In the Rain. He doesn’t find it embarrassing, he doesn’t hide it from his male friends. Even though he is trapped in movie musical sort of against his will, his own mind partially conjured up this fantasy, and it shows. He gets so into the opening number, he sits down watching in awe as the two murderous gangsters sing to their daughter, he starts off the “Super Friends” number and spins off silly rhymes and puns.
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I’ve headcanoned that Barry did musicals when he was in school since “Summer Lovin’” in Season 1, and it may not have been officially confirmed, but I just got a LOT more evidence for the theory this episode.
Why is this important? Well, there’s a reason most school theater programs have more female than male performers in my experience. I went to a high school with an amazing theater program, and even there some had the assumption that if you’re a guy who likes musicals or acts in musicals, you’re not strong or masculine. And that wasn’t a stigma a guy wanted to attract. My middle school production of Guys and Dolls? We only had four or five actual guys. And not all in the lead parts. College was only slightly better.
But Barry Allen is a superhero. One of the most iconic in the DC canon. He’s the “fastest man alive.” He’s punched out a man made of metal, a shark man, a giant gorilla, murderous speedsters who have beaten him within an inch of his life. He’s survived being struck by lightning, shot by Green Arrow, broken by Zoom, trapped in the speed force.
And he freaking loves musicals.
Barry doesn’t just beat bad guys — he beats toxic masculinity. With tap dancing.
