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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to one of your favorite segments, The Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来【曲外之音】. Hi, Oliver.

Hello, everyone, hello, Lulu.

So we're gonna continue with Mamma Mia, the jukebox musical.

Yeah. one of… maybe the first or one of the first jukebox musicals I can think of anyway, yeah.

There's so many more now.

They are everywhere. There seems to be one every few years somebody changes or adds the music from a popular band or singer and they're everywhere.

Yeah. Okay. So, in the previous episode, we were talking about the background. We also walked everyone through the story, which is a fun light-hearted story really, they were lots of like little twists, little plots, but the whole idea is pretty simple. Right? It's just a girl who is about to get married. She wants to find out who her father is. And then the whole story unravels.

So Oliver, what do you think are some of the themes in this particular story or in the musical?

Well. I'm gonna be honest, I've watched it a few times and I struggle to see any major themes if I'm being quite honest, it feels too light-hearted to have anything really deeper than that.

On the surface. It just like, it's just a feel good, happy ending musical.

Yeah. It feels like something you go out, you forget about the world for a little bit, and not really think about any major issues or anything life important.

But interestingly, there are some deeper or bigger themes hidden underneath all these song and dance.

First of all, surprisingly is feminism.

Really, feminism.

Think about the entire setting, think about the main character is a girl. And the main relationship is actually the relationship between her and her mother, and how they had misunderstandings, and then eventually they reconciliated.

And also, the mom is a single mother, although we talk about who was she with, but the fact is she wasn't like so hopelessly in love or groveling at any of these men's feet. She was enjoying her life. She was enjoying her friendship with her best friends. They're all women. If you think about it, it’s a huge group of women, it's like a support group almost.

That's true. I do remember the songs where they were singing and dancing and enjoying themselves and talking about the worries and everything together and doesn't Donna, the mother, doesn't she own the tavern on the island.

Exactly.

Where they all are. Yes, yes, there's no men involved there. It's all female owners and management and such. Yeah.

Yeah, and there's nothing like this whole toxic competition between women. It's more like they're very supportive of one another, if you think about it to have a kid out of wedlock, not knowing who the father is even nowadays is still problematic. Right?

So back in the days, there was probably more social stigma or supposed to be more social stigma. Yet with the support of her friends, nobody was, for lack of a better word, slut shaming her.

No, you don't get that feeling at all throughout the show. You're right. Yeah, there was nothing... There's confusion over who the father is, but there's no judgment on anyone, which is quite nice. Yeah. That's good. Yeah.

And the other thing is, the only one that actually judged her a little bit was her daughter. Her daughter originally was saying that “no, I don't want to be like you. When I have a kid, I want to know who the father is. I don't want to be like you”. But eventually they also reconciliated.

And the mom, Donna, the character is not just, you know, when you see single mother character, the stereotypical single mother is always like toiling away, suffering, being very lonely, being very just like hard done by that sort of imagery.

However, in this single parent household, they enjoy songs and dance and love and sunshine, happiness. I think that is also like a more of a positive take on what a single parent household could be.