I don't know if mentions work in edits, so I'll double post here rather than editing my other comment (which is probably for the best since I have a lot to say). I mention all of what I'm about to say not to try to persuade you in the slightest. I am totally fine with people not liking Rent, and I don't expect to argue anyone into liking it. What follows will instead be me just me tilting at windmills, particularly Ellis, because I feel like she missed the mark. By a lot.

Buckle up, because I'm one of those exhausting people who takes Rent Very Seriously™. You know, the kind of people she mentions whose zeal put her off from the get go.

I appreciate the real-world context she included in the video, and I love that she has a harsh critical distance. I think that's hugely important, as it's much more difficult to give valid critiques to stuff we are close to (with me probably being too close to Rent to adequately acknowledge its flaws, for example).

That said, I think she flat out missed the forest for the trees on this one. A lot of her criticisms came across as critiquing what Rent isn't rather than what Rent actually is. She spends a lot of the time chastizing the characters for their hypocrisy and, in the later half, says something to the effect of "it's almost like the musical wanted to point this out." And I'm like, YES! You just GOT IT! That's absolutely the point!

Like, to me one of the most compelling aspects of Rent is that its characters are all flawed and they're all treated both sympathetically and critically. This is precisely what gives the play its depth. The story isn't one of heroes and villains. Angel is the closest we come to a hero and she kills a dog for money. Benny is the closest we come to a villain and he finances Mimi's rehab at the height of her addiction. The story isn't about good and bad. It's about flawed people sometimes making flawed decisions, and sometimes making good ones. It's less of a morality tale and more of something that feels real or lived.

Mark

Like, let's take Mark, for example. She hates Mark! And I get it. He's a self-declared Independent Documentary Filmmaker. He resents the implication that he needs to make money and acts like working a day in his life is the greatest of injustices. He's a pretentious, privileged white guy who is filming the suffering of those around him for the sake of his own glory and fulfillment. Yuck!

And I get how someone can see that in the play and stop there, but ultimately I think that's an incredibly uncharitable read of Mark's character. It's reducing him to a sort of caricature that's unsupported by the play itself, as well as applying set of external criteria that allows us to turn off our empathy. Because Mark didn't meet our purity test for a "good human" we can disengage with him rather than accept his story, experiences, and perspectives as valid.

So, let's examine Mark for a moment. He calls himself a documentary filmmaker, and Lindsay rightly points out that what he's calling a "documentary" is really just home movies. This is readily apparent at the end of the film, where he displays his "documentary" and it's just snippets of his friends. First off, this is thematically relevant in two ways. One, "Seasons of Love" is about appreciating small moments, which is exactly what Mark's film is a collection of. And two, one of the big themes of the play is that earnest creation is in itself meaningful. Both Roger and Mark end their stories having finally created something that they have wanted to do for a long time: Roger writes his song, and Mark makes his film. Neither of these are particularly good (seriously, Roger's song about wanting to write his magnum opus is way better than his actual "magnum opus"), but they're fulfilling because they happened.

So, cool, Mark's arc works from a thematic perspective, but let's look at him from a character perspective. He has rejected his identity, primarily that of the privileged upbringing with respect to his parents. He refuses to call them or engage with them as a sort of self-declaration even though they clearly want to be a part of his life, and he's surrounded by artists doing art things and also suffering. Lindsay says that the play as a whole equates art with suffering, but to me that's specific to Mark's character. Because he doesn't have significant suffering of his own, his "art" turns outwards to those around him. Mark doesn't have a strong sense of self and instead looks, possibly enviously, at the community around him that is bonded and defined by tragedy.

Mark, Part 2

It's voyeuristic but also kinda honest? Like, I can totally see how a person like Mark, in a community like that, could feel adrift in their identity. Furthermore, I don't think the play is as kind to Mark as Ellis makes it out to be. Not only does it critique him through the homeless woman who checks him on his filming (which Ellis shows), but also through Roger in "Goodbye Love" (which was cut from the film but is intact in the play):

In their nasty friend breakup fight, Roger chastizes Mark for his voyeruism and for effectively hiding behind his camera:

You pretend to create and observe when you really detach from being alive.

Roger is outright saying Mark's reasons for filming are disingenuous. In response, Mark doesn't deny it but instead fires back:

Perhaps it's because I'm the one of us to survive.

Which, that's kind of a dickish thing to say to someone who you know is dying, right? Mark doesn't look like the good guy here. Roger lets him know exactly that by responding sarcastically:

Poor baby.

Which is fair. Roger's the one who's dying, not Mark, so why should we focus on Mark's feelings over Roger's, right? Mark was definitely the dick here, right?

I think the strength of the play is that it says yes, but also no. It encourages us to also see where he's coming from. Losing the people around you, the ones you care about, hurts. Even though he himself doesn't have AIDS and won't lose his life to it, he's still damaged by it. It's still difficult for him. Mark's pain isn't any less real, it's just a different form.

Mark then goes on to have a moment to himself in "Halloween" (also cut from the film). The song is intentionally awkward:

Why are entire years strewn on the cutting room floor of memory, when single frames of one magic night forever flicker in close-up on the 3D Imax of my mind?

Overblown metaphor much? Absolutely. Even Mark says so! His next lines:

That's poetic?

That's pathetic.

Even he knows he's pretentious! His own self-reflection is him grappling with this, as well as Roger's earlier accusations:

Why am I the witness? And when I capture it on film, will it mean that it's the end and I'm alone?

Mark has turned away from his family, was dumped by his girlfriend who cheated on him, and is living with the reality that his footage will last longer than the lives of the people he's close to. This is a complex, nuanced emotional situation--one that's denied to Mark if we simply write him off as privileged white filmmaker worthy of little more than an eyeroll.

Rent is Lives, Rather than Morals

And to me, the crux of Rent is the kind of depth of meaning I've tried to lay out here. I could go character by character and talk about how each one is portrayed as flawed, yet human, and how ultimately the play's biggest conclusion is that even in spite of their flaws they are no less deserving of love.

Because that's where I think Ellis missed the mark the most. To me Rent isn't trying to be an honest depiction of the AIDS crisis, nor is it trying to be a rage against the machine. It is not focused on methods or political change. The characters largely accept their situations while also acknowledging the shittiness of it (a familiar feeling to modern audiences especially). I get how it looks like it's supposed to be some revolutionary firebrand, especially because of its titular track, but outside of the tracks "Rent" and "La Vie Boheme" most of the songs are about the relationships between the characters rather than their relationships to society or power structures.

To me, Rent is a response to the moralization that surrounded the AIDS crisis in the first place. So many people used AIDS as a way to turn off their empathy. Because it was prevalent in gay people, particularly promiscuous ones, their deaths and suffering were seen by many as lying in beds of their own making. The same goes for drug users. If they simply stopped having sex or using heroin, the argument went, then they wouldn't expose themselves to the disease and eventual death. But, because they were in error, they deserve their fates.

The larger society was trying to apply a sense of fairness to the disease, so that they could position anyone who did not act perfectly as guilty and therefore undeserving of compassion. This is a legalistic view that I think is harmful. All of us have made mistakes. All of us have done things that weren't the "right" thing to do. All of us have acted in hurtful ways--to ourselves or others. Being told we were in the wrong doesn't usually help us--we already know so. We're often living with the fallout and natural punishments embedded into so many decisions like that. Being met with compassion in our lowest moments is powerful. Healing. Being met with a "told you so" is damaging. Belittling.

Rent doesn't say someone deserves AIDS because they used drugs or they slept around. Rent says that the people who did those things still had real, full lives. It says that their lives meant something to the people around them. Mimi isn't just a drug addicted sex worker that society discards -- she's loved and has people that care about her. Rent encourages us to care about her and others in the same way, even in light of their flaws or decisions. It nudges us to find the humanity and common ground in their stories. It also speaks directly to those people who were left behind by the larger society--the ones to whom the doors of compassion were shut. It says that even in your darkest moments, where you are facing death -- especially a death that comes directly from actions you yourself committed -- you can still find meaning, hope, and value. You are not a discarded nobody, a flaw and nothing more. You are somebody and you have the power to give your life meaning. You can hold onto your dignity. You can find people who will support and even love you.

Ellis acknowledges that Rent tries to be hopeful but then, strangely, discards that conclusion. It felt to me like she was throwing away the entire point of the play as if it were an afterthought. The ending of the video, where she juxtaposes the play's joie de vivre with the real-world footage of protests feels like she's indicting the play for not being intellectually honest about the suffering of the AIDS crisis when the play itself is a direct counter to experiences of that type. Plenty of other media has tackled myriad tragedies of the AIDS crisis. Rent dared to say that there is more than just tragedy underneath its shadow.