he video: Though the opening of Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark has been pushed back, for a fifth time, to March 15, the troubled, accident-prone Broadway musical boasts at least one influential fan: Conservative icon Glenn Beck. On Thursday's edition of his radio show, the polarizing host boisterously defended the $65 million show, comparing it favorably to the smash hit Wicked, and urging Americans to "give a kidney," if necessary, to secure a ticket. Once Spider-Man opens, Beck warned, "you will not be able to get tickets" for a year. He blamed snobbery for the show's poor press, affecting a French accent to lampoon New Yorkers' culturally elitist attitudes.
The reaction: Beck has filtered this production through his political worldview, says Benjamin Sutton at The L Magazine. The way Beck sees it, Spider-Man is "a musical blockbuster about the American academic-scientific industry's god complex, the lies surrounding global warming rhetoric, and the villainous research funded by big government." But his notion that New York's elite wants the show to fail is "ridiculous," says Jon Bershad at Mediaite. "Half of the New York elite invested in the damn thing." Overall, Beck's endorsement is a mixed blessing, says Richard Lawson at Gawker. Listening to his "well-reasoned theatre critique," it's easy to "imagine how conflicted Julie Taymor and company must feel. On the one hand, yay praise and endorsement. On the other, Glenn Beck." Listen to Beck's rave review:
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