musicalgifs:

musicalgifs:

i think all discourse about dear evan hansen would be fixed if the show’s marketing team was sacked and replaced by people who’d actually seen the show

like it’s a show about a teenage boy with severe anxiety who lies about knowing a kid who committed suicide initially bc he saw the grieving parents and wanted to make them feel better, and the lie ultimately snowballs out of control. that’s the premise of the musical. it’s not a bad premise and shows about morally grey characters (as evan is imo, his anxiety explains his decisions, you can see exactly why he makes them, but that doesn’t excuse them) aren’t inherently a bad thing.

imo the problem is the marketing, the #youwillbefound of it all, makes people think it’s gonna be some kind of uplifting show about recovering from mental illness and reaching out to others etc. when it obviously isn’t. if people knew what the actual plot was from the get go maybe we wouldn’t get ‘unpopular opinions’ every other week about how evan hansen is a bad person, actually or how the show is the pinnacle of mental health representation or how the show actually came to every mentally ill person’s house and beat them with a hammer.