Ratatouille Research Rabbit Hole!

When Ratatouille: The Musical first came to my attention, it was through Adam Lambert’s Instagram.

I figured if nothing else I’d like the parts he was in. Well, I loved the whole thing (see previous post!).

Since then I’ve done a search for articles about it. I have things bookmarked from Rolling Stone, CNN, and Variety about this! I’ve found articles about it when it existed only on TikTok! I’ve got a long private YouTube playlist with everything from CBS This Morning and Good Morning America to reaction videos about the phenomenon on TikTok and this production.

I had no intention of this happening when I decided to buy a $5 to watch this. It has definitely sucked me down a rabbit hole! At least this one is related to my dissertation. And I can simply gather information now, and write things down here, so I can come back to it when I have the time and brainpower to devote to it. Who’d’ve thought I would find a new research topic literally at the beginning of the year. I might have a presentation on this for a conference next year! Dang.

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical

I have never seen the movie Ratatouille. It looks like a cute movie, but I never felt the need to watch it. But when Adam Lambert shared that he’d be part of a musical version of the movie, I looked into who else would be there. All I needed to see were Wayne Brady and Andre De Shields and I knew I needed to watch. When I saw that it was a fundraiser for The Actors Fund, I was even more excited.

Then I started seeing more and more about it. I found out that it is based on TikToks that fans of the movie had made to create a musical version of the film. Considering I study fandom, that made it even more amazing. I was really starting to get excited for it!

After much buffering and restarting, I finally watched it yesterday. I know the basic premise of the story, so I had the highlights. When it started with the person whose TikTok inspired this whole thing explaining its history and then saying that they wanted to take this opportunity to highlight BIPOC, women, and queer people in the industry, I got even more excited! Then it began and I was really getting into it. The music was amazing! It sounded like a full-on Broadway production. All of the performers had great video and audio, wearing some degree of costuming, and some even had props as needed! By the end I was grinning from ear to ear!