ABSTRACT
Joss Whedon acknowledges and incorporates fears within the narrative as ironic asides, juxtapositions, and musical jokes that ease our entry into the episode. The conflation of two fantasy worlds–the musical and the fantasy/sci-fi show–generates a greater truth, to the surprise of both the characters "on stage" and those of us in the audience. This chapter analyzes the songs and their contexts in a parallel to the history of the American stage and screen musical. Middents feels that the singular nature of Battle's performance dangerously recalls those Golden Era musicals that confined African-American performers to one walk-on performance per film. The fascination of white culture with the masculine attributes of the African–American musician entails harmful ethical assumptions. Like Whedon's musical, Stephen Sondheim's works combine modernist elements with "a thorough absorption and self-conscious utilization of the past."
