Chicago The Musical Analysis

Murder is captivating. A twisted media that creates sympathetic criminals facilitates this captivation and leads readers to celebrate criminals. Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb capture the story of this celebration of criminals within Chicago: The Musical calling it “a story of murder, greed, corruption, violence…[and] all those things we all hold near and dear to our hearts” (Fosse & Ebb 1). Chicago: The Musical follows the story of murderess Roxie Hart through the corrupt judicial system of Chicago. Roxie starts as the wife to the lowly mechanic, Amos Hart, but with the help of ace attorney Billy Flynn, Cook County officer “Mama” Morton, and fellow murderess Velma Kelly, she finishes her own cabaret act at the top of the celebrity ladder. This transcendence
Chicago: The Musical draws from the abundant source of yellow journalism, journalism that uses crude exaggeration and sensationalism, found in the 1920’s and the present. John D. Stevens points to the extensive use of this jazz journalism during the 1920’s, comparing the tabloids to movie houses as both were filled with entertainment of crime and romance, in his article “Social Utility of Sensational News: Murder and Divorce in the late 1920s” (53). Stevens tells of women’s rise in crime and its effects on the portrayal of women and their shifting social status from the Victorian era. Women were seen as weak ,both physically and emotionally, and in turn were thought of as “incapable of murder” (Sulock 7). So when women were suspects for a murder or homicide, journalists would use the women as fodder for their headlines because women always struck the emotional cords of a reader, selling more newspapers in the process. The woman also stemmed from “gender ideologies and journalistic styles,” not only from the desire to sell papers, as indicated by Mark Bernhardt’s research (2). Yellow or Jazz journalism was the foundation of Chicago: The Musical’s satire, though yellow journalism is still a large part of today’s media. and a common journalistic practice (Cohen
The character Roxie Hart shows clear links to the real-life murderess Beulah Annan, a 1920’s murderess who captured the headlines, a vain vein is uncovered in both Roxie and Annan as both vie for attention through their murders. Roxie and Annan share many more features, both physically and in their ambitions, as Watkins, being a journalist, was very fond of Annan and developed a deep relationship with her as Douglass Perry points out in his book “The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago” (101). Roxie also falsifies a pregnancy in order to stay in the spotlight longer, a move that was identical to the ploy used by Annan. Both shared an intense and destructive need to be the center of attention, a need found in Roxie’s constant dream of being a headliner at her own club (Fosse and Ebb 5). Roxie uses Fred Casely, her victim, saying that when she “...met Fred Casely. He said he could get me into a bought film...that didn’t quite work out like I planned. I guess it didn’t work out for Fred either.” which meant she still used Fred in order to reach celebrity status, just not in the way Fred planned (Fosse & Ebb 40). In her original play, Watkins also pointed out the vanity and celebrity that came with media, poking fun when a reporter says to