steven sater did hanschen rilow VERY dirty and no I won’t shut up about it
cause why was musical hans an emotionally manipulative asshole?? play hans was just an emotionally repressed asshole who genuinely cares about ernst in more than a sexual sense. that’s what the original vineyard scene was about, it was about these two accepting that they didn’t just have casual, manageable sexual attraction towards each other and that they’re actually in love. hans naturally does act a little uncomfortable with the verbal affirmation, he’s a bi/gay teen in the late 1800s lol, but he’s not as emotionally distant as he is in the musical. the most mean thing he says is a quick “let’s not be sad” after ernst says he loves him. even after that, he starts comforting ernst and saying that right now, everything is beautiful and they shouldn’t get caught up in the future right now. in most productions of the play that aren’t censored, this is played very tenderly.
now let’s compare this to the musical!
hanschen: and so you should 😝😝😝😝
what the fuck. he’s transformed into the evil bisexual stereotype??? and not even in a fun way??? he’s not often shown to care about ernst on a deeper level than attraction, as opposed to the play where they’re shown to be close friends even before their scene together. in the OBC, he does look fondly at ernst after he says “and in the meantime?” which is a sweet moment in isolation, but is the only implication that he feels affection for ernst at all.
before someone says “it’s not that deep”, it IS that deep, because hanschen rilow is part of the extremely scarce bisexual representation in musical theater and he’s a really shitty character. musical hanschen isn’t poorly written in isolation, but in comparison to play hanschen, he’s an absolute homophobic caricature that was once an interesting and sympathetic character. he went from being part of a revolutionary progressive piece of theater, to being nothing more than something for heterosexual audiences to mindlessly laugh at.
I don’t know if sater and shiek characterized hanschen this way out of malice or ignorance, but this is the reason that it’s so important to me for the character of hanschen to be reworked (preferably with the input of LGBTQ writers) in the case of a spring awakening movie. if that was made, I expect it would be pretty mainstream and be many people’s first introduction to hanschen rilow’s character.
so, instead of publicizing a harmful caricature of a bisexual teenager to mainstream audiences, how about somebody reworks this character in a way that honors his original purpose: to be, alongside ernst, the foil to the pairing of melchior and wendla? melchior and wendla, the pair that could’ve potentially worked out since they’re straight, discover attraction to each other that turns violent. but ernst and hanschen, the gay pairing that’s thought by their strict christian community of as inherently lustful and incompatible, discover their genuine romantic feelings for each other in a way that’s gentle (if dysfunctional).
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